Alchemy: 15th cent.

Collection of alchemical, and other receipts for making artificial metals and gems, dyes and tinctures, etc. With directions for making alchemical medicine, quintessences, distillations etc.; Written in a neat rounded gothic hand: 20 lines to a page. Initials in alternate red and blue, with decorations in blue, red and purple: paragraph marks in blue, headings in red. On the first leaf an illuminated letter P in gold and colours, enclosing a miniature of the Virgin Mary and the Divine Child who lies in a red cradle upon the grass: in the background a walled city. The text is surrounded by an ornamental border with floral motif: in the lower margin two Cupids and the sacred monogram IHS in gold on a blue ground. There are 12 carefully executed pen-drawings of alchemical apparatus. Fol. 1 (red) A fare oro de mitarde Cioe mitarde oro et/mitarde argento el qualle sia poi a caria/tate xxiii e piu al tocho sempre et se/ne potera farne ogni opera che se uora./PRimo tuo onzia. I./de crocum ferri... 69 [Altro modo de inbianchare perle] ... ma el tene che la termen/tina si uene in aqua. 70 (red) Pratica a cauare la quinta essentia/de laqua uita per disolutione del oro/et fare loper tua./TUo uino uermelio optimo et/del meliore... 100v, line 4 ... secondo la/medicina che tu hauerai facto/ad album o uero ad Rubeum. line 7 (red) Recepta de domino Magistro petro/magistro in tehologia [sic] e proposito etc./Primo fa depurare et sublimare/lo argento uiuo como diro qui/de sotto./TUo libras sex de argento uiuo/et fatto bollire... 106 [Modo de fare la proiectione ad Rubeum] et cossi ne poterai poi farne mul/tiplicatione.

Late 15th century

1 volume 106 ll. 16mo. 9 x 7 cm. On vellum. Original stamped leather binding over wooden boards, worn: clasp wanting. Some leaves partly rubbed. Binding is very tight and volume can only be opened to approximately 45 degrees to avoid damage.

Purchased 1907.

Magister in Theologia Petrus' has not been traced: but he may possibly be Petrus Hispanus [John XXI, Pope] [ -1277]. The 'Incipit' is not in Thorndike's Catalogue.

Database description transcribed from S.A.J. Moorat, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts on Medicine and Science in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library (London: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1962-1973).

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