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Harley MS 3469
- Record Id:
- 040-001616146
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-001616146
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000001515.0x00019a
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 3469
- Title:
- Splendor Solis
- Scope & Content:
-
Content:
The manuscript contains the alchemical treatise Splendor Solis.
Decoration:
22 full page miniatures of alchemical subjects in colours and gold with full borders. Very large calligraphic initials in gold. Capitals marked in gold.
The subjects of the miniatures are:
f. 2r: The Arms of the art.
f. 4r: A scholar of alchemy holding a glass flask filled with a golden liquid; an inscription on a scroll attached to the flask reads 'Eamus Quesitum Quasuor Elemementorum naturas.'
f. 7r: A knight standing on a double fountain symbolizing an alchemical transmutation, holding a shield inscribed with words reading: 'Ex duabus acquis unam facite Qui quæritis Sole et Lu nam facere. et date bibere inimico vero Et uidebitis eum mortuum Deinde de aqua terram facite. Et Lapi de multiplicastis'.
f. 10r: A royal couple; a queen holding a scroll with an inscription reading 'Lac Viