Details

Subjects:

Alchemy -- Early works to 1800.
Alchemy.
Chemistry -- History.
Chemistry.
History.

Form/Genre:

Codices.
Abridgements.
Excerpts.
Recipes.
Treatises.
Manuscripts, Latin.
Manuscripts, Italian.
Manuscripts, European.

Language:

Latin, with some Italian in the entries at the end of the manuscript (f. 31r-36v).

Summary:

Alchemical miscellany, primarily consisting of summaries of and excerpts from the Triumph-Wagen Antimonii of Basilius Valentinus; Archidoxa of Paracelsus; and Regnum minerale (Parts II (De metallis), III (De lapidibus), IV (De salibus, sulphuribus, terris), and Appendix (De aquis)) of Emanuel König, but also containing recipes and other texts.

Contents:

1. f.1r-2v: [Recipes].
2. f.3r-9v: [Selection from] Currus triumphalis / Basilii Valentini.
3. f.10r-14v: [Abridged selections from Archidoxa] / Paracelsus.
4. f.15r-30v: [Abridged selections from] Regnum minerale / Emanuelis König.
5. f.31r: [Selection from one of the later treatises of Nicolas Lemery].
6. f.31v-36v: [Recipes].

Notes:

Ms. codex.
Title supplied by cataloger (Zacour-Hirsch).
Collation: Paper, 36; 1¹⁴ 2³²(-16) 3⁴ + 2 single leaves; [1-36]; modern foliation in pencil, upper right recto. Folios 31-36 tipped in, with stubs for f. 31-33, 35 on far side of sewing; first 16 folios of second gathering have been cut out, with loss of a great deal of text.
Script: Written in a cursive script by multiple hands.
Binding: 17th-century Italian pasteboards; very fragile; quires not bound into pasteboard cover and mostly detached from each other.
Origin: Written in Italy in the late 17th or early 18th century (after publication of Emanuel König's Regnum minerale in the 1680s and of Nicolas Lémery's treatises following his Cours de chymie in Italian before 1720).
Paper is split at edges and is brittle. Paper also shows some damage that appears to be due to acid in the ink. Some stains on the paper and the cover.
Forms part of: Edgar F. Smith Memorial Collection.

Penn Provenance:

Acquired, 1948.

Cited in:

Described in Zacour, Norman P. and Hirsch, Rudolf. Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Libraries of the University of Pennsylvania to 1800 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1965), pp. 232-233 (Ms. E. F. Smith 5).

Cited as:

UPenn Ms. Codex 112

Contains:

Basilius Valentinus. Triumph-Wagen Antimonii.
Paracelsus, 1493-1541. Archidoxa.
König, Emanuel, 1658-1731. Regnum minerale.
Lémery, Nicolas, 1645-1715.

OCLC:

155962512