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

Title

Codicillus

Authors

• Pseudo-Lull

Other related names

• Bonaparte, Carlo Maria, 1746-1785, former owner (http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no2003009983.html)
• Ritman, Joost R., former owner (http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no2013058385.html)
• Witten, Laurence C., former owner (http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n78044228.html)

Funders

• Council on Library and Information Resources

Call number

Othmer MS 6
(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

Northern Italy? Germany?
Italy

Summary

This manuscript contains a copy of one of the central early texts of the Pseudo-Lullian alchemical corpus, assembled before the sixteenth century from two independent manuscripts.

Notes

• Part one: fol. 1, upper margin lost; staining throughout, particularly in Part two; Part one dated 1472; Part two: circa 1450-1500, most likely circa 1470-1500
   
• Quire 10 structure uncertain, likely -12, cancelled with no loss of text
   

Watermark

Part one: unidentified bull's head with eyes above a rod ending in a one-line star; Part two: unidentified circle, cross within, and unidentified two-line snake on a column

Extent

Iii+105+i; 158 x 104 mm 164 x 104 mm bound to 168 x 114 mm

Foliation

Contemporary foliation in red Arabic numerals middle top margin recto in the first text beginning on fol. 2 (upper margin fol. 1 lacking, presumably foliated), modern foliation in pencil, fols. 1-16, bottom outer corner recto, and then continuing in top outer corner, another set of modern foliation, bottom outer corner recto foliates the second text separately

Collation

1 (16), 2-8 (10), 9 (8), 10 (12, -12)

Support

Paper

Catchwords

Part two: horizontal catchwords in lower margin (e.g., fol. 17v)

Binding

Modern brown leather, front and back covers bordered by single gilt fillet, smooth spine letters "Lullius," marbled endpapers

Layout

Fols. 1r-16v, no ruling apparent apart from full-length vertical bounding lines in blind; written area: 122 x 72 mm, thirty-two to thirty long lines

Fols. 17r-105v, frame-ruled with full-length vertical bounding lines only in lead; written area: 126-130 x 72 mm, twenty-four to twenty long lines

Decoration

Part one: nine drawings of alchemical instruments, charts and figures in red and brown; red rubrics throughout, majuscules stroked in red; Part two, very faded rubrics, two- to one-line pale red initials, manicules present in part 2 (e.g., fols. 18v, 19r)

Script

Gothic--textualis

Humanistic Cursive

Provenance

• Front flyleaf, fol. ii verso, "Bonaparte Carolos. A. Dom 1763, Advocacii civit"; Carlo Maria Buonaparte (27/29 March 1746– 24 February 1785), the father of the Emperor Napoleon, was a Corsican lawyer and politician who briefly served as a personal assistant of the revolutionary leader Pasquale Paoli, and later became Corsica's representative to the court of Louis XVI; Belonged to Joost R. Ritman (b. 1941), the Dutch businessman and collector of art and books; acquired from Laurence Witten, Southport, Connecticut in 1983; Bibliotheca Philosophia Hermetica MS 17 (bookplate inside front cover); briefly described in Medieval Manuscripts in Dutch Collections (Online Resources), and in Gumbert, 1987, no. 119-120
   

Keywords

• Treatise
• 15th century
• Italy
• Germany
• Drawing
• Illustration
• Diagrams
• Manicules
• Science

Licenses

• Text

  These images and the content of Donald F. and Mildred Topp Othmer Library of Chemical History, Othmer MS 6: Codicillus 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 6: Codicillus. 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 — De Quarta inceratione per viam reductionis congelationis et subtiliationis; incipit: [A]b hinc vero sumatur quid sublimatum est … facere poteris adlibitum tamen intelligas magisterium.
• fol. 11r — [Diagrams and Figures]
• fol. 17r — Original rubric very faded and obscured by the (incorrect) title added by a later hand, De lapide Philosophico; incipit: Deus in virtute sancte trinitatis tue in qua vnitas tue diuinitatis non est in aliquo uulnerata … aqua ad duplum sulfuris fuerit perfecte rotata

Decorations

• fol. 3v — Pen-and ink illustrations, pitcher, labeled "monoculus raymundi"; a furnace, and an interior view of a furnace, labeled, "atthanor tripes arthanorum," and "Dominus Comes Archi ex sua industria nomine fransciscus [sic] anno lxxii"
• fol. 4r — Vessels, labeled, "instrumentum canonicum protectisi ratione"
• fol. 11r — Incipit, "B primum principium: aurum, argentum, natura vitrioli et salis, mercurius, … Z, separacio humoris"
• fol. 11v — Circular and triangular diagrams, most with letters
• fol. 12r — Circular and triangular diagrams, most with letters
• fol. 12v — Circle, enclosing four circles labeled, "aqua elementata, telea elementata, omnia et vnum, lex elementatus, ignis elelementatus"; below, incipit, "Hec est figura circularis ostendit quomodo elemente partificium …"; diagram of an alembic (labeled "lembicus magistri"), below, incipit, "Hec figura alembici ostendit qualiter …"; two circles labeled "sulfur" and "medicina," below, incipit, "Hec figura ostendit quomodo magisterium dividitur inter duas partes …"; three circles, labeled, "rubea coruptio," "generatio sulfuris" and "generatio me[ici]ne," incipit, "Hec figura …"
• fol. 13r — Three circles labeled, "liquefaccio, elementatio, diuisio,"; three circles labeled "inhumatio, distillacio, calcinacio," and three circles labeled "inceratio, congelatio, sublimatio"
• fol. 13v — Two diagrams of circles, the first labeled, "figura fermentorum mistendorum"
• fol. 14r — Diagram of circles, with letters and interconnections, including aqua, aer, ignis, lapis, terra etc.
• fol. 14v — Scala generationis primordialium materialum[?] in magisterio, etc. (twelve different scala on fols. 14v-15v)
• fol. 15r — Scala generationis primordialium materialum[?] in magisterio, etc (twelve different scala on fols. 14v-15v)
• fol. 15v — Scala generationis primordialium materialum[?] in magisterio, etc. (twelve different scala on fols. 14v-15v)
• fol. 16r — Figura quomodo ex triangulari et ex trangulis conponitur figura circuli
• fol. 16v — Diagram with concentric circles surrounding intersecting triangles, labeled materia confusa in the center