Alchemy: 15th cent.

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Collection of alchemical, and other receipts for making artificial metals and gems, dyes and tinctures, etc. With directions for making alchemical medicine, quintessences, distillations etc.; Written in a neat rounded gothic hand: 20 lines to a page. Initials in alternate red and blue, with decorations in blue, red and purple: paragraph marks in blue, headings in red. On the first leaf an illuminated letter P in gold and colours, enclosing a miniature of the Virgin Mary and the Divine Child who lies in a red cradle upon the grass: in the background a walled city. The text is surrounded by an ornamental border with floral motif: in the lower margin two Cupids and the sacred monogram IHS in gold on a blue ground. There are 12 carefully executed pen-drawings of alchemical apparatus. Fol. 1 (red) A fare oro de mitarde Cioe mitarde oro et/mitarde argento el qualle sia poi a caria/tate xxiii e piu al tocho sempre et se/ne potera farne ogni opera che se uora./PRimo tuo onzia. I./de crocum ferri... 69 [Altro modo de inbianchare perle] ... ma el tene che la termen/tina si uene in aqua. 70 (red) Pratica a cauare la quinta essentia/de laqua uita per disolutione del oro/et fare loper tua./TUo uino uermelio optimo et/del meliore... 100v, line 4 ... secondo la/medicina che tu hauerai facto/ad album o uero ad Rubeum. line 7 (red) Recepta de domino Magistro petro/magistro in tehologia [sic] e proposito etc./Primo fa depurare et sublimare/lo argento uiuo como diro qui/de sotto./TUo libras sex de argento uiuo/et fatto bollire... 106 [Modo de fare la proiectione ad Rubeum] et cossi ne poterai poi farne mul/tiplicatione.

MS.22

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