Paul of Taranto to recreate the same metal that he started with, he obviously did not break the metal down into the pure elements, but instead into some intermediate phases. Paul of Taranto Paul of Taranto was a 13th-century Franciscan alchemist and author from southern Italy. (Taranto is a city in Apulia.) Perhaps the best known of his works is his "Theorica et practica", which defends alchemical principles by describing the theoretical and practical reasoning behind it. There is also evidence to suggest, however, that Paul is also the author of the much more widely known alchemical text "Summa perfectionis magisterii", generally attributed
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard in a Country Churchyard". Immediately, he included the poem in a letter he sent to Walpole, that said: The letter reveals that Gray felt that the poem was unimportant, and that he did not expect it to become as popular or influential as it did. Gray dismisses its positives as merely being that he was able to complete the poem, which was probably influenced by his experience of the churchyard at Stoke Poges, where he attended the Sunday service and was able to visit the grave of Antrobus. The version that was later published and reprinted was a 32-stanza version