Manuscript on paper of Michael Maier, Atalanta fugiens, translated into English from the 1618 German edition.
Description:
Binding: Recent binding of marbled paper boards, polished calf back, top edge cut and gilt, other edges plain and original., First two and last four leaves are of different, probably eighteenth-century, paper, probably binder's sheets used in an earlier binding of the volume., In English., Mellon MS 88, acquired with the Duveen collection. Gift of Paul and Mary Mellon, 1965., Script: Written by a single copyist in English secretary and italic hands., and Watermarks: 1) Strasbourg lily with initials "WR" and countermarked "IHS" with a cross ascending from the horizontal of the central letter, very similar to Churchill 401 (dated 1625), but without initials on the countermark. 2) A large, crowned fleur-de-lys and with a countermark "VI," not identified.
Subject (Name):
Maier, Michael,--1568?-1622
Subject (Topic):
Alchemy--Early works to 1800, Chemistry--Early works to 1800, and Natural history--Pre-Linnaen works
Autograph manuscript, on paper, containing 72 pages of medical, chemical and household recipes and formulas. Contents include many medical recipes, such as traditional herbal washes, broths, salves, oils and pills for specific ailments, including baldness, dropsy, the bloody flux, sores, and plague. There are also several multi-purpose elixirs attributed to "Doctor Hawse" and Sir Walter Raleigh, as well as a recipe for "Laudanum Paracelsi" and several chemical preparations intended to regulate and balance the humors. Other contents include chemical formulas for various compounds and salts, including "sal naturae" and "sal ammoniak" and household recipes for varnish, ink, colored oils, cement, bronzing and gilding pigment, and marbled paper. Paston uses the standard alchemical symbols for metals and gives precise ingredient quantities, both by weight and in ratios. and Pages 73-83 contain cookery and household recipes in an eighteenth-century copperplate hand, presumably that of Anna Rogers. Some recipes attributed to publications dated 1770-1777.
Description:
Almost entirely in English; several recipes in Latin., Binding: in the style of Queens' Binder A (William Nott). Contemporary full red morocco, elaborately gilt in an all-over design incorporating drawer-handle tools, floral motifs and flower tools, framed in a repeating ornamental border. Seven-compartment gilt spine; coroneted monogram "RR" (Robert and Rebecca Paston) in the third compartment. Marbled endpapers., Blank pages not digitized., Ex libris Anna Rogers. Purchased from Jonathan A. Hill, Bookseller on the Hazel M. Osborn Fund and the James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Fund, 2014., Ownership stamp of Anna Rogers, in red ink, appears on verso of front endpaper and verso of second blank page. "April 6 1765" written below the second stamp in an unidentified hand., Robert Paston, first Earl of Yarmouth (1631-1683), English politician, collector of art, books, and curios, and scientist. One of the Original Fellows of the Royal Society, he conducted alchemical experiments with Thomas Henshaw and studied the medical and alchemical writings of Paracelsus. He sat in the House of Commons from 1660 to 1673, first for Thetford and then for Castle Rising. Created Baron Paston, Viscount Yarmouth in 1673 and Earl of Yarmouth three years later, Paston served as Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk from 1676 until his death. He married Rebecca Clayton (died 1694), daughter of the London merchant Sir Jasper Clayton, in 1650; the couple had ten children. Paston died, deeply in debt, at Oxnead Hall in 1683, and was succeeded by his second son, William Paston (1654-1732)., Volume opens with unpaginated 6 p. index of recipes and a list of "characters and valew of medicinall weights;" rest of volume is paginated 1-256. Pages after p. 83 are blank., and Watermark: coat of arms not in Heawood; similar to Heawood Coat of Arms 348.
Subject (Geographic):
Great Britain--Intellectual life--17th century
Subject (Name):
Nott, William, binder, Paracelsus,--1493-1541--Influence, Rogers, Anna,--active 1770-1777--Stamp, Yarmouth, Robert Paston,--Earl of,--1631-1683, and Yarmouth, Robert Paston,--Earl of,--1631-1683--Binding
Subject (Topic):
Alchemy--Early works to 1800, Chemistry--Early works to 1800, Cooking, English--Early works to 1800, Health--Early works to 1800, Iatrophysical school, Medicine, Popular--Early works to 1800, Medicine--Early works to 1800, Medicine--Formulae, receipts, prescriptions, Medicine--Great Britain--Early works to 1800, Recipes--Great Britain, Traditional medicine--Great Britain--Formulae, receipts, prescriptions--Early works to 1800, and Workshop recipes--Early works to 1800
