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chemistry
Chemistry
The manuscript includes 6 pages of finely-executed diagrams of alchemical furnaces and stills. The recipes include both ingredients and methods. At least a quarter are concerned with the central alchemical processes of transmutation and many involve metals: mainly gold, silver, mercury and the related element of antimony. These concern purification, the extractions of essences and alloying using processes such as melting and calcination (bringing about decomposition at a temperature below melting point). Others describe chemical offshoots from these processes and include practical applications for the manufacture of dyes and pigments, and of materials such as ‘malleable glass’. The medical receipts are not formally separated from the others and are interspersed throughout, as further examples of alchemical and hermetic philosophy. Their ingredients are both chemical (or pharmaceutical) and herbal. In addition to these numerous recipes the manuscript has also been used to copy up more theoretical texts in the alchemical sciences: we find substantial excerpts from the Italian alchemist Bernard of Treviso, from Ramon Lull, from the sixteenth-century Marcello Palingeni (his well-known reflection on the Philosopher’s Stone from his Zodiacus Vitae is reproduced here, see full contents below) and large extracts from the Rosarium philosophorum by the medieval Arnaldus de Villanova. Throughout, there are also many occasional references and allusions which might further illuminate the writer’s context. For example, we find: a transcription of a recipe (for ‘sale armoniaco’) from a manuscript of Theophrastus with a folio number (363), [our p. 67]; a description of ‘Ein Gradier Wasser von Lorenzen Camper[?] wie es dem Römischer Kayser Rudolfo [Rudolf II] übergeben un probiret worden’ [p. 75]; a remedy for gout proved in the city of Augsburg in February/March 1690 [p. 167]; and a recipe for malleable glass demonstrated to the Count of Fiesco in 1679 [p. 187-9]. This is a manuscript compiled over a period of time and the entries are often in a variable ink and slightly variable hand. Whether the latter indicates compilation by several people is debateable. The hand certainly changes as the manuscript moves between German, Latin and Italian, but it is quite possible (indeed probable) that the same writer changed his hand according to the language. Nonetheless there are certainly numerous corrections, amendments and annotations in other and later hands and at least one insertion of materials from elsewhere: the inserted bifolium pp. 193-6 bearing a list of herbal and medical ingredients. The status of the fine illustrations of alchemical furnaces towards the end is also arguable: they are drawn on the same paper-stock but are clearly by another hand to the main text. Variability of condition throughout suggests an oft-consulted and oft-amended text. The likely place of production is Augsburg or at least Southern Germany to judge by the reference on p. 167 and which might explain the presence of German and Italian texts within the same manuscript and perhaps the preponderance of texts of Italian origin in a largely Germanic volume. We have found only a few dated entries, of 1604 (p. 134), 1690 (p. 167) and 1679 (p. 187) and the styles of handwriting suggest writing and compilation around the latter dates. An unfortunate loss is from the central portion [pp. 89-104] of the extract from the Rosarium philosophorum which may have included the well known sequence of hermetical illustrations found in sixteenth-century printed editions. Contents: pp. 1-42: 85 chemical, alchemical and medicinal recipes in German and Italian: to make: aqua fortis (1), shining gypsum (1), gold plating (2), green pigment (2), a good furnace (4), an oil for gout (14); vitrum antimonii (16) red and black pigments (20); pearls, in the manner used by Pope Paul III (22); wine from legno santo (23); solid mercury (35); mercury sublimate (36); red flowers of antimony (39) &c. pp. 42-46: Ex Epistola Comitis Bernardi (Bernard of Treviso) (in German, probably an excerpt from the alchemical text Responsio ad Thomam de Bononia). 46-63: 25 alchemical recipes in German and Latin to make: oil of vitriol [sulphuric acid] (47); essences of antimony (47-8); purifying and preparing metals (49-52); extract from Ramon Lull (54-57); aqua solis (57); Arbor philosophorum (58); calcinatio solis (61 & 62); to make mercury from any metal (62) &c. 64-66: Ex Marcello Palingenis in suo Zodiacus Vitae [In Latin, Book 10, entitled Capricorn this excerpt being lines 180-238, the famous consideration of the Philosopher's Stone]. 