This alchemist of Brescia flourished in the sixteenth century. He was the author of a commentary on Geber, which is not supposed to cast much light on the obscurities of the Arabian philosopher. The most curious of his original treatises is _Legno della Vita, vel quale si dichiara la medecina per la quale i nostri primi padri vivevano nove cento anni_, Rome, 1542, 8vo.--“The Wood of Life, wherein is revealed the medicine by means of which our Primeval Ancestors lived for Nine Hundred Years.” This work, together with _La Esposizione di Geber Filosophe_, Venice, 1544, 8vo, was translated into Latin, and may be found in the collections of Gratarole and Mangetus. They were also published separately under the title _De Alchimia dialogi duo_, Lugd., 1548, 4to. The Wood of Life is one of the innumerable names given by the alchemists to the matured and perfected stone, the composition whereof is the accomplishment of the _magnum opus_. It is more generally denominated the Universal Balsam or Panacea, which cures all diseases and insures to its most blessed possessor an unalterable youth. The name Wood of Life is bestowed by the Jews on the two sticks which confine the scroll of the Law. They are convinced that a simple contact with these sacred rods strengthens the eyesight and restores health. They also hold that there is no better means of facilitating the _accouchement_ of females than to cause them to behold these vitalising sticks, which, however, they are in no wise permitted to touch.[W] The work of Braccesco is written in the form of a dialogue, and is explanatory of the Hermetic principles of Raymond Lully, one of the interlocutors, who instructs an enthusiastic disciple in the arcane principles of the divine art, the disciple in question being in search of a safeguard against the numerous infirmities and weaknesses of the “humid radical.” Such a medicine is declared by the master to be extracted from a single substance, which is the sophic _aqua metallorum_. The dialogue is of interest, as it shows the connection in the mind of the writer between the development of metallic perfection and the physical regeneration of humanity. FOOTNOTES: [W] _Dictionnaire des Sciences Occultes_, i. p. 232. LEONARDI FIORAVANTI. Doctor, surgeon, and alchemist of the sixteenth century, this Italian was a voluminous author, who is best known by his “Summary of the Arcana of Medicine, Surgery, and Alchemy,” published in octavo at Venice in 1571, and which has been reprinted several times. It contains an application of Hermetic methods and principles to the science of medicine, but the author’s account of the _petra philosophorum_ shows the designation to be of a purely arbitrary kind, for it is a mixture of mercury, nitre, and other substances, intended to act on the stomach, and has no connection with the transmuting _lapis_ of the alchemical sages. JOHN DEE.