Mithologie

Mithologie hermétique. Journal pour la coction de la pièrre (Incomplete). Illustrated with small marginal pen-drawings of alchemical apparatus, etc. and symbolic figures. The first part of this MS. (48 pp.) is a commentary on Antoine Joseph Pernéty's 'Fables égyptiennes et grècques dévoilées' which was first published in 1758. The remainder of the MS. is part of a diary by an unnamed working alchemist, with full details, of a process which had already lasted five years. The first page (numbered 81) is headed 'Cinquième de mon journal pour la coction de la pierre finy. Commencement de la 6e année depuis le 8e May 1767 où la fin doit nous conduire au Cap de bonne Espérance.' [Cf. also MS. No. 3628 [More (H.) Explication]. The last entry (p. 135) is dated 3 March 1769. Pasted on a fly-leaf at the beginning of the volume is the top half of a sheet of quarto note-paper, dated St. Florentin 1756, containing part of a letter to the author of this MS. from which it appears that he was the owner of a 'Manufacture de fayance'. The verso of this scrap contains a fragment of the 'Journal' dated 28 September 1767. On the same fly-leaf is a holograph note by Frederick Hendriks referring to the MS.

1767-1769

1 volume 48 pp. + pp. 81-135. folio. 31 × 21 cm. Modern half-morocco binding.

Purchased at Sotheby's (Hendrik's Sale) 11/11/1909, Lot 264.

Database description transcribed from S.A.J. Moorat, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts on Medicine and Science in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library (London: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1962-1973).