Compendium of alchemical tracts

Compendium of alchemical tracts

Contents

1. ff. 1r-2v Johannes Pauper, Elixir vitae orlom [sic] et Rosarius, in verse

f. 1r In fayr mountayne our stone doth growe ... f. 2v Given by the vertue of the holy ghost. Et sic est finis sit [sic] laudes Deo gratias.

2. ff. 3r-33r Johannes Pauper, prose commentary on the previous treatise

f. 3r Ortolon et Rosarius. I am movid in my mynde to publish ... f. 33r ... and so yealding to all minerall thinges pertayning to. Sol. of Luna.

3. ff. 33v-36r Richard Carpenter, alchemical poem

f. 33v Nota Orlon et Rosarius. Of the sonne take the light ... f. 36r Betwene the huband and his wyfe Espoused with the spright of lyfe. Laudes Deo.

On the work and identity of Richard Carpenter, see Anke Timmermann, Verse and Transmutation: A Corpus of Middle English Alchemical Poetry (Leiden: BRILL, 2013), pp. 40-44.

4. ff. 36v-45r Anonymous, alchemical poem.

f. 36v In Nomine omnibus sanctis. Now take in the name of God of our pure Sulfer ... f. 45r ... Et una res Vilis etc. finis. Ffinis. Laudes Deo dicam per secula.

f. 45v blank

5. ff. 46r-59r Johannes Pauper, Breviloquium

f. 46r Breviloquium Johannis Pauperis de Lapide Philosophorum. Reverend Geber witnesseth In the 5 book the 12 Chapter ... f. 59r ... to the which I pray Jesus of his endlesse grace bring to us all. Amen. Explicit Breviloquium Johannis Pauperis de Lapide Philosophorum.

f. 59r blank, manuscript then wrongly foliated, continues at f. 61r

6. ff. 61r-77r John of Rupecissa, De consideratione quintae essentiae

f. 61r Jesus. De quinta essentia. Thou shalt understand the noble science of the ould philossophers ... f. 77r ... doble him with/Mercury crude. Deo gratias. Finis.

Mid 17th Century

1 volume 1 l. + 76 [wrongly foliated 77] ff. + 1 bl. l. 4to . 21 x 17 cm. Original vellum binding. Title in red and black, some headings and underlingings in red. . Illustrated with several rough pen-drawings in red and black of alchemical apparatus, etc.

Purchased at Sotheby's (Hodgkin Sale) 12/5/1914, Lot 18.

Nos. 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 are recorded in Black's Catalogue of the Ashmolean MSS. No. 1418. III, 101-166, though the contents does not exactly correspond; while No. 6 is not assigned to Johannes de Rupescissa, but left anonymous.

Catalogue description modified in 2014. For original description, see 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).

From the John Eliot Hodgkin Library.