Skip to content
Libra Esoterica

[Collection of alchemical works on distillation and fermentation]

Author not recorded

  • First published:
  • 18th century
  • Language: French
  • Content type: ManuscriptPrimary source
Read free

Description

Description from Colenda Digital Repository — University of Pennsylvania Libraries (opens in a new tab)

Collection of works on distillation, fermentation, and other chemistry-related procedures divided into sections according to vegetable (p. 1), animal (p. 141), or mineral (p. 163). The first section includes general discussion of chemistry and the history of fermentation (p. 77) with a portion devoted to beer (p. 81) as well as practical instructions for making tinctures and spirits of different plant substances such as dragon's blood (p. 119) and rosemary (p. 23) and the preparation of cocoa butter (p. 37). The second section includes subjects such as coagulation (p. 142), the distillation of egg whites (p. 144) and deer horn (p. 152), and the properties of milk (p. 143). The third section encompasses discussion of substances such as sea salt, antimony, gold, silver, mercury, arsenic, and amber. Also includes a detailed list of contents at the beginning (p. i).

Provenance

Why this book is in the catalog

Included because retained bibliographic metadata links this work to Alchemy and Hermeticism.

  • Alchemy and Hermeticism

    Controlled discovery queries from colenda matched “Alchemy”. Retained metadata contains “Alchemy” in the subject metadata and “alchemist” in the cataloging notes.

    • “Alchemy”· via Colenda Digital Repository — University of Pennsylvania Libraries
    • “Alchemy”· in subject
    • “alchemist”· in cataloging note

Membership records how this book met the catalog’s discovery criteria — relevance to a tradition, not a judgment of the book’s claims.

Read & download

Free, public copies reported by our sources. Links open the source directly.

Not yet in passage search

Pro research answers quote indexed passages. Ask the library to index this book’s public text.

marks a direct file download. Rights vary by country; each source states its own terms.

Buy or borrow

No ISBN on record, so the Amazon link searches by title and author. WorldCat shows libraries near you that hold a copy.

Editions

One edition cataloged here.

University of Pennsylvania digitized manuscript

157 leaves : paper ; 311 x 207 (299 x 162) mm bound to 321 x 221 mm; Binding: Contemporary parchment.; French.; Layout: Written in 26-38 long lines.; Ms. codex.; Origin: Written in France[?] in the second half of the 18th century.; Pagination: Paper, iv (contemporary paper) + 157 + i (contemporary paper); [vi], 1-61, [iii], 62-140, [i], 141-162, [ii], 163-185, 187-303; contemporary pagination in ink, modern pagination in pencil, upper outer corners.; Purchased with support from the B. H. Breslauer Foundation.; Script: Written in a cursive script by what appears to be a single hand.; Title supplied by cataloger.

1750—French—Public download

Subjects

4 subject headings

Identifiers & provenance

How this record was assembled, and the authority identifiers it carries.

Identifiers

Colenda
  • ark:/81431/p3fb4wn46

Cataloged from

Cataloging notes

  • Colenda collection: Charles Rainsford Collection of Alchemical and Occult Manuscripts (University of Pennsylvania)
  • Penn Libraries catalog identifier: 9962935303503681
  • Physical location: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Manuscripts, Oversize Ms. Codex 1671
  • Provenance: Formerly owned by Charles Rainsford (British army officer, fellow of the Royal Society, and alchemist); bequeathed by Rainsford to Hugh Percy, Second Duke of Northumberland.; Northumberland, Hugh Percy, Duke of, 1742-1817, former owner.; Owned by the 2nd through 12th Dukes of Northumberland, ms. 582, Alnwick Castle, Northumberland, 1809-2014 (bookplate, inside upper cover; stamps throughout).; Rainsford, Charles, 1728-1809, former owner.; Sold at auction at Sotheby's (London), 15 July 2014, as part of Lot 411.
  • Rights: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0
Catalog id
colenda:81431-p3fb4wn46
Edition coverage
Colenda source record
Retrieved