Manuscript on paper of a collection of pseudo-Lullian alchemical writings, translated from the French and Catalan originals, with a little additional matter. The codex underwent a transformation in the early 16th century when considerable new matter was added by another English hand on different, thinner paper; leaves have been inserted throughout the original codex
Description:
In Latin., Watermarks: Original paper: 1) an extremely primitive-looking unicorn with very short horn and long tail somewhat like Briquet 9962 and 10176; 2) a less primitive unicorn rather similar to Briquet 9985; 3) bullshead with defined eyes and nostrils and with cross above, rather like Briquet 15054. Inserted leaves: a very elegant unicorn mark, more developed than Briquet 10104; and some leaves with a gothic "P" with cinquefoil above, rather like Briquet 8809., Script: The original portion written by a single English gothic cursive hand with heavy standard abbreviation. The inserted leaves (first 4 ff. now extant, ff. 88-96, 163-169, 268-274, and 307-319 [of which f. 167 is a blank and f. 315 is a parchment leaf]) written in another gothic cursive habitually employing writing of different sizes., Original text: Headings in red, rubricated. Some pages with diagrams or drawings. The illustrations include Lullian alphabets and tables in the form of wheels, an Arbor philosophorum, a group of flasks, and a good, large drawing of a furnace. Inserted leaves: Red headings, and capitals with slight decoration., and Binding: Eighteenth century, English. Dark calf, sides paneled in blind with a roll tool of vine pattern, leafy sprays at the corners, back with six plain compartments and five raised bands, probably original parchment label on second compartment from top bordered with ink rule and lettered in ink: "RAYM. LULLII | OPERA | MANUSCRIPTA". The binding considerably repaired and some leather renewed. Original plain edges, the top blackened.
Manuscript on paper of the writings of Christopher of Paris (pseudonym for a Venetian exile), including his major work, Lucidario, with its supplementary alphabet, plus three letters
Description:
In Italian and Latin., Script: Written by a single good italic hand, sometimes hasty toward the end of the codex., Rubricated, headings often in red., and Binding: Original plain parchment wrapper without ties, back with three raised bands, soiled and worn. Plain edges.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Christopher, of Paris.
Subject (Topic):
Alchemy, Alphabet books, Italian letters, and Manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscript on paper of 1) John of Rupescissa, De consideratione quinte essentie. 2) Arnold of Villanova, Epistola de sanguine humano ad magistrum Iacobum de Toleto. 3) Alchemical procedures. 4) Francesco Petrarca, Epistola ad Marcum Tullium Ciceronem. 5) Pier Paolo Vergerio, Epistola in nomine Ciceronis ad Franciscum Petrarcham. 6) Johannes Obrist, Super confectionem auri potabilis. 7) Nicolaus Claudii, Opus super aurum potabile
Description:
In Latin., Script: Written by a single scribe using a clear and regular gothic bookhand without strong nationalistic traits., Headings in red, rubricated., and Binding: Modern parchment over pasteboards, parchment pastedowns and guards, back gilt-lettered: "DE QVINTA ESSENTIA".
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Cicero, Marcus Tullius and Petrarca, Francesco, 1304-1374.
Subject (Topic):
Alchemy, Formulas, recipes, etc, Latin letters, Medieval and modern, and Manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscript on paper of a collection of the works of Nicolaus, mostly related to medicine. In addition the codex has interesting lists of substances in Latin and German, as well as a tract on the distillation of brandy
Description:
In Latin and German., Watermarks: Two batches of unidentified paper watermarked with a gothic "P," the mark plain and smaller in one batch, larger and surmounted by a trefoil in the other., Script: Neatly written in a gothic cursive hand., Large capitals in red at text divisions, sometimes with slight pen ornament, other capitals stroked red throughout, fancy ascenders on top lines transgressing the upper rules and stroked red, similar descenders occasionally below the bottom bordering line, usually not colored., and Binding: Modern three-quarter binding of light brown buckram, plain brown niger back and corners, the back with five (false?) raised bands, gilt-lettered in the second compartment from the top, ANTIDOTARIUM NICOLAI, and at the foot of the spine, "AB. 1460". Plain edges.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Nicolaus, Salernitanus, active 12th century.
