Details

Subjects:

Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden -- History -- 17th century.
Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden.
Chemistry -- Early works to 1800.
Chemistry.
Medicine -- Formulae, receipts, prescriptions -- Early works to 1800.
Medicine -- Formulae, receipts, prescriptions.
Medicine, Magic, mystic, and spagiric -- Early works to 1800.
Medicine, Magic, mystic, and spagiric.
History.

Form/Genre:

Codices.
Lecture notes.
Prescriptions.
Manuscripts, Latin -- 17th century.
Manuscripts, European.

Language:

Latin.

Biography/History:

Medical student at Leiden during the tenure of chemistry professor Carolus de Maets; member of the Towneley family, an English Catholic family whose seat was at Towneley Hall in Burnley, Lancashire.

Summary:

Chemical manuscript with instructions for preparing several hundred substances, both pharmaceutical and alchemical. Entries for a few preparations include references to earlier authorities such as Paracelsus, Ruland, and Glauber. The entries in an alphabetical index in two columns at the end of the volume appear to be in Towneley's hand and to cover the whole volume, but page numbers were added later, both to the manuscript and to the index, only through 194.

Notes:

Ms. codex.
Title from caption title (p. 1).
Pagination: Paper, i (19th-century) + 128 leaves + i (19th century); [i-ii], 1-100, 100, 100-175, 178-179, 176-194, [195-250]; early foliation in ink, modern foliation in pencil, upper outer corners.
Script: Written in cursive script by John Towneley.
Binding: 19th-century calf, blind-tooled, gilt spine title.
Origin: Written at the university in Leiden in 1681 (front flyleaf, p. i).

Local notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Edgar Fahs Smith Memorial Fund.

Penn Provenance:

Offered for sale at auction by Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge among the manuscripts of Towneley Hall, 27-28 June 1883, lot 139 (label on spine).
Sold by Samuel Gedge Rare Books, catalogue 15 (2013), item 122.

Cited as:

UPenn Ms. Codex 1644

Contributor:

Edgar Fahs Smith Memorial Fund.

OCLC:

1030141956

Web link:

Collation model
The Edgar Fahs Smith Memorial Fund Home Page