The lure and romance of alchemy / by C.J.S. Thompson.

  • Charles Thompson
Date:
[1932]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The lure and romance of alchemy / by C.J.S. Thompson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    164/300 page 142
    CHAPTER XV SOME NOTABLE ALCHEMICAL MANUSCRIPTS THE earliest treatises on alchemy in Latin date from about the eighth century, and two in particular, which are sup¬ posed to have been written in the ninth and tenth centuries, are of considerable interest. The work entitled Compositiones ad tingenda contains a number of recipes which were apparently used in the arts and crafts of the time, which lends colour to the theory that in early times alchemy was largely influenced by the workers in metals. In this manuscript we find formulae for dyeing skins, for gild¬ ing iron, for writing in letters of gold, and for soldering metals. It also contains recipes for colouring artificial stones used in making mosaics, directions for staining glass and the staining of wood, bone, and horn, together with a list of the ores, metals, earths, and metallic oxides employed by craftsmen in making jewellery, in enamelling, and in painting. Instructions are given for gilding glass, wood, metals, and fabrics. Mention is also made of gums, resins, and other vegetable substances used in the arts, of products derived from the sea, such as salt, coral, and molluscs yielding a purple dye. A formula for making bronze is given, and a recipe for writing in letters of gold is similar to one recorded in a papyrus at Leyden, which shows that in all probability many of these recipes date back to a much earlier period. In the treatise called the Mappce Clavicula, the earliest-known copy of which is said to date from the tenth century, several recipes are given for making ‘ gold,’ and in a later copy of this
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