Mellon MS 2, Alchemical miscellany

New Haven, CT, Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Mellon MS 2. Text(s): Alchemical miscellany. Description: ff. 88 - Early, probably 15th century. Undecorated red-dyed hide over beveled wooden boards, four brass edgepieces on each cover attached with brass nails, two brass catches on upper cover, lightly chased brass and leather clasps on lower cover (all of the material of cut sheet-brass), back with six raised bands, repaired and rebacked, with modern leather title label. Used as pastedowns inside upper and lower cover are two leaves from a 14th-century Germanic (perhaps Netherlandish) manuscript on parchment containing plainsong written in Germanic neumes on five-line staves, the text in Gothica textualis formata, large gothic capitals in red or blue, one at top of lower pastedown in black and red slightly decorated. In all the staves but the last on the lower pastedown the center-line is stroked red and bears the clef sign; in the last, the fourth line from the bottom has these indications. - Denis Duveen, acquired from L'Art Ancien; Mellon MS 68, acquired with the Duveen collection. Gift of Paul and Mary Mellon, 1965. - Witten, Laurence C. and Pachella, Richard. Alchemy and the Occult: A Catalogue of Books and Manuscripts from the Collection of Paul and Mary Mellon. Volume Three: Manuscripts, Mellon MS 2.