Basil Valentine

Michelle Williamson

Basil

This German adept in alchemical philosophy is supposed to have been born at Mayence in the year 1394.Because of his achievements in the chemical sphere he has been given the title of The Father of Modern Chemistry.The date of his death is not known.No-one is sure of his real identity.

No-one is really sure of his true identity.As a boy he became a Roman Catholic priest and entered the Abbey of St. Peter, at Erfurt.He hid all the manuscripts of his writings inside one of the pillars of the Abbey Church where they were soon discovered during a thunderstorm, when a flash of lightning dislodged them from their curious hiding place.

His reluctance for his work to be known may have been prompted by fear of the Inquisition discovering his researches in alchemy. Valentine's works in alchemy certainly mark him as a very shrewd man and a capable scientist. Unlike much other medieval literature, his treatises were not all in Latin, some of them being in high Dutch and others in German.

One of them in his own language was The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony, first published at Leipzig in 1624.In this Valentine described antimony as an excellent medicine. The volume also embodies a lengthy metrical treatise on the philosophers' stone, the writer contending that whoever should discover and use this must do charitable deeds, mortify the flesh, and pray without ceasing.

Because of his achievements in the chemical sphere he has been given the title of The Father of Modern Chemistry.His most famous work is his Currus Triumphalis Antimonii – The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony.