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

Title

Pretiosa margarita novella

Authors

• Bonus, Petrus, active 1323-1330 (http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n79131065)

Other related names

• Johan Laborya de Mossach (or Mossacs[?] or Mossacis[?]), former owner
• Ritman, Joost R., former owner (http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no2013058385.html)

Funders

• Council on Library and Information Resources

Call number

Othmer MS 3
(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

Origin

Place

Catalonia, Spain

Summary

This manuscript contains a copy of a fourteenth-century alchemical treatise discussing the arguments for and against alchemy.

Notes

• Fol. 73, large hole in the top inner portion of the leaf (loss of text), fol. 24, small hole top margin, fol. 1, initial damaged, water stains upper margins and top lines of text; Quire 8 leaves 9 through 12 are cancelled with no loss of text
   

Watermark

Unidentified Oxhead, and Oxhead with eyes, nostrils, further features, above a crescent moon, similar to Briquet 14390, Montpellier 1458, Montpellier 1449-1466, and Clermont Ferrand 1460, and WIES, IBE 4435.02, Tortosa 1477

Extent

I+92+i; 286 x 212 mm bound to 292 x 215 mm

Foliation

Early foliation in faded ink, top outer corner recto; modern foliation in pencil, top outer corner recto

Collation

1-7 (12), 8 (12, -9 -10 -11 -12)

Support

Paper

Catchwords

Horizontal catchwords inner lower margin (fols. 12v, 24v, 38v, 48v, 60v, 72v, 84v)

Binding

Bound in Spain in sixteenth-century dark leather (sheepskin?) over pasteboard, tooled in blind with two sets of triple rules forming a broad border, rounded spine with five raised bands and simple rules in blind

Layout

Two columns of thirty-eight to forty lines, ruling in lead point with full length vertical bounding lines and with the top and bottom horizontal rules full across on a few folios; written area: 209 x 140 mm

Decoration

Red rubrics, alternately red and blue paragraph marks and red or blue two-line initials, large three-line initial (fol. 1r) darkened silver on a notched ground that follows the shape of the initial (color damaged, yellow?) with a short spray of leaves and small flowers with black ink sprays extending from the initial into the inner margin; added notes in at least two hands with manicules and nota (e.g., fol. 68)

Script

Gothic--textualis with some cursive features

Provenance

• Owned in 1532 by Johan Laborya de Mossach (or Mossacs[?] or Mossacis[?]) who states that he lodged with Anthony Laurens "de la dita vila de P<?>essis (inscription in Catalan, verso last leaf); Signatures, "Despagne," top margin fol. 1r, and at the end of the text, fol. 92r, in black ink, the suggestion that this may be identified with Jean d'Espagnet (1564-c. 1637), French lawyer and politician, and author of works on alchemy including the Arcanum Hermeticae philosophiae (1623), needs further research; The manuscript was in France in the seventeenth century; inside front cover, note in ink, dated 1668: "Le 7 Septembre 1668 antoine velloun a eté la queste avec le <r?> anselme et on luy donné 4 livres pour trente jours ouvriers sans compter le festes. Le couvent se lui doit rien jusques du jour present 27 Septembre." Lengthy handwritten description in German laid-in, early twentieth-century (?) (signed with the initials, A<R?>"; Belonged to Joost R. Ritman (b. 1941), the Dutch businessman and collector of art and books, who acquired it around 1982; Bibliothecha Philosophia Hermetica MS 18 ("Philosophia Hermetica"; bookplate inside front cover); briefly described in Medieval Manuscripts in Dutch Collections (Online Resources), in Gumbert, 1987, no. 21, as BPH MS 18, and in Gentile, 1999, no. 34, pp. 216-219
   

Keywords

• Treatise
• 15th century
• Spain
• Science
• Manicules
• Annotated

Licenses

• Text

  These images and the content of Donald F. and Mildred Topp Othmer Library of Chemical History, Othmer MS 3: Pretiosa margarita novella 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 3: Pretiosa margarita novella. 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 — Pretiosa margarita novella; incipit: In quid bonus bonus [sic] lombardus de ferraria phisicus entia realia sunt in triplici gradu