Details

Subjects:

Arnaldus, de Villanova, -1311.
Alchemy -- Early works to 1800.
Alchemy.
Chemistry -- History.
Chemistry.
History.

Form/Genre:

Codices.
Drawings (visual works)
Recipes.
Treatises.
Manuscripts, Latin.
Manuscripts, Renaissance.
Manuscripts, European.

Language:

Latin, with some Italian.

Summary:

Collection of alchemical recipes preceded by a few brief treatises (including a commentary attributed to Hortulanus and a work referring to Arnaldus de Villanova). Folios 1-2, 40 and 42-43 are blank. There is a short guide, index or key in a later hand at the end (f. 41r).

Contents:

1. f.3r: Epistola Hermetis.
2. f.3r-5r: Expositio Ortulani super praedicta epistola / [Hortulanus].
3. f.5v-7v: De lapide minerali.
4. f.8r-9r: Vera operatio Arnaldi.
5. f.9r-39v: [Collection of alchemical recipes]

Notes:

Ms. codex.
Title supplied by cataloger (Zacour-Hirsch).
Foliation: Paper, 43; 1-2¹⁶ 3-6¹ 7⁸(-1); [1-43]; modern foliation in pencil, upper right recto, irregular contemporary pagination/foliation in ink, upper right recto.
Script: Written in a cursive script.
Decoration: Several ink drawings of chemical apparatus (f. 9v); many chemical and alchemical symbols throughout.
Watermarks: Several different designs, including one which appears to be a cardinal's hat but is too faint to read.
Binding: 17th-century Italian pasteboards. Paper frayed at the edges. Some evidence of worm and rodent damage. Lower outer edge of upper cover and many front folios badly damaged, possibly resulting in some slight loss of text.
Origin: Written in Italy between the late 16th and the early 17th century.
The incipits of the first (Verum est sine mendatio..., f. 3r) and fourth (Recipe limatura lupi limati libram unam...) works are listed in Thorndike and Kibre, Catalogue of Incipits of Mediaeval Scientific Writings in Latin.

Penn Provenance:

Acquired, 1965.

Cited in:

Described in Zacour, Norman P. and Hirsch, Rudolf. Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Libraries of the University of Pennsylvania to 1800 : Suppliment A (5). Library Chronicle 37 (1971), p. 104 (Ms. E. F. Smith 50).
Thorndike, Lynn and Kibre, Pearl. A Catalogue of Incipits of Mediaeval Scientific Writings in Latin. Rev. and augm. ed. (London: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1963), 1329, 1691.

Cited as:

UPenn Ms. Codex 131

Contains:

Epistola Hermetis.
De lapide minerali.
Vera operatio Arnaldi.

OCLC:

155962624