Alquimistas

How complex and complete is a historical and at the same time fictitious character who combines characteristics of Leonardo da Vinci, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Nicolaus Copernicus, Paracelsus, Étienne Dolet, Miguel Servet, Andreas Vesalius, Ambroise Paré, Andrea Cesalpino, Girolamo Cardano, Galileo Galilei, Campanella, Giordano Bruno and others. And what a breadth of creative intellect and quality of research Marguerite Yourcenar brought to the discovery of that figure, Zeno, the hero of 'Opus Nigrum', her most famous novel. Magic, literature and alchemy intertwine in this unique and enigmatic work. Beyond even the control over her own imaginings and investigations, Yourcenar revealed a character in whom there is more than she would have been aware of at first. Roger Bacon, the enigmatic and fascinating philosopher of the Middle Ages, may be one of those hidden but decisive natures in the pilgrim Zeno, the image of the philosopher, the physician, the alchemist, also of the herbalist and, occasionally, of the astrologer, an image, in a word - so esteemed among alchemists - of the seeker. If the writer thought of Zeno as a great man, the result, however, was an infinite man.