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"ATHANORS. APOTHECARY-ALCHEMIST'S MANUSCRIPT.
See original version (French)
1
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"ATHANORS. APOTHECARY-ALCHEMIST'S MANUSCRIPT.
See original version (French)
Estimate
€1,500 - €2,000
Voluntary lot
Description
"ATHANORS. APOTHECARY-ALCHEMIST'S MANUSCRIPT.
Curious little manuscript by an apothecary, alchemist or practising engineer.
S.l.n.n. (France or Italy, late 16th-early 17th century).
Containing notes and recipes and illustrated with numerous drawings of athanors and distillation apparatus.
In-12 oblong, (130) ff. on fine laid paper. Soft contemporary sewn vellum, double cold fillet framing the boards (numerous wear defects, dampstaining, partly unbound quires, a few leaves detached, worm damage at the joints, spine missing, vellum soiled and slightly shrunken). Written in what appears to be Renaissance Middle French, it contains 72 silent drawings in sepia ink, 15 blank pages and 43 handwritten pages in fairly fine handwriting, sometimes in lightened ink.
The manuscript can be read in 2 ways: on the one hand the series of technical drawings, and on the other the handwritten text in fine, difficult handwriting, divided into paragraphs with "headings", approximately 16-17 lines per page, and mixing French, Latin and possibly a few terms of foreign origin (Provençal? Italian?). The whole work is reminiscent of a work or travel diary belonging to a Renaissance practitioner: doctor, apothecary, distiller or alchemist-engineer.
The drawings, which are silent, depict what appear to be various devices and instruments: dishes, retorts, matras, stills, distilling or muffle furnaces, as well as what could be complex heating and fractional distillation devices. Some of the more unusual sketches could be technical or military in nature, such as a cannon-lifting system. The whole has an aesthetic and mysterious quality, perhaps unintentionally and in retrospect.
The text, for its part, seems to contain various recipes and procedures, for example what appears to be a preparation for counterfeiting musk, reminiscent of certain 16th and 17th century treatises on perfumery and cosmetics.
This manuscript could be compared to a rare artefact made by a practitioner at the end of the Renaissance, in a tradition that could evoke certain works and engravings by Georgius Agricola, Jacques Besson and Johann Kunckel.
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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