Ms. document. Title from Les Enluminures, Primer [no.] 1, Alchemy p. 8. Incipit in red ink. Script: Small humanistic bookhand with cursive features. Pagination: 101 leaves. Decoration: Each entry numbered in the margin in red Arabic numerals, red paragraph marks, a few majuscules within the text stroked with red, two-lined red initials. Layout: 2 columns of 30 lines. Alphabetical list of subjects, with subjects followed by the relevant section numbers; contemporary with the remainder of the volume, and probably copied by the scribe of the main text. Origin: Watermark evidence, together with the script, suggests an origin in Northwestern Italy, possibly in Bergamo, Milan, Pavia or Como, between 1427 and 1447; the date, 22 December 1438, copied inside the front cover may or may not be the date when the manuscript was completed, but it does suggest the manuscript was copied before that date. This is a diverse and well-organized recipe collection with well more than 520 different recipes on topics ranging from alchemy and medicine to solutions for simple household problems such as fleas, designed from the outset to be used with its extensive alphabetical subject index. Its outstanding (unique?) contemporary binding adds to its interest. The direct ancestor to sixteenth-century... Former shelfmark: Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica (Amsterdam, Netherlands), MS 112. Shelfmark: Philadelphia, PA, Donald F. and Mildred Topp Othmer Library of Chemical History, MS 1. Watermark evidence, together with the script, suggests an origin in Northwestern Italy, possibly in Bergamo, Milan, Pavia or Como, between 1427 and 1447; the date, 22 December 1438, copied inside the front cover may or may not be the date when the manuscript was completed, but it does suggest the manuscript was copied before that date. In a contemporary hand, inside back cover, "Sum seruulus et <ero?> et hoc unum est quid cupio"; same hand, inside front cover, records the metals, gold, silver, lead, and mercury ("living silver"), and their corresponding planets: "Aurum Solem, Argentum Luna, Plumbum Saturni, Argentum vivum mecurii." The manuscript includes no marginal additions or changes to the content of the recipes, but soiling and other signs of use throughout suggest it was put to practical use. Belonged to Antonio "il gual"; his seventeenth- or early eighteenth-century ownership inscriptions on ff. 102v and 103v. Crude sketches on ff. 90v-94v, 101v-103v: on f. 90v a crowned globe with an animal inside lettered "m" "s" at the top, and other drawings, apparently unfinished, related to this on ff. 102v-103, f. 92v, a figure with a long nose and hat, and a mounted figure in dots, f... "Secreti naturali" written along the lower edge of bookblock in an eighteenth-century(?) hand. Owners' and dealers' notes, in pencil, f. 103v, "cat. Tenschert, Leuct. Mittelalter I, no. 17, BPH 112", "10090/U6FET", inside back cover, "REE", "8409 BPH MS 112", and "W 12." Belonged to Joost R. Ritman (b. 1941), the Dutch businessman and distinguished collector of art and books; acquired from Tenschert cat.21 (Leuchtendes Mittelalter I),1989, no. 17; Bibliotheca Philosophia Hermetica MS 112 (bookplate, inside front cover). Purchased from Les Enluminures Ltd., 9 September 2013, Primer 2 Alchemy, [item] no. 1, (TM696) to Donald F. and Mildred Topp Othmer Library of...
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