It was once widely believed that in 1617, Veranzio, then aged 65 and seriously ill, implemented his design and tested the parachute by jumping from St Mark's Campanile, from a bridge nearby, or from St Martin's Cathedral in Bratislava. In various publications it was incorrectly claimed the event was documented some thirty years later by John Wilkins, founder and secretary of the Royal Society in London, in his book "Mathematical Magick or, the Wonders that may be Performed by Mechanical Geometry", published in London in 1648. However, Wilkins wrote about flying, not parachutes, and does not mention Veranzio, a parachute jump, or any event in 1617. Doubts about this test, which include a lack of written evidence, suggest it never occurred, and was instead a misreading of historical notes.