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
Joan of Taranto Joan of Taranto Joan of Taranto (died March 1323) was a Queen consort of Armenia by marriage to Oshin, King of Armenia. She was daughter of Philip I, Prince of Taranto, and his first wife Thamar Angelina Komnene. She was a member of the Capetian House of Anjou. Joan was possibly born in about 1297, and was the eldest daughter of five children, having had two older brothers, Charles and Philip, and two younger sisters, Margaret, who married Walter VI of Brienne and Blanche, who married Ramon Berenguer of Aragon. Joan's parents did not have a good relationship: Philip suspected