Subject (Topic):
Alchemy, Brandy, Latin language, Glossaries, vocabularies, etc, Manuscripts, Medieval, and Medicine, Medieval
Manuscript on paper of a pietistic, mystical text in prose and verse, illustrated by a great variety of illustrations cut from manuscripts of smaller dimensions (plus some prints), and pasted in. These illustrations include the "Python" illuminated drawing which has been reproduced in color, a series of "alchemical processes depicted symbolically taking place within flasks", as well as many other pictorial elements drawn from a variety of sources
Description:
In German, Low-German, Latin, and Hebrew., Script: Written by a single hand in dark brown and pale red inks in a loose and flowing cursive, often with Fraktur elements, frequently placing capital letters in the midst of words, sometimes in red; with some inserted leaves and additional matter by another, perhaps slightly later hand, and with pasted-in leaves, usually with illustrations, partly taken from older manuscripts, and partly (apparently) by the compiler., Watermarks: The inserted leaves of paper with a large fleur-de-lys watermark, unidentified; the thinner paper used for most of the volumes with unidentified watermark in folds., With additions in German and Dutch., Bound in 2 volumes., and Binding: Uniformly bound in eighteenth- or nineteenth-century marbled boards, red leather backs with three bands, each volume with modern brown calf title labels gold-stamped "ALCHYMICAL MANUSCRIPT," speckled edges.
Subject (Topic):
Alchemy, Illumination of books and manuscripts, and Pietism
Manuscript on paper of a pietistic, mystical text in prose and verse, illustrated by a great variety of illustrations cut from manuscripts of smaller dimensions (plus some prints), and pasted in. These illustrations include the "Python" illuminated drawing which has been reproduced in color, a series of "alchemical processes depicted symbolically taking place within flasks", as well as many other pictorial elements drawn from a variety of sources
Description:
In German, Low-German, Latin, and Hebrew., Script: Written by a single hand in dark brown and pale red inks in a loose and flowing cursive, often with Fraktur elements, frequently placing capital letters in the midst of words, sometimes in red; with some inserted leaves and additional matter by another, perhaps slightly later hand, and with pasted-in leaves, usually with illustrations, partly taken from older manuscripts, and partly (apparently) by the compiler., Watermarks: The inserted leaves of paper with a large fleur-de-lys watermark, unidentified; the thinner paper used for most of the volumes with unidentified watermark in folds., With additions in German and Dutch., Bound in 2 volumes., and Binding: Uniformly bound in eighteenth- or nineteenth-century marbled boards, red leather backs with three bands, each volume with modern brown calf title labels gold-stamped "ALCHYMICAL MANUSCRIPT," speckled edges.
Subject (Topic):
Alchemy, Illumination of books and manuscripts, and Pietism
Manuscript on paper of an alchemical compilation, apparently the holograph of the original compiler, not identified. Probably the laboratory notes of a practicing alchemist. Includes lists of Flemish names, apparently identifying fellow practitioners in early alchemy; and laboratory procedures, designed primarily to color metals and to carry out other operations with various substances. Leaves inserted and blank pages filled at later dates
Description:
In Latin, with later additions in Latin and German., Watermark: Outstretched hand, the fingerjoints indicated, a four-leafed petal extending from the tip of the third finger, the wrist and cuff of a sleeve also depicted, comparable to Briquet 11423., Script: The original part of the codex (ff. 1-133) written in a very fine, neat, and clear humanistic hand, and using a considerable range of alchemical symbols; the later additions (ff. 134-145) consist of Latin sections written in a neat italic and German passages in flowing cursive, perhaps both by a single German hand of the 18th century., Headings of procedures in red and blue alternating in the original section, and with some capitals stroked red; no color in the additions. No ornament., Though the whole of the manuscript has suffered some marginal water-staining since it was bound, it appears certain that other stains and damage occurred while the separated quires, or groups of them, remained unbound., and Binding: Probably original. Stiff parchment over paper boards, flaps over the fore-edge, probably dating from about 1525, conceivably later, as the manuscript contents do not appear to have been bound at the time of writing in any case; flat spine with modern inscription in brown ink, "Alchemical | Recipes", original blue edges.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Topic):
