Details

Standardized Title:

Triumph-Wagen Antimonii

Other Title:

Currus triumphalis antimonii.

Subjects:

Alchemy -- Early works to 1800.
Alchemy.
Antimony -- Early works to 1800.
Chemistry -- History.
Chemistry.
History.
Medicine -- Early works to 1800.
Medicine.
Medicine, Medieval.
Antimony.

Form/Genre:

Codices.
Commentaries.
Drawings (visual works)
Manuscripts, Latin.
Manuscripts, European.

Language:

Latin, with occasional words in Greek (for example, p. 175).

Summary:

Alchemical work by Basilius Valentinus, Currus triumphalis antimonii, with a commentary by Dutch doctor and anatomist Theodor Kerckring. The text and commentary are followed by an index (p. 289-308). Careful manuscript of a printed edition (Amsterdam, 1671), including the title vignettes and illustrations.

Notes:

Ms. codex.
Title from title page (p. 1); half title Currus triumphalis antimonii (p. vii).
Pagination: Paper, i (modern) + 159 + i (modern) leaves; [i-viii], 1-288, [289-310], contemporary pagination in ink, modern pagination in pencil, upper outer corners.
Layout: Written in 24 long lines.
Script: Written in cursive script by a single hand.
Decoration: 7 pen-and-ink illustrations, comprising the half title vignette, with the title Currus triumphalis antimonii and attribution Romijn de Hooghe fecit 1671 (p. viii); title-page vignette copying the title page of a printed book (p. 1); and five illustrations in the text of chemical apparatus (p. 161, 187, 197, 243, 252). The illustrations are on pieces of slightly darker paper pasted into the manuscript. The text is in a black ink; the commentary is in a lighter red or brown ink that has faded in many places, sometimes to the point of illegibility. Underlining, marginal headings, and symbols keyed to the commentary in the text are in the same faded red or brown ink.
Binding: Modern cloth over cardboard by Eberhardt, 1961 (note, end flyleaf); due to tightness of binding, some text is in the gutter.
Origin: Possibly written in Amsterdam, ca. 1671 (based on title page copied from printed edition, p. 1).
Forms part of: Edgar F. Smith Memorial Collection.

Penn Provenance:

Formerly sold by book dealers B. & J. F. Meehan (Bath) and George Redway (London; labels for both inside upper cover).
Purchased, 1944.

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), p. 240 (Ms. E. F. Smith 31).

Cited as:

UPenn Ms. Codex 120

Contributor:

Hooghe, Romeyn de, 1645-1708, illustrator.
Kerckring, Theodor, 1640-1693, commentator for written text.

OCLC:

155962602