66-80: 22 alchemical recipes in German and Latin, including several for processes involving gold. 80-88: Hec sequitia’ sunt ex Valde antique manuscipte excerpta… [fragmentary extract from the Rosarium philosophorum by Arnaldus de Villanova]. 89-104: blanks, on original paper stock, but apparently replacing a portion of the above text previously extracted. 105-109: [conclusion of Rosarium philosophorum]. 108-9 being a table and a list of metals and compounds with their alchemical symbols. 109-160: c. 50 alchemical texts and recipes, mainly in German and Latin, with some Italian, in several hands. Includes a recipe on p, 134 for ‘Ein schöner goldtgrundt’ for illuminating parchment, dated 1604 at head. 161-166: a register of recipes contained in the preceding text, with a continuation in a slightly later hand giving a table of recipes found in the subsequent text. 167: a medicinal recipe for the treatment of gout (‘Podaggra’) used in Augsburg in February 1690. 168-169: Requista. Seu proprietates Mercurii Sorfici, ad sequentem tractatum Elucitatio. 170-172: blank 173-191: Sapientia aperta / Incipit liber Sapientia, followed by c. 10 alchemical recipes and including a sketch diagram of what appears to be the exterior of a large alchemical laboratory. Includes an entry giving a recipe for malleable glass shown to the Conte Fiesco in 1679. 193-196: inserted bifolium, previously folded several times with a list of herbal and medical ingredients in Latin. 197-211: original blanks, followed by a number of inserted later blanks. 213-218: finely executed pen and ink drawings of alchemical furnaces and apparatus, captioned in a neat calligraphic German hand. 219-220: blank. Plus early notes to endpapers, two early inserted slips with manuscript text, 16pp. modern manuscript transcriptions loosely inserted. see full details...
At the time of its publication, Siris was the most popular of the author's many works. Berkeley had observed the use of tar-water among the native Americans and came to regard it as a panacaea in medicine, setting up an apparatus for its manufacture. "He recommends it not only in fevers, diseases of the lungs, cancers, scrofula, throat diseases, apoplexies, chronic disorders of all kinds, but also as a general drink for infants. It strengthens their bodies and sharpens their intellects. It is good for cattle... It is good for all climates, land and sea, for rich and poor, high and low livers, and he had himself drunk a gallon of it in a few hours" (DNB). The Siris is, however, more than just a medical work and the consideration of tar-water led Berkeley into a lengthy chain of reflections on the principles of the universe and of divine providence. see full details...
Having collaborated with Lavoisier on the latter’s pioneering chemical nomenclature and presented some seventeen memoirs to the Academy, the author was already an influential chemist when appointed inspector of dye works and director of the Manufacture Nationale des Gobelins in 1784. The Gobelins had their origins in the workshops of Flemish weavers brought to Paris by Henri IV in 1602 and were formally established by Colbert in 1667 as the “Royal Manufactury of Furnishings to the Crown”. They became the pre-eminent centre for tapestry weaving in Europe In the Éléments de l'art de la teinture Berthollet “endeavored to place the ancient craft of dyeing on a scientific basis by a systematic discussion of its procedures, coupled with an attempt to find an adequate set of theoretical principles to explain the chemical actions involved. His explanation was that, depending on the variable physical conditions of temperature, quantity of solvent employed, and so forth, when a cloth was dyed the reciprocal affinities of the particles of the dye, the mordants, and the cloth itself were responsible for the kind and quality of dyeing. The colors produced were due to the oxidation of the mordant by the atmosphere” (DSB). The British edition appeared in the same year as the French, reflecting the market for such a treatise in a country where textile production was becoming one of the most important national industries. A second British edition appeared at Edinburgh the following year and several reprints appeared in the nineteenth century, presumably a measure of the popularity and utility of this scientific manual of dyeing in the British industrial revolution. see full details...
