The Cosmopolite's Title Page
Source
A New Light of Alchymy — Michael Sendivogius (1608, English edition 1674)
The footnote
He is like one who had a flint from which he strikes fire and gives to whosoever he likes, without the stone getting any smaller through it. — Splendor Solis, concluding parable
The trail
The Splendor Solis editor mentioned Sendivogius as the inheritor of Alexander Seton's transmutation powder — Seton was tortured to death by the Elector of Saxony for refusing to reveal the secret. The powder survived the murder. It always does.
The passage
If you ask who I am: I am a Cosmopolitan. If you know me, and wish to be good and honourable men, keep my name a secret.
The 1674 English title page of the Cosmopolite’s treatise. His real name hidden in an anagram visible on the page: “Divi Leschi genus amo” — I love the Divine Race of Leschi — rearranges to Michael Sendivogius.
He inherited the secret from a dead man. Seton had the powder and would demonstrate transmutation publicly but refused under torture to explain how. The Elector of Saxony had him broken. Sendivogius married Seton’s widow and received the powder. He used it until it ran out, then spent the rest of his life trying to recreate what he had been given and failing.
The man who had the secret could not make more of it. The man who made it could not keep it. The title page is the only place his name appears, and it appears as a puzzle.