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Credit
Collection of alchemical works and receipts, in French and Latin (Miscellanea Alchemica XX). Public Domain Mark. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Collection of three alchemical works by Jean Saulnier, Johannes de Rupescissa and Arnoldus de Villanova, with the addition of some alchemical receipts. The first work is in French, the remainder in Latin.
Contents:
1. ff. 2r-16r: Jean Saulnier, De la transmutation des metaux, abridged.
f. 2r [5 lines of Incipit struck through and illegible.] (Begins) O filz je comme pere a la personne qui soit sur des viuants que jayme mieulx baille ceste petite doctrine la quelle vivants uew jayme mieulx baiille ceste petite doctrine la quelle jay scripte de ma main ...
f. 16r: Explicit: Ce script faict lan de grace mil iiiiO. xxx En le septieme jour du moys de may. Enfin signe [word obliterated] J Saulnier. Amen deo gratias. Amen deo gratias. Cui prodest homini si totum mundum lucretur. Et anima eius detrimentum In ruturum pasciatur. Cum quid agas prudentes. Respice finem.
2. f. 16v-17v: Alchemical receipts in Latin, including one 'Pro memoria'.
3. ff. 18r-71v: John of Rupecissa, De consideratione quintae essentiae, first 10.5 chapters wanting.
f. 18r: [Capitulum XI, second half] Aliud est ex secretis narrari extractionem quinte essentie ab omnibus rebus comestibilibus ...
f. 71v: Explicit: ... et quantitas auri potabilis debet esse 1. Et de aliqua aqua 1.
4. ff. 72r-100v: Arnold of Villanova and/or his circle (his nephew Peter of Villanova?), Liber de aquis, in a version revised by anonymous between 28 October 1332 and April 1333: see A. Calvet, 'Qu'est-ce que le corpus alchimique attribué à Maître Arnaud de Villeneuve', in Actes de la 'II Trobada Internacional d'estudis sobre Arnau de Vilanova' , ed. by J. Perarnau (Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans, 2005), pp. 435-56 (pp. 444, 448, 452).
f. 72r: Incipit liber de aquis secundum duodecim signa. In sole et luna existentia. Et secundum duodecim partes corporis humani principales. A doctissimo viro magistro arnaldo de villanova feliciter factus. Humanum corpus cum sit compositum ...
f. 100v: Explicit: ... Finis Repertorii huius voluminis.
Produced at Aix.
On paper; 100 leaves; collation: 1 single leaf, 116, 2-712, 812-1 (wanting last leaf), all without quire signatures or catchwords; old foliation '1-94' in brown ink in upper margin, repeating nos 4-7 and omitting last leaf. 203 x 147 mm. Written in a small current French Gothic script by four hands (ff. 1r-16r, 16v-17v, 18r-96r, 96v-100v respectively), 37-42 lines to a page. Headings, paragraph marks and some capitals in red. A table of contents in an early 16th-century hand in Latin on f. 1r, below a rough pen-drawing of a 'Vas congelationis'. Marginal nota signs in brown ink in forms of maniculae (passim) are similar to the annotations (ff. 3r, 9r), nota signs (passim) and a decorated bracket (f. 21r) added by the same hand in MS. 418. Modern limp-parchment binding made of a leaf from an early 14th-century manuscript of an unidentified work on philosophy; first leaf slightly damaged, corners and margins frayed, leaves somewhat stained throughout.
The manuscript was formerly bound as first in a composite volume together with MSS 707 [Rupescissa] and 418 [Liber de aquis] (in this order), as suggested by the list of contents on f. 1r, and confirmed by the old foliation in a 16th-century hand running consecutive in the upper margin of rectos in all three manuscripts (faint in MSS 707 and 418).
The manuscripts were separated into three volumes some time in the late 19th or early 20th century, and bound in wrappers made of parchment leaves from different medieval manuscripts.
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