Alchemy, Manuscripts, Medieval, and Science, Medieval
Manuscript on paper of 1) John of Rupescissa, De consideratione quinte essentie. 2) Rhemigius Burgensis, Quaestio de medio demonstrationis termino. 3) Simone Porzio, De animae immortalitate quaestio. 4) Francesco Petrarca, Dialogus de coniugii claritate. 5) Alchemy and recipes, in Latin. 6) Properties of various fruits and nuts, in Italian verse, and Seasons for planting, in Italian prose. 7) Notes on logic, provenance of elements of this manuscript, and a game of divination
Description:
In Latin, Greek, and Italian., Watermarks: 1) crossed arrows surmounted by a six-pointed star; 2) crossed keys in a cartouche, neither identified with certainty., Script: Written in several different italic cursive hands., and Binding: Original, north Italian. Black leather, the sides outlined in blind rules, a rectangular panel on each cover ruled in gold with a square Arab knot tool gold-stamped outside each corner of the panel, traces of holes for four thong ties on each cover, the backstrip divided into five compartments by raised bands, a gold-stamped cinquefoil in each compartment, the back and sides repaired, edges stained black. Front and back pastedowns: parchment fragments of a 12th-century Italian codex, probably a Gospel Lectionary, containing an extract from the Gospel of St. John written in Latin in a Rotunda antiquior hand.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Topic):
Alchemy, Divination, Italian poetry, Logic, and Manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscript fragment on paper of extracts from Laudabile sanctum. There follows on ff. 1r-7v an extended series of longer and shorter alchemical recipes and procedures, probably including excerpts from standard sources, a passage on transmutation, a brief account of the planets, etc., often with marginal captions. With a poem in English
Description:
In Latin and English., Watermark: an extended hand with a five-pointed star extending on a stem from the middle finger, a quatrefoil (?) at the wrist, which is sharply cut off, the fingers partly articulated, of the type of Briquet 11341 and following, but more refined., Script: Written by a single hand, very small (sometimes minute) and mostly very neat, using a good cursive italic for the Latin passages, and a secretary hand for the English, both sloping somewhat to the right., and Binding: Parchment wrapper made from a bifolium of a late 13th-century French (or possibly English?) canon law manuscript written by two hands, one of them using a classical Littera parisiensis, the other slightly more rounded, the writing partly scraped away on what is now the front cover of the wrapper, the outer side of the lower cover with an inscription in a very large hand which has not been read.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Topic):
Alchemy, English poetry, Formulas, recipes, etc, Latin poetry, Medieval and modern, and Manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscript on paper, composed in three parts, of a large number of practical procedures, chiefly alchemical but sometimes medical, with a few standard medieval alchemical texts by Khalid ibn Yazid, Theodoric, and Albertus Magnus. Occasionally there are passages in cipher, added by Martin Roesel of Rosenthal ca. 1586, long after the principal contents were written; the cipher seems to be of a simple number-substitution type
Description:
In Latin and German, partly in cipher., Watermarks: 1) unidentified eagle watermark somewhat resembling Briquet 104; 2) a crown pattern resembling Briquet 4921 and 1922; 3) the Paschal lamb resembling Briquet 61., Script: Part I (ff. 1-29): Written in 1536 in red and black in a gothic cursive by Wolfgang the Organist. Part II (ff. 30-65): Written in a well-controlled gothic cursive without color. Part III (ff. 66-132): Written in one or possibly two scrawling gothic cursives, with red headings on ff. 109-124., Several initials illuminated in trick have been cut from a late 15th-century MS and pasted into the present MS at ff. 2v, 4v, 5, 10r, and 16r. Marginal drawings of alchemical apparatus are cropped, as also marginalia., and Binding: Probably ca. 1586 for Martin Roesel. Red-stained limp parchment (most of the stain now lost), single central clasp and catch now missing from center of fore-edges, two slits on each fore-edge for thong or ribbon ties, also missing.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Topic):
Alchemy, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Manuscripts, Medieval, and Medicine, Medieval
