Details

Subjects:

Alchemy -- Early works to 1800.
Alchemy.
Medicine -- Early works to 1800.
Medicine.

Form/Genre:

Codices.
Recipes.
Manuscripts, Latin.
Manuscripts, Renaissance.

Language:

Latin.

Summary:

Alchemical and medical compendium containing recipes and texts from a variety of sources, many of which appear with traditional (now suspect) attributions in other manuscripts, with an alphabetical index to recipes at the beginning of the volume. Occasional manicules and annotations added by readers.

Contents:

1. f.1r-8v: Tabula huius libri ad reperiendum capitula.
2. f.9r-12v: Ars sive doctrina sapientissimi philosofi et christiani catholici de transmutacione metallorum [?] corporum et aliarum rerum / [Hermes Trismegistus (Thorndike-Kibre 1112/12)]
3. f.13r-39r: [Selections from De virtutibus aquae vitae / Taddeo Alderotti (Thorndike-Kibre 121/11)]
4. f.39r-46r: [Epistola de sanguine / Arnaldus de Villanova (Thorndike-Kibre 1310/7)]
5. f.46r-51r: [Medical recipes]
6. f.51r-61v: [Liber de aquis / Petrus Hispanus (Thorndike-Kibre 1328/9)]
7. f.61v-63r: [Epistola / Magistri Arnoldi de villa nova ad Magistrum Jacobum de Tolleto]
8. f.63r-95v: [Household preparations]
9. f.96r-100r: Vita remedia et ordo servandus tempore pestilentie.

Notes:

Ms. codex.
Title from closing rubric (f. 98v).
Collation: Parchment, i (modern paper) + 100 + i (modern paper); 1² 2⁶ 3-7¹⁶ 8¹²; every tenth leaf foliated in pencil, lower right recto. Horizontal catchwords with decorative dots, lower center of last verso in gatherings 3-7 (f. 24v, 40v, 56v, 72v, 88v). Link to collation model at end of record.
Layout: Written in 32-33 long lines; frame-ruled in lead, vertical bounding lines.
Script: Written in semi-cursive humanistic script by multiple hands, including that of Jeronimus de Sandei of Piran (f. 98v).
Decoration: Opening page of text illuminated with a 10-line historiated initial enclosing a picture of Hermes Trismegistus on gold ground and a three-quarters border of acanthus leaves (border at top slightly trimmed) including the Sandei arms (blue lion rampant) at the bottom of the page (f. 9r); 2 historiated initials in red with blue penwork and the blue lion of the Sandei arms (f. 6r, 39r); 5- and 6-line initials in red with blue penwork or blue with red penwork at the beginning of some component works (f. 13r, 39r, 61v, 96r); 2-line to 5-line initials (a single 7-line initial, f. 87v) in red with blue penwork (faded purple penwork in index) or blue with red penwork throughout; 1-line initials alternating between red and blue and paragraph marks alternating between red and blue throughout. Occasional manicules, mostly by a single reader (f. 13v, 15v, 17v, 18r, 27v, 30v, 31r, 48r; f. 75v, 83v by additional readers).
Binding: Modern parchment.
Origin: Written in Piran (then under the control of the Republic of Venice, in modern Slovenia), between 1452 (f. 1r) and 1455 (f. 98v). The date 1451 also appears in the manuscript (f. 99v).

Local notes:

Lawrence J. Schoenberg & Barbara Brizdle Manuscript Initiative.

Penn Provenance:

Offered for sale at auction at Sotheby's, 5 Dec. 2012, lot 19; sold privately to Lawrence J. Schoenberg, Dec. 2012.
Deposit by Lawrence J. Schoenberg and Barbara Brizdle, 2013.

Cited as:

LJS 500

Contributor:

Sandei, Jeronimus de, 15th century, scribe.
Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Contains:

Hermes, Trismegistus, Trismegistus. De transmutatione metallorum.
Alderotti, Taddeo, 1223-1295. De virtutibus aquae vitae. Selections.
Arnaldus, de Villanova, -1311. Epistolae.
Alcalá, Pedro de. Liber de aquis.
Vita remedia et ordo servandus tempore pestilentie.

OCLC:

829109968

Web link:

The Lawrence J. Schoenberg and Barbara Brizdle Manuscript Initiative Fund Home Page

Collation model