Collection ID: 0002 | Metadata type: TEI | TEI XML | Data

Title

Livre de raison

Call number

Ms. Codex 125
(Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, Rare Book & Manuscript Library)

Alternate identifiers

• bibid: 1580541
• http://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017/d/medren/1580541

Publisher

The University of Pennsylvania Libraries

Language

In a French dialect, with some Latin and Italian

Origin

Date

16--

Place

France

Summary

Collection of accounts and recipes (pharmaceutical and alchemical). Contains two different texts, on f. 1r-42r and f. 69r-91v. The second text begins at the opposite end of the volume. Folios 42v-68v are blank. Includes recipes for alchemical operations, such as calcination, sublimation, solution, putrefaction, distillation, fixation, transmutation, etc., and descriptions of ovens and vessels to be used in the manipulations. Also includes medical prescriptions for all kinds of conditions, such as stone and gravel, plague, smallpox, toothache, apoplexy, hemorrhoids, stomachache of old people, etc. Also includes personal notes, expense accounts, verses, etc. The second text includes the poems: "Si tibi suspecta est uxor dubiique pudoris / non habeas pulcros famulos pulcrosque sodales" (f. 78v); "Dies in mensibus infelices ex Roberto Flud[d]: Janu vini albi polatio convenit ..." (f. 76v); "Pour le roy [Louis XIV] en l'annee 1687 lors de son entrée à Paris: La vie de Louis le grand / Estonne toute la nature ..." (f. 71v); and Pour Mr. le duc duVerneil le jour de son entree a Carcassone: Dites moy dame ..." (f. 70r).

Notes

• Ms. codex.
   
• Title from title page (f. 1r).
   
• First work, incipit and explicit: (f. 2r) Jay fouvry poure ... (f. 42r) et se convertera en huile.
   
• Second work, incipit and explicit (begins at opposite end of volume): (f. 91v) Pour le jeresaur registre ... (f. 69r) qui ne fait trop peu poudussaut.
   
• A detailed typewritten description of the manuscript, on the stationery of Henry Schuman in New York, is on file in the Library. This description is not dated.
   
• Forms part of: Edgar F. Smith Memorial Collection.
   

Extent

93 leaves : 199 x 149 mm. bound to 196 x 147 mm

Collation

Paper, 93; 1¹⁴ 2-3¹⁶ 4¹⁴ 5¹⁸ 6¹⁴; [1-93]; modern foliation in pencil, upper right recto. There is also modern pagination in pencil for the second text, which is oriented according to the second text in the upper right recto, [i]-ii, [iii-ix], x, [xi-ix], xx, [xi-xxiii], xxiv.

Support

Paper

Binding

Contemporary (17th-century) limp parchment (Zacour-Hirsch). Many leaves stained. Evidence of worm damage. Parchment splitting and pulling away from the cardboard around which it is wrapped. Pastedown endleaves pulling loose.

Decoration

Ink sketch (f. 41v).

Script

Written in a cursive script by several hands. Title page added in later hand (f. 1r).

Provenance

• Acquired, 1960.
   

Subjects topical

• Alchemy--Early works to 1800
• Chemistry--History
• Medicine--Formulae, receipts, prescriptions--Early works to 1800
• Pharmacology--Early works to 1800

Genres

• Codices
• Accounts
• Poems
• Prescriptions
• Recipes
• Manuscripts, French--17th century
• Manuscripts, European

Licenses

• Text

  This description is ©2016 University of Pennsylvania Libraries. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License version 4.0 (CC-BY-4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. For a description of the terms of use see the Creative Commons Deed https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

  URL

  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode

• Text

  All referenced images and their content are free of known copyright restrictions and in the public domain. See the Creative Commons Public Domain Mark page for usage details, http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/.

  URL

  http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

Decorations

• fol. 41v — Diagram, f. 41v