The great scholar of the middle Ages Saint albert the Great was a versatile scientist, a mystic and an alchemist. Maitre albert opened the way to obtain caustic soda, made the first truly perfect chemical analysis of cinnabar, and white lead and minium. This teacher Thomas Aquinas so ahead of their time that only after his death he attributed the creation of a humanoid robot, development of which involved a modern engineers and scientists.

Once is not called St. albert the Great (Albertus Magnus) - the great European scholar of the middle Ages! One can agree with the nickname albert Cologne (Albertus Coloniensis) for what he taught in Cologne, although he was born in the Swabian Lauingen on the Danube, and Bavaria lies far from Cologne. But often this outstanding mystic and scholar mistakenly called count albert von Ballstadion (Albert Graf von Bollst?dt).

His father, Marquard Lawerence (Markward von Lauingen), probably, was a native of lower service class of the nobility at the Hohenstaufens. He was the Ministerial, performs his duties in the Lauingen or in its vicinity. The famous German sociologist Max Weber in his book "Economy and society" outlined ministeriales as forced domestic servants - as opposed to free employees, the purpose of which was based on the contract and carried out by free selection.

Albert was born somewhere between 1193 and 1206 years. Probably his childhood albert held in Lauingen. In General, relatively precise information about his life include not earlier than 1222, when he lived with his uncle in Venice and Padua. At the same time, albert began to study "liberal arts" and possibly medicine at the University of Padua. The following year he joined the Dominican order. Theology he studied in Cologne, Germany, where he was ordained priest. Then he taught in Cologne, but not at the University, which appeared later, in 1388, and in the Cathedral school, which existed in cathedrals of Reims, Magdeburg, Germany and other Western European cities. The honorary title of a scientist who is versed in all Sciences, Doctor universalis, albert the Great earned during his life.

From 1245 albert taught at the University of Paris Sorbonne, had recently become acquainted with Thomas Aquinas, who soon became one of his favorite pupils. In addition to the aforementioned successes in chemistry, which reached albert the Great, he has made a valuable contribution to the study of the natural world. In his collection De animalibus presents 477 species of animals, namely 113 four-legged, 114 flying, 140 floating and 61 crawling, and 49 kinds of worms.

Died albert the Great November 15, 1280 year in Cologne. His remains are buried in the crypt at the local Dominican Church of St. Andrew.

"After the death of albert the Great, his reputation as a master of various kinds of magic have been further strengthened, reaching truly unimaginable scale, " writes the French historian Serge Utan (Serge Hutin). - Born, for example, the legend (completely false, I should say) about how he had designed a machine in the form of a perfect man, each part of the body of which was subject to the influence of a certain star. This story ends with the story of bold intervention young disciple "Maitre albert" - the future of St. Thomas Aquinas, who feared that Android, in his opinion, the devil's creation, allegedly broke it (the teacher used a human-like machine instead of domestic workers".

To our days provincial French sorcerers from generation to generation appeal to magic book, "the wondrous secrets of albert the Great". This work consists of two unequal parts, which "Large albert" and "Small albert". According to Hubert, among all this "nonsense"relating to a much later time, sometimes even to the XVII and XVIII centuries, there is a small original nucleus taken from the writings of albert the Great, about the qualities of plants, precious stones and metals. Or texts copied from the original treatises "Maitre albert" alchemy.

According to a legend, once with the help of magical talisman albert the Great gathered all the snakes in his diocese - Bishop of Regensburg - and used them for gold. Because of this, he managed to pay off enormous debts accumulated by his predecessors at the Episcopal the Department for many years. Similar legend confirms role in alchemical symbolism played snake, is a fabulous stories.

on December 16, 1941, Pope Pius XII declared previously canonized by the Catholic Church albert the Great patron of natural scientists.