Laskaris (alchemist)

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Laskaris was an alchemist of the 17th and 18th centuries who worked in Germany and of whom news has been received from around 1700 to 1709.

According to Schmieder, Laskaris initially presented himself as the archimandrite of a monastery from Mytilene (and also spoke Greek) who collected money for the liberation of Christians from Turkish slavery. He is said to have been in his prime around 1700 , educated, popular, and a good entertainer. He became known as the legendary wandering adept who pretended to have a tincture that turned lead and other metals into gold. In doing so, he apparently passed on his tincture very generously in some cases.

In 1701 he met the apprentice Johann Friedrich Böttger , who was interested in alchemy, in Berlin's pharmacy in Zorn , to whom he gave his tincture on departure, which he used to perform gold-making tricks. Laskaris is said to have tried to liberate Böttger later in Dresden out of a guilty conscience about the path he had taken Böttger.

Johann Konrad Dippel reports an encounter with him in Darmstadt . He is also said to have demonstrated the transformation of mercury to gold and from gold to silver to a councilor from Liebknecht in Eger in 1704. Although he did not give a name, he spoke Greek, Latin, Italian and French and had traveled widely.

In Germany he joins a number of similar traveling purported gold makers and adepts such as Alexander Seton , Irenäus Philalethes , Domenico Manuel Caetano , Heinrich Wagnereck and Sehfeld . The alchemy-believing historian of alchemy Karl Christoph Schmieder counts him among the adepts , which means that for him he is historical evidence of the alchemical transformation of gold.

The stories reported by Schmieder have no historical evidence. However, there were later references to Laskaris (Teply). He was a Greek merchant's son born around 1649, possibly from Patmos , who lived in Istanbul for several years . Between 1675 and 1680 he went to England and Italy, spent six years there, then went to Holland, Northern Germany and Sweden, was in Konigsberg in 1689 , in Berlin in 1690 and then went to Vienna via Leipzig and Prague in 1691 . He was temporarily detained in Vienna for suspicious financial transactions. After that his track is lost.

Gustav Meyrink (Goldmachergeschichten 1920) wrote about him.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Schmieder, Geschichte der Alchemie, p. 480
personal data
SURNAME Laskaris
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Alchemist
DATE OF BIRTH 17th century
DATE OF DEATH 18th century