ofessor of alchymy. If he had stuck to alchymy
while in their country, it would have been well for him; but he began
cursing Mahomet, and got himself into trouble. While preaching the
doctrines of Christianity in the great bazaar of Tunis, he was arrested
and thrown into prison. He was shortly afterwards brought to trial, and
sentenced to death. Some of his philosophic friends interceded hard for
him, and he was pardoned upon condition that he left Africa immediately
and never again set foot in it. If he was found there again, no matter
what his object might be, or whatever length of time might intervene, his
original sentence would be carried into execution. Raymond was not at all
solicitous of martyrdom when it came to the point, whatever he might have
been when there was no danger, and he gladly accepted his life upon these
conditions, and left Tunis with the intention of proceeding to Rome. He
afterwards changed his plan, and established himself at Milan, where, for
a length of time, he practised alchymy, and some say astrology, with great
success.
Most writers who believed in the secrets of alchymy, and who have noticed
the life of Raymond Lulli, assert, that while in Milan, he received
letters from Edward King of England, inviting him to settle in his states.
They add that Lulli gladly accepted the invitation, and had apartments
assigned for his use in the Tower of London, where he refined much gold;
superintended the coinage of "rose-nobles," and made gold out of iron,
quicksilver, lead, and pewter, to the amount of six millions. The writers
in the _Biographie Universelle_, an excellent authority in general, deny
that Raymond was ever in England, and say, that in all these stories of
his wondrous powers as an alchymist, he has been mistaken for another
Raymond, a Jew of Tarragona. Naude, in his _Apologie_, says, simply, "that
six millions were given by Raymond Lulli to King Edward, to make war
against the Turks and other infidels:" not that he transmuted so much
metal into gold; but, as he afterwards adds, that he advised Edward to lay
a tax upon wool, which produced that amount. To shew that Raymond went to
England, his admirers quote a work attributed to him, _De Transmutatione
Animae Metallorum_, in which he expressly says that he was in England at
the intercession of the king.[34] The hermetic writers are not agreed
whether it was Edward I. or Edward II. who invited him over; but, by
fixing the date of his jo
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