ALBERTO'S MAGNUS, or ALBERT THE GREAT, One of the most celebrated alchemists, was born in Swa bia, at Lawingen on the Danube, about 1193, or 1205. After receiving his education at Pavia, he went to Paris, where he was created doctor of medicine. Having ac cidentally heard the preaching of Father Jourdain, friar, he was inclined to enter into that or der ; and so prominent were the talents of their new convert, that his superior sent him to Cologne to read lectures on philosophy, theology, and medicine. Here he acquitted himself to the astonishment of numerous au ditories ; and so zealous was he in his new office, that he read lectures also at Hildesheim, Fribourg, Ratisbon, and Strasburg. IIe returned to Cologne in 1'240, and numbered among his disciples the celebrated Thomas Aquinas, to whom he resigned his chair, when he went to be a professor at Paris. After remaining three years at Paris where his lectures were so numerously attend ed that he was obliged to deliver them in the open air, he returned to Cologne, and was raised to the dignity of provincial, or of the Dominican order.
Having visited the 'provinces in a pedestrian tour, he went to Rome at the command of Alexander IV. Here lie held the high office of master of the sacred palace ; and also read lectures in divinity. Ile returned to Ger many in 1260, and was rented bishop of Ratishon ; but he resigned this oilier, aft( r holding it three years, and returned to his cell at ( f,loglie. From this retirement, Albert was summoned by the pope, to preach the cru sades in Germany and Bohemia; and he attended the council of Lyons, in the character of the emperor's am bassador. The remainder of his life seems to have
been spent in instructing the religious of his order in Cologne, where he died on the 15th November, 1288, at the age of 75, or 87. His works, which are filled with scholastic subtilities, and the philosophy of the Peripa tetics, were published at Lyons, in 1615, in 21 volumes folio, by Father Jammi. The treatise De .S'rcretis Jiht. iler20/2, generally ascribed to him, etas written by one of his disciples, Henricus de Saxonia. He wrote a work entitled, De Spktera, de .istris, de item Speculum dstronomicual.
Albertus Magnus was a man of short stature, but of a great and comprehensive mind. The superiority of his genius obtained hint the appellation of a magician and a conjurer, names which, though dishonourable in the estimation of those who employed them, posterity hate found to have been applied only to men of trans cendent talents. He was regarded by the alchemists as one of the roost illustrious of their sect ; and was celebrated among them for having discovered that there were several philosopher's stones. He is said to have contrived an androides, or speaking figure, which both pronounced words distinctly, and opened the door to those who knocked : but the stories, It hich have been related concerning this machine, and respecting several adventures of our author, are so truly ridiculous, that We cannot be the means of perpetuating their remem brance. See Bullart. .1cadenzie des Sciences, tom. ii. p. 145. (o)