Manuscript on paper of a private compilation. The two well known works entered into the codex deal with magical properties ascribed to certain gems and the supernatural significance of the carving of stones. Together with these formal texts are found other extremely varied materials: procedures for restoring wine which has suffered various accidents, for making glass of different colors, for the early ripening of grapes, for making an ass bray loudly, for frightening dogs, and so forth
Description:
In Latin and Italian., Watermark: unidentified flower-petal., Script: Probably written by a single hand, employing a Gothico antiqua on ff. 1-11r, with a less formal treatment of the same elsewhere, and more cursive writing for the passages in Italian; the writing relatively careful at the beginning, progressively less so until the end., Red ink for most headings, red capitals and paragraph marks, except on f. 11v-12r and 16v-17r, which are without color., Lower margins affected by damp throughout and partly repaired with blank paper., and Binding: Nineteenth century. Paper boards, more recent gilt-stamped label on backstrip.
Manuscript on paper of the following mystical or speculative alchemies translated into French: Arnold of Villanova, Rosarius; Albertus Magnus, Compositum de compositis; and Ramon Lull, Clavicula. Alchemies in Latin by Raymundus Gaufridi, Roger Bacon (?), Nicholas, Johannes Pauper, John of Rupescissa, and the Duc de Berry (?). Also includes a long series of wholly practical procedures and recipes
Description:
In French and Latin., Script: Written by one scribe in a remarkably small and neat cursive gothic hand., No headlines, no color, no decoration, spaces left for some capitals with guide letters, a few drawings in the text or in margins., and Binding: Nineteenth century. Marbled paper boards with diced calf back, the backstrip in compartments with horizontal gilt fillets, lines of gilt small tools bordering the false bands, title label in the second compartment from the top gilt-lettered "REGNAULT". Early, probably original green edges. Hinges of the binding repaired.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Topic):
Alchemy, Formulas, recipes, etc, Glass painting and staining, Technique, and Manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscript on paper of a group of shorter works by Christopher of Paris (pseudonym), probably a Venetian alchemist. With John of Rupescissa, De consideratione quinte essentie. Also includes recipes for making blue pigments and a procedure for etching a design on an iron surface
Description:
In Italian and Latin., Watermarks: 1) anchor with ring atop the shank, all within a circle; 2) plain and ill-drawn anchor with thick flukes, the top of the shank forming a small, neat cross with the short stock. Both probably Italian papers, not directly comparable to the varieties illustrated by Briquet., Script: Written by a single scribe in a late humanistic cursive hand sloping slightly to the right., No headlines, headings and some capitals in pale red., and Binding: Sixteenth century. Brown calf, the covers blind-ruled to a rectangular pattern, the large center rectangle diagonally ruled to a lozenge pattern, a single quatrefoil impressed in blind in each of the rectangles and lozenges so formed, edges partly renewed and rebacked in the style of the period of the binding with compartments formed by three double raised bands, a gold stamped title label in the second compartment from top reading: "CHRISTOPHE | DE PARIS | - | RUPESCISSA | MANUSCRIPTS | ITALY | 15TH C". The endpapers are modern insertions, though of old paper, and the binding, while of the period of the manuscript, probably had no original connection with this codex.
Manuscript on paper of an experimental alchemical compilation, devoted to laboratory procedures
Description:
In German and Latin., Script: Partly written by F.F. Weichenhaan in a clear, sometimes hasty cursive sloping to the right, in Fraktur for the passages in German; the remainder written by Anna Susanna Lieber in a rather loose and pointed Fraktur sloping to the right., Watermarks: Watermarks of the smaller papers at edges and cut, not identified; the paper folded in quarto with a decidely brownish tint and a large, faint watermark in the folds, not identified., Light to very dark brown inks, no color, a few sketches of apparatus in the text. No catchwords, no signatures., Compiled about 1743 by F.F. Weichenhaan, partly from materials written about 1705 by Anna Susanna Lieber., and Binding: Old paper boards with parchment back, a title lettered in brown ink by a modern hand in gothic letters on the backstrip, plain edges.
Manuscript on parchment containing emblematical drawings related to horology and astrology, and astrological tables, each section opening with an elaborate title page
Description:
In Latin, Hebrew, and Greek., Script: Written epigraphically and always with great calligraphic skill in a variety of styles by a single practiced hand, possibly the same which executed the drawings., Each page of the manuscript has a pen-drawn border on the recto side, containing an emblematical drawing, or complex calendrical or horological drawing, executed in pen and heightened with gold and silver., and Binding: Original calf binding, now rather deteriorated, the sides very elaborately gold-tooled in a multiple rectangle pattern, the large innermost rectangle with a series of circles containing floral ornaments, similar half-circles at the edges, the back in compartments with floral decoration; marbled endpapers, plain edges.
In English., Script: Written in a careful cursive hand sloping slightly to the right in a single column 170 x 110 mm without bordering lines or ruling. the text has been partly corrected by another hand and with significant marginalia throughout by this hand in inks of different hues., Watermarks: Paper watermarked with a crowned coat of arms, probably a Dutch paper not certainly identified., Binding: English binding of diced brown Russia leather, a border of gilt dots around the edges of the covers, inside and out, the backstrip in compartments similarly treated, original title label on second compartment from top gold-lettered: "Anonimo Manuscritto di un Vero Adepto." Plain edges. Hinges and corners repaired., Tome 1: 1 smaller leaf 220 x 140 mm inserted after first leaf of index., and Tome 2: 1 smaller leaf 190 x 112 mm inserted after page 157.
"Copy of a room in the Fleet Prison; Tom sits at a table, to left, on which is a rejection letter from John Rich to whom he has submitted a play; his wife clenches her fists, the gaoler asks for garnish money and a boy asks payment for a tankard of ale; to left, Sarah Young has fainted and is being administered smelling salts by one woman while another slaps her hand, her child clings to her skirt; she is supported by an older man with a beard who has dropped a sheet containing a scheme for paying the national debt (a reference to such a scheme put forward by Hogarth's father); in the background an alchemist works at a forge."--British Museum online catalogue
Alternative Title:
Rake's progress. Plate 7
Description:
Title from text engraved above image., Verses, attributed to John Hoadly, below image in three columns, four lines each: His hours of joy are fled with rapid speed, And scenes of anguish in a jail succeed ... Can his person from restraint enlarge., The seventh of eight prints in a series; all are copies of the first states of Hogarth's plates with new verses in the columns below the image; copies were made with Hogarth's consent in 1735. See Paulson, R. Hogarth's graphic works (3rd ed.), page 90., and "Plate 7."--Lower right below design.
Publisher:
Published with the consent of Mr. William Hogarth by Tho. Bakewell
Parchment and paper codex, ff. 87 of which f. 1-3 and 6-19 are of paper, the remainder of parchment, with modern pencil foliation throughout. and Personal commonplace book combining skillful drawings of apparatus, alchemical texts in German vernacular with noteworthy literary character--some of them in verse--and numerous practical procedures.
Description:
Binding: Nineteenth century. Straight-grained black morocco, gilt single-line perimetric border for each cover and spine, gilt dentelles, and border of the same tools at head and foot of spine, modern tan leather spine label, with legend: HARTUNG V. HOFF VADE MECUM MANUSCRIPT AUSTRIA 1557, Denis Duveen, acquired from Thomas Heller (bookseller), New York, 1949; Mellon MS 71, acquired with the Duveen collection. Gift of Paul and Mary Mellon, 1965., and Script: Written in a small, neat gothic cursive, additions in a neat italic hand and a rather irregular and sometimes scrawling cursive gothic, both perhaps about 1625.