Sawtre (Johannes)

Tracctatus de lapide philsophico. (In Italian.) Fol. 1 JOANNES SANCTARE [sic]//MONACVS.//10 referio allo Omnipotente dio gratie delle/smisurate operartioni... 2, line 11 ...si sia desideri sapere el/nome del fattore di questa opera, attenda alli/quattro versi infrascritti, attenda alle prime/lettere.../Ignis oblisus abet azot nubi nous edel Sic sunt aut uul tamen rex eque meditaris Os nec alit candens hester uenena sic premes [for'spumans'] Tunc odor obubra niter est hic elice mondi (The first letters of the words in these lines mkes up 'Ioaannes Saute monachus Toonehem'). 2v TVTTI li corpi delle cose tanto perfete... 30, line 2 ... perche nessuna cosa man/ca a chi lo teme et ama. Ff. 30-44 Miscellaneous alchemical receipts. On 44 and 44v, alchemical notes by a difcerent but contemporary hand, with a rough pen-drawing of a still.

Late 16th Century

1 volume 3 bl. ll. + 42[44] ff. + 1 bl. l. 4tp 20 1/2 x 14 cm. Modern vellum binding. Ff. 40 and 43 are wanting.

Purchased 1936.

This work was first printed, in Latin, in the 'Harmoniae inperscrutabilis chemicophilosophicae decas I', published at Frankfort in 1625, and edited by Johann Grasshoff. It was also printed in English by H. P. as one of 'Five treatises of the Philosophers Stone', London 1652. [See Singer: 'Catalogue of Latin and vernacular alchemicl MSS'. Vol. I, p. 193.] Probably extracted from a larger MS. volume. See Note to MS. No. 109 [BACON].

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).