Segreti : estratti di un libro di C. P., il mese di Novembre, l'anno 1614

Contributor:

Medici, Antonio de', 1576-1621 (compiler); Teniers, David, 1610-1690 (artist); Couché, François-Louis, 1782-1849 (engraver)

Name:

Porta, Giambattista della, approximately 1535-1615

Timespan:

Early works to 1800

Date:

1614

Description:

Extensive collection of alchemical and medical recipes copied and compiled by Antonio de' Medici over a number of years, written on paper of widely varying dimensions. Many items were posted to the compiler and therefore display folds, addresses, and remnants of seals. One such item is a recipe for erections from Giambattista della Porta (f. 100r-103v), posted from Naples. Other areas of interest represented in the collection include glassmaking, magnets, and astrology (horoscope for a birth date in August 1576, probably for Antonio de' Medici, f. 109v). Some leaves previously very fragile due to oxidation; treatment completed in 2023 (Steven Miller Conservation Laboratory, University of Pennsylvania Libraries).

Language:

Italian

Provenance:

Sold by Martayan Lan (New York) to Lawrence J. Schoenberg, May 2002.; Deposit by Lawrence J. Schoenberg and Barbara Brizdle, 2012.; Gift of Barbara Brizdle Schoenberg, 2019.

Relation:

The Lawrence J. Schoenberg and Barbara Brizdle Manuscript Initiative Fund Home Page: http://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017.12/366278

Subject:

Alchemy -- Early works to 1800; Alchemy; Medicine -- Formulae, receipts, prescriptions -- Early works to 1800; Medicine -- Formulae, receipts, prescriptions

Resource Type:

Text

Form/Genre:

manuscripts (documents); codices (bound manuscripts); diagrams; seals (marks); engravings (prints); recipes; Manuscripts, European

Physical Description:

368 leaves : paper; 106-290 x 70-205 mm bound to 320 x 235 mm

Rights:

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/

Notes:

Ms. codex.; Title from title page (f. 3r).; Foliation: Paper, i (18th-century paper) + 368 + i (18th-century paper); earlier pagination in pencil only on pages with writing, upper outer corners; modern foliation in pencil, lower right recto, [1-368]. References in this record are to foliation.; Script: Written in cursive script, by the hand of Antonio de' Medici and many others.; Decoration: Diagrams of laboratory apparatus in ink (f. 139r, 279r); occasional manicules (for example, f. 50r, 59v); late 18th or early 19th-century engraving by François-Louis Couché based on a painting by David Teniers of an alchemist in his laboratory, inside upper cover.; Binding: Contemporary (early 17th-century) heavy cartonato; ink title on spine abraded and illegible; pastedown and flyleaf inside each cover formed from a printed leaf from the geographical index of Lodovico Antonio Muratori's Rerum italicarum scriptores, published in Milan in multiple volumes from 1723 to 1751.; Origin: Collected in Florence in 1614 (title page, f. 3r); component items written in various Italian cities with dates of 1608 (f. 176v); 1610 (f. 180v), 1612 (Giambattista della Porta recipe, f. 102r), 1613 (f. 2r, 22r, 218r, 222v, 226v, 253r, 355r), and 1614 (f. 38r, 69r, 134r).; Italian, with occasional passages in Latin.

Physical Location:

Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Manuscripts, Oversize LJS 448

Collection:

Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection (University of Pennsylvania)