He had at
one time travelled quite to Padua to search for the manuscripts of
Pietro d'Abano, and to inspect an urn which had been dug up near Este,
supposed to have been buried by Maximus Olybius, and to have contained
the grand elixir.[7]
[Footnote 7: This urn was found in 1533. It contained a lesser one, in
which was a burning lamp betwixt two small vials, the one of gold, the
other of silver, both of them full of a very clear liquor. On the
largest was an inscription, stating that Maximus Olybius shut up in
this small vessel elements which he had prepared with great toil.
There were many disquisitions among the learned on the subject. It was
the most received opinion, that this Maximus Olybius was an inhabitant
of Padua, that he had discovered the great secret, and that these
vessels contained liquor, one to transmute metals to gold, and other
to silver. The peasants who found the urns, imagining this precious
liquor to be common water, spilt every drop, so that the art of
transmuting metals remains as much a secret as ever.]
While at Padua, he had met with an adept versed in Arabian lore, who
talked of the invaluable manuscripts that must remain in the Spanish
libraries, preserved from the spoils of the Moorish academies and
universities; of the probability of meeting with precious unpublished
writings of Geber, and Alfarabius, and Avicenna, the great physicians
of the Arabian schools, who, it was well known, had treated much of
alchymy; but, above all, he spoke of the Arabian tablets of lead,
which had recently been dug up in the neighbourhood of Granada, and
which, it was confidently believed among adepts, contained the lost
secrets of the art.
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