Details

Subjects:

Alchemy -- Early works to 1800.
Alchemy.
Occultism -- Early works to 1800.
Medicine -- Formulae, receipts, prescriptions -- Early works to 1800.
Medicine -- Formulae, receipts, prescriptions.
Occultism.

Form/Genre:

Codices.
Diagrams.
Drawings (visual works)
Prescriptions.
Recipes.
Manuscripts, French.
Manuscripts, European.

Language:

French.

Summary:

Collection of alchemical recipes for medicinal use. Includes introductory sections on the nature of maladies, their causes, and their cures. Also contains five leaves of charts listing ingredients and their properties (f. 8r-13v). Recipes include elixirs for epilepsy or stroke, purgatives, stomachics, remedies for worms, deafness, toothaches, gangrene and a number of powders, oils, syrups, and spirits with detailed information on their creation and application.

Notes:

Ms. codex.
Title from caption title (f. 4r).
Incipit: Le plus celebre remede est ce lui qui prepare la matiere morbifique... (f. 4r).
Foliation: Paper, 116; 1-116, back pastedown numbered 117; contemporary foliation in ink, upper center recto. A number of folios have been cut or torn away.
Layout: Written in 22-24 long lines.
Script: Written in a semi-cursive script by a single hand, with notes by several additional hands.
Decoration: Pen and ink diagrams of alchemical equipment (f. 50r, 69v); drawing of rose, astrological symbols, and pen trials in red ink (inside lower cover); titles, initials, and symbols throughout in red ink.
Binding: 18th-century gilded leather over pasteboard; spine leather is deteriorating and hinges are splitting. Some staining of leaves due to water damage.
Origin: Probably written in France in the second half of the 18th century.

Local notes:

Purchased with support from the B. H. Breslauer Foundation.

Penn Provenance:

Formerly owned by Charles Rainsford (British army officer, fellow of the Royal Society, and alchemist); bequeathed by Rainsford to Hugh Percy, Second Duke of Northumberland.
Owned by the 2nd through 12th Dukes of Northumberland, ms. 573, Alnwick Castle, Northumberland, 1809-2014 (bookplate, f. 1r; stamps throughout, for example, f. 4r).
Sold at auction at Sotheby's (London), 15 July 2014, as part of Lot 411.

Cited as:

UPenn Ms. Codex 1660.

Contributor:

Rainsford, Charles, 1728-1809, former owner.
Northumberland, Hugh Percy, Duke of, 1742-1817, former owner.
Charles Rainsford Collection of Alchemical and Occult Manuscripts (University of Pennsylvania)

OCLC:

897474785

Web link:

Unique at Penn blog post

Access Restriction:

Access to this item is subject to staff review.