Collection ID: 0025 | Metadata type: TEI | TEI XML | Data

Title

Alchemical miscellany

Authors

• Johannes, de Rupescissa, approximately 1300-approximately 1365 (http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n90674617)
• Rudianus (?)
• Hospitalinus Ierosimilitanus
• Dastin, John (?)
• Johannes, de Teschen

Other related names

• Melvino, Francesco, former owner
• Franciscus Pere[tt]oli (or Peressoli?), former owner
• Barrett, Roger Watson, former owner
• Witten, Laurence C., former owner (http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n78044228.html)
• Ritman, Joost R., former owner (http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no2013058385.html)

Funders

• Council on Library and Information Resources

Call number

Othmer MS 2
(Philadelphia, Science History Institute, Donald F. and Mildred Topp Othmer Library of Chemical History)

Publisher

Donald F. and Mildred Topp Othmer Library of Chemical History

Language

Latin; Italian

Origin

Place

Northern Italy

Summary

This manuscript contains a miscellany of practical and theoretical alchemical texts with a full-page drawing of alchemical instruments.

Notes

• Some leaves palimpsest with discernible traces of an earlier cursive gothic script in Latin, probably from fourteenth-century Italy, see fols. 49v-52v, 60r, 66r, 67r, 73v-74r; outer margin fol. 38 trimmed away, front flyleaf stained, fol. 9, stained partially obscuring text, fol. 42 to end soiled, with fols. 48-69 particularly dirty occasionally obscuring part of the text, fols. 79v-80r, stained with part of the text difficult to read, fol. 89 holes in lower margin from binding fittings
   
• Quire 4 leaf 6 canceled with no loss of text; Quire 8 leaves 11 and 12 canceled without loss of texts
   

Extent

I+89; 145 x 81 mm bound to 152 x 85 mm

Foliation

Modern foliation top outer corner in pencil, and incomplete early-modern foliation in ink

Collation

1 (10), 2 (14), 3 (12), 4 (6, -6), 5 (12), 6 (14), 7 (12), 8 (12, -11 -12)

Support

Parchment

Catchwords

Vertical catchword in quire five

Binding

Bound in its original fifteenth-century leather (now very dark, possibly originally red), over thick wooden boards, cut flush with the book block, three raised bands, five brass bosses front and back covers, corner-studs on fore-edge, four metal roundels stamped with a star, front cover, along the spine, one remains back cover, fastens front to back with a clasp and catch brass and leather fastener

Layout

Nineteen-twenty long lines; ruled in ink with single full-length vertical bounding lines ruled in lead; written area: 105 x 55 mm

Decoration

Full page drawing in pen with colored wash of sublimation vessels and a furnace (fol. 41r); red rubrics and red paragraph marks throughout; three- to one-line red or blue initials throughout

Script

Humanistic

Probably two scribes

Provenance

• Belonged to Fr. Francesco Melvino of the Convent of San Primo in Pavia in 1519; inside front cover, "1519. Fratris Francisci Meluini Conuentus Sancti Primi," added: "Papiae"; there is evidence of a church of San Primo in Pavia since the eleventh century; In 1354 it became a house of Servite canons (ordine dei Servi de Maria); the parish was suppressed in 1810 and reestablished as part of the diocesan clergy in 1828; Owned by Franciscus Pere[tt]oli (or Peressoli?), inscribed inside front cover; Belonged to Roger Watson Barrett of Kenilworth, Illinois, his manuscript no. 35 (described by Wilson, 1939, no. 3, pp. 30-39; and De Ricci, 1935-40, p. 678, no. 35); his sale, Park-Bernet, New York, 29 January 1952, lot 387; Subsequent modern sales at Swann's, New York, 5 April 1979, lot 586; Laurence Witten, Cat. 12 (1980), no. 1; Interlib., 1984, plate 9. Dealers' and owners' notes, inside front cover, in ink, "12 ll"; in pencil, "LB 10.009," in pencil, "4258/ N. 158"; note in German in pencil dated 1951"; front flyleaf, recto, note in pencil, "Jacob de Rupezissa. Book on Alchemy"; Belonged to Joost R. Ritman (b. 1941), the Dutch businessman and collector of art and books; acquired from Interlib in 1984; Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica MS 14 (bookplate, inside front cover); briefly described in Medieval Manuscripts in Dutch Collections (Online Resources), and in Gumbert, 1987, no. 116
   

Keywords

• Treatise
• 15th century
• Italy
• Science
• Drawing
• Miscellany

Licenses

• Text

  These images and the content of Donald F. and Mildred Topp Othmer Library of Chemical History, Othmer MS 2: Alchemical miscellany 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/

• Text

  To the extent possible under law, Othmer Library, Chemical Heritage Foundation has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this metadata about Donald F. and Mildred Topp Othmer Library of Chemical History Othmer MS 2: Alchemical miscellany. This work is published from: United States. For a summary of CC0, see https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/. Legal code: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode.

  URL

  https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode

Table of contents

• fol. 1r — Johannes de Rupescissa, De confectione veri lapidis; incipit: Credas mihi pauper vir evangelice quod ante me nullus hominum in aperto hanc veritatem scripsit. Scito et animadverte qui philosophi magni . . .; explicit: Explicit liber quinte essentię lapidis magistri Iohanis de Rupecissa viri magni et prophetici de ordine minorum
• fol. 3r — Series of recipes and procedures for subliming mercury, making alcohol, and so forth ascribed to Johannes Thecinensis, Christophorus Venetis, Thomas Aquinas; incipit: In Nomine domini Amen. Hic soluitur dictum Aristotilis Quarto methaeorum Vbi dicit sciant artifices alkimię quod species metallorum permutari non possunt . . .; explicit: Et sic explicit cum dei adiutorio
• fol. 11r — Practica artis alkimie (Rudianus); incipit: Nunc in dei benedictione practicam reserabo et modum agenda philosophicum quomodo perficiatur ipsum elixir siue tinctura alba et rubea ex solo mercurio philosophorum; explicit: Explicit cum dei adiutorio cui sit laus et gloria
• fol. 42r — Opus magistri hospitalis by Hospitalinus Ierosimilitanus corrected by Rainalds [Arnaldus] de Villa Nova; incipit: Accipe in nomine domini libram i alcaldir (?); explicit: Et explicit Gratiadei Minor
• fol. 66v — John Dastin (?), Rosarius philosophorum; incipit: Desiderabile desiderium et pretium quod a cunctis philosophia nec male ponitur
• fol. 69v — Unidentified alchemical tract in Italian; incipit: Recipe quella parte
• fol. 79r — Johannes Tecenensis, Alchemical antiphon; incipit: Recipe <o> calcinatum seu fixum

Decorations

• fol. 41r — Full page drawing of two alchemical tools: "Sublimatoria vasa" and "furnus sublimatorum"