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

Title

Arts and sciences :

Authors

• Charles Rainsford Collection of Alchemical and Occult Manuscripts (University of Pennsylvania)

Other related names

• Rainsford, Charles, 1728-1809, former owner
• Northumberland, Hugh Percy, Duke of, 1742-1817, former owner (http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/nr93028960)

Call number

Oversize Ms. Codex 1661
(3420 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-6206, University of Pennsylvania, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts)

Alternate identifiers

• bibid: 9962920163503681
• http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/897925277
• https://repository.upenn.edu/uniqueatpenn/23/ https://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017.12/100000282 https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/catalog/81431-p3vh5ch9f

Publisher

University of Pennsylvania

Language

English, with an unbound leaf in French, and a few lines of Latin (p. iii)

Origin

Date

1777

Place

England

Summary

Collection of recipes (numbered 1-253 with many errors) for alchemical and practical applications such as making candles, butter, varnish, many types of ink (including a recipe for "magic ink", p. 201), sealant for waterproofing shoes (p. 15), cement for mending broken china or glass (p. 205), and occasional medicinal uses such as preventing yellow fever (p. 158). Alchemical recipes include instructions for turning white sapphires into diamonds (p. 208), creating artificial diamonds (p. 193) and artificial pearls (p. 206), creating a powder that burns green (p. 160), and how to give new colors (p. 85) or new fragrances (p. 87) to flowers. Other instructions include a method for preserving animals such as dogs and horses at the size they were at birth (p. 183), purifying water (p. 15), sending secret letters written on the inside of an egg (p. 185-186), how to wash fleecy hosiery (p. 191), and predicting whether a sick person will live or die (p. 135). A printed clipping for how to grow radishes has been pasted in (p. 118) and a print of a plan for a smelting furnace has been laid into the manuscript. Also includes an alphabetical index (p. v-xxviii) and 7 leaves laid into the manuscript with additional recipes such as a remedy for scurvy and a recipe for iron gall ink. One leaf written in French for a recipe for magic ink (Gibraltar, 15 May 1795).

Notes

• Ms. codex.
   
• Title from title page (p. i).
   

Extent

118 leaves : 238 x 181 (205 x 130) mm bound to 245 x 195 mm +

Foliation

Paper, 118 leaves; [i-xxviii], 1-154, 156-209; contemporary pagination in ink, modern pagination in pencil, upper outer corners.

Support

Paper

Binding

Contemporary suede, spine badly deteriorated, upper hinge splitting.

Layout

Written in 20 long lines.

Script

Written in a cursive script in the hand of Charles Rainsford (autographed note, p. i) with notes in additional hands.

Provenance

• Owned by the 2nd through 12th Dukes of Northumberland, ms. 573A, Alnwick Castle, Northumberland, 1809-2014.
   
• Formerly owned by Charles Rainsford (British army officer, fellow of the Royal Society, and alchemist); bequeathed by Rainsford to Hugh Percy, Second Duke of Northumberland (note, p. i).
   
• Sold at auction at Sotheby's (London), 15 July 2014, as part of Lot 411.
   

Subjects topical

• Alchemy--Early works to 1800
• Alchemy
• Occultism
• Medicine--Formulae, receipts, prescriptions
• Occultism--Early works to 1800
• Medicine--Formulae, receipts, prescriptions--Early works to 1800

Genres

• Codices
• Diagrams
• Manuscripts, European
• Recipes
• Manuscripts, English
• Prescriptions

Keywords

• 18th century
• English
• England
• Paper
• Alchemy
• Science -- Medicine

Licenses

• Text

  These images and the content of Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts Oversize Ms. Codex 1661: Arts and sciences : 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

  Metadata is ©2017 University of Pennsylvania Books & Manuscripts and 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

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