Although many details of the life of Michael Sendivogius are obscure, there is no question as to his importance and influence on alchemical thought in the seventeenth century. Until recently, it was believed that the life of this Polish alchemist was closely entwined with that of the Scottish alchemist Alexander Seton, who was reputed to have performed successful transmutations at several European courts early in the seventeenth century. Late in 1603, at the court of Christian II, Elector of Saxony, Seton suffered a fate common to adepts who fell into the hands of avaricious monarchs; he was tortured and imprisoned for refusing to give Christian the secret of his transmuting powder. There upon Sendivogius entered the melodrama, helped the enfeebled Seton escape from Christian's prison, was rewarded with a portion of the remaining powder, and – following Seton's death in 1603 or 1604 – married his widow. Sendivogius then embarked on a career that was every bit as romantic and adventurous as that of Seton, eventually arriving in Prague at the court of Emperor Rudolf II, the “German Hermes.” Alternately enjoying courtly triumph and suffering squalid imprisonment, Sendivogius at last declined into the living embodiment of the alchemist of literary satire, dying in poverty in Warsaw at the age of eighty. Such, at least, is the legend that Sendivogius was thought to have lived until late twentieth-century researchers vindicated his name from the seamier aspects of alchemical charlatanism and emphasized his noble background and education, his contributions to chemistry, and the honors received from royal patrons.