Volume 2

Bibliographical notes on histories of inventions and books of secrets : Six papers read to the Archæological society of Glasgow April 1882-January 1888 / by John Ferguson.

  • John Ferguson
Date:
1895-1915
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Bibliographical notes on histories of inventions and books of secrets : Six papers read to the Archæological society of Glasgow April 1882-January 1888 / by John Ferguson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    46/408 (page 36)
    secrets.” To check this statement it would be necessary to compare this fifth edition with the fifth edition of Rome, which I have not been able to do. Then there appeared in 1673, both at Venice (B.M. 1038. a. 16), and at Bologna (B.M. 1038. c. 23), an edition in i2mo. These books are much less pleasant to deal with than that of Rome, 1663. They are larger, however, containing a few extra receipts at the end. Otherwise the three copies are identical. There came another dated “Venetia, 1676. A San Giuliano. Appresso Giacomo Zini.” It is a mere reprint, and the added secrets are put in without any reference to their source. It agrees with the Venice edition of 1692, formerly described, being in i2mo, and containing : * in ten, A to M in twelves, N in fourteen, or pp. [20] 316. Whether any editions appeared under Auda’s name subsequent to 1692, I do not know. If there were, the success of the book, which in various editions carried it through an interval of not less than fifty years, was sufficiently assured to make Auda indisposed to withdraw his name from it. It forms, therefore, a bit of a bibliographical puzzle to know why, in 1711, the book appeared not only without Auda’s name, but with the entirely new name of Quinti. 39. Allusion has already been made (Part IV., p. 322) to a small volume by a Dr. Quinti in French, which purports to be a translation from the Italian, but which is neither more nor less than a version of Auda’s Secrets. My notion then was that Quinti had translated the book, and had claimed the authorship, for he speaks of the original Italian having been often printed; or else that Quinti was merely a fictitious name for Auda. Auda’s book goes back to 1663 at least; Quinti’s translation “printed at Venice and sold at Liege”—a rather queer sort of mixture—is dated 1711, so that the two names may have been used by one person. The following, however, which I found in the British Museum (1035 .a. 35) seems to have been the original of the French translation : Maravigliosi | Secreti | Medicinali | Chimici | Sre. Giuseppe Quinti, | Doctore di Venetia. | Ricolte per mold cure & lavori, che | fono (tali da egli fteffo ifperimenta- | ti, & provati piu volte in parecchie | infermite. | Venetia, | Etfivendono | Leodii, Dal J.F, Broncart, | in Supremo-Ponte | M.DCCXI. Small i2mo, *, A to O in twelves, pp. [24] 336.