Manuscript fragment on paper of extracts from Laudabile sanctum. There follows on ff. 1r-7v an extended series of longer and shorter alchemical recipes and procedures, probably including excerpts from standard sources, a passage on transmutation, a brief account of the planets, etc., often with marginal captions. With a poem in English.
Description:
Binding: Parchment wrapper made from a bifolium of a late 13th-century French (or possibly English?) canon law manuscript written by two hands, one of them using a classical Littera parisiensis, the other slightly more rounded, the writing partly scraped away on what is now the front cover of the wrapper, the outer side of the lower cover with an inscription in a very large hand which has not been read., Script: Written by a single hand, very small (sometimes minute) and mostly very neat, using a good cursive italic for the Latin passages, and a secretary hand for the English, both sloping somewhat to the right., and Watermark: an extended hand with a five-pointed star extending on a stem from the middle finger, a quatrefoil (?) at the wrist, which is sharply cut off, the fingers partly articulated, of the type of Briquet 11341 and following, but more refined.
Subject (Topic):
Alchemy--Early works to 1800, English poetry--Early modern, 1500-1700, Formulas, recipes, etc, Latin poetry, Medieval and modern, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, and Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library
Manuscript on paper of a collection of alchemical texts, including works by Rasis, Roger Bacon, and Hermes. Though the Bacon text and one other are early practical alchemies, the contents are mainly speculative in character.
Description:
Binding: Modern. Parchment, cut from a leaf of a very large manuscript, probably a lectionary, written in a Rotunda antiquior hand, Italian, 12th century; writing on outer surface erased, printed paper label on backstrip., Book and chapter headings in red, rubrication, capitals stroked yellow, larger initials painted in red or blue with tracery ornament in the contrasting color (all decoration probably by the scribe; red headings in the scribe's hand, all other red decoration with ink of apparently identical composition)., Denis Duveen, acquired from Joseph Martini, 1938; Mellon MS 34, acquired with the Duveen collection. Gift of Paul and Mary Mellon, 1965., and Script: Written by one scribe in a very neat and regular prehumanistic hand.
Subject (Name):
Bacon, Roger, 1214?-1294., Hermes, Trismegistus., and Rāzī, Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakarīyā, 865?-925?
Subject (Topic):
Alchemy--Early works to 1800., Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven., and Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library.
Manuscript on paper containing 1) A short group of alchemical recipes. 2) Fasciculus chimicus, a title page and dedication dated 1620, possibly from a printed book, not clearly related to the following matter. 3) Sixty-five pen and watercolor emblematical drawings of alchemical processes occurring in flasks, with brief captions. 4) Artephius, Liber secretus. 5) Philipp Muller, De mercurio. 6) Christophorus Van(n), Notes on processes, one dated Rome, 1702.
Description:
Binding: Original binding of parchment over pasteboards, flaps at the fore-edges, six thongs sewn through hinges, flat back with early lettering in ink "Artefius [flourish]," speckled edges; the binding resembles that of MS 61 and is of almost identical height., Contains a series of drawings with symbolic depictions of alchemical processes taking place within flasks, originally extending to sixty-five, of which a few are now wanting. The series closes with some additional drawings of apparatus, which parallel those seen first in MS 50; see also MSS 52, 54, 71, 86, and 110., and Modern foliation in pencil begins with f. 2. However, f. 2 is the front free endpaper.
Subject (Name):
Artephius. and Müller, Philipp, b. 1585.
Subject (Topic):
Alchemy--Early works to 1800., Formulas, recipes, etc., and Illumination of books and manuscripts--Early works to 1800.
Manuscript on paper of a collection of extracts from various alchemical and medical writers. Includes John of Rupescissa, Liber de confectione veri lapidis; and Arnold of Villanova, De perfectione operis alkimie. Compiled by one Johannes Baptista F., along with Mellon MSS 34 and 36.
Description:
Binding: Original parchment over pasteboards with remains of thong ties; probably a home-made binding utilizing used parchment (show-through of writing visible) from a document, plain edges. Labeled in ink in the hand of the compiler on the backstrip: "Medicina astrologia." Loose in cover and wormed., Denis Duveen; Mellon MS 23, acquired with the Duveen collection. Gift of Paul and Mary Mellon, 1965., In Latin, Italian, and Spanish., and Script: Written by one or perhaps two hands in mid-16th-century italic, sometimes of excellent, professional quality, but often ranging from fairly good to extremely bad and careless.
Subject (Name):
Arnaldus, de Villanova, -1311. and Johannes, de Rupescissa, ca. 1300-ca. 1365.
Subject (Topic):
Alchemy--Early works to 1800., Italian poetry--16th century., Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven., and Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library.
Blank pages not digitized. and Imperfect: some pages mutilated with loss of text.
Subject (Topic):
Alchemy--Early works to 1800, Formulas, recipes, etc, Herbs--Early works to 1800, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, and Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library
Giovanni del Virgilio, fl. 1319 Ovid, 43 B.C.-17 or 18 A.D
Published / Created:
[between 1450 and 1500]
Call Number:
Beinecke MS 758
Image Count:
110
Resource Type:
Archives or Manuscripts
Abstract:
Manuscript on paper of Iohannes de Virgilio (Giovanni del Virgilio, 1300-1350), Allegoriae librorum Ovidii Metamorphoseos, in prose and verse.
Description:
Binding: Fifteenth century. Brown leather (sheepskin?) over cardboard (replacing worm-eaten wooden boards), blind-tooled with a frame of fillets and rolls; in the central panel a motif made of small rhomboid stamps. Parchment front pastedown. Remnants or marks of four clasps attached to the front cover., Copied by one hand in extremely small Humanistica Semitextualis Libraria. In the poetical sections the majuscules at the opening of each verse are set apart., Headings (“liber secundus” etc.) in clumsy Capitalis (several times erroneous: “LIBE”). Space for a 2-line initial left free on the first line of f. 1r, although this is not the beginning of the text., and Watermark: tower, var. Piccard, Turmwasserzeichen 611-613; var. Briquet, 15911?.
Subject (Name):
Giovanni del Virgilio,--fl. 1319
Subject (Topic):
Allegories, Latin literature, Medieval and modern, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, and Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library
Manuscript on paper of Ptolemy, Almagest in a Latin translation by Gerard of Cremona. With Calendar with computistical information, January through December.
Subject (Name):
Gherardo,--da Cremona,--1113 or 14-1187 and Ptolemy,--2nd cent
Subject (Topic):
Astronomy, Ancient, Calendars, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, Mathematics, Ancient, and Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library
America. pars 4. Latin, Americae pars qvarta, Insignis & admiranda historia, and Insignis et admiranda historia
Description:
2nd. ed. Cf. Chruch. T.p. signed: A.E. Arabic numbers on plates. Plate XI with catchword "Indi.", Engraved t.p., Imperfect: wormed with some loss of text. Map (32 x 43 cm, on sheet 34 x 45 cm) bound following leaf R6., Includes Urbain Chauveton's Latin translation of bk. 1 of Benzoni's Historia del Mondo Nuovo, with additional notes., Map: Occidentalis Americae partis, vel earum regionium quas Christophorus Columbus primu[m] detexit ... praesertim verò ex Hieronyni Benzoni (qui totis XIIII annis eas provincias diligenter perlustravit) historia, conflata & in aes incisa à Theodoro de Bry Leod' anno MDXCIIII. Scale not given., and Signatures: 2):(⁴, ²2):(⁴, A-Q⁴ R⁶, ²A-E⁴ F⁶ (R6, ²F6 blank)
Publisher:
Typis Ioannis Feyrabend : Impensis Theodori de Bry,
Subject (Geographic):
America--Discovery and exploration--Maps--Early works to 1800., America--Discovery and exploration--Spanish--Early works to 1800., America--Early accounts to 1600., America--Maps--Early works to 1800., Latin America--Description and travel--Early works to 1800., Latin America--History--To 1600., and Latin America--Maps--Early works to 1800.
Subject (Name):
Benzoni, Girolamo, 1519-1572? Historia del Mondo Nuovo. Book 1. Latin., Bry, Theodor de, 1528-1598., Chauveton, Urbain, -approximately 1616., and Feyerabend, Johann, 1550-1599, printer.