Details

Subjects:

Pharmacists -- Italy.
Pharmacy -- Handbooks, manuals, etc. -- Early works to 1800.
Materia medica.
Medicine -- Formulae, receipts, prescriptions.
Pharmacy.
Pharmacists.
Italy.

Form/Genre:

Codices (bound manuscripts)
Recipes.
Manuscripts, European.
Handbooks and manuals.

Language:

Italian, with beginning of text in Latin (f. 1r-2r).

Summary:

Manual for the examination to become an apothecary, to be administered by a physician. Text begins in Latin, continues as a translation into Italian on f. 2r. Some of the manual is in question-and-answer form, the rest in lists or short summaries. Topics covered include professional ethics and conduct ("an apothecary should have a wife, to rein in his youth"), the identification of herbs, and techniques for their preparation and storage.

Contents:

1. f.1r: Prima particula est de utilibus interrogationibus ad aromatarios fiendis.
2. f.1r-2r: Secundo: Medicus in hac arte interroget qualis debet esse aromatarius.
3. f.2r-3v: Particola del saladino volgare.
4. f.3v-8v: Essame sopra li quattro canoni di mesue ... decottione, lavatione, infusione, e trituratione.
5. f.8v-9r: Del cuocere.
6. f.9v-10r: Del distillare.
7. f.10r-11r: Del preparare.
8. f.11r-12v: Delli elettuarii.
9. f.13r-24r: Essame sopra alcuni semplici [in alphabetical order from absinthio to viole].
10. f.24v-25v: Elettione di medicamenti diversi.
11. f.26r-28v: Medicine falsificate come si conoscano, et con che arte si falsificano.
12. f.29r-29v: Lists of medicinal plants.
13. f.30r: Preparacione del sangue humano.

Notes:

Ms. codex.
Title from upper cover.
Foliation: Paper, i (contemporary paper) + 30 + i (contemporary paper); [1-30]; modern foliation in pencil, upper right recto.
Layout: Written in 26 long lines; ruled in lead and drypoint; prickings visible.
Script: Written in a cursive script by a single hand.
Decoration: Rubricated headings in red ink, with green, pink, and blue ink for underlining.
Binding: Contemporary parchment, with title and number 1556 on spine.
Origin: Written in Italy, circa 1700 (according to Rudolf Hirsch notes on file in Library). Date 1760 is written on parchment inside upper cover.

Penn Provenance:

Bookseller's label: Libreria Loescher & Co., (W. Regenberg), Roma - Due Magelli, 88 (inside upper cover).
Formerly owned by Mario Pedro Arata (Buenos Aires, 1891-1946; signature, inside upper cover; stamp, inside upper cover, f. 1r).
Sold by Richard von Hünersdorff (London), catalog 3 (History of Medicine and Science, 1974), number 202.

Cited as:

UPenn Ms. Codex 527

Contributor:

Arata, Mario Pedro, 1891-1946, former owner.

Contains:

Particola del saladino volgare.

OCLC:

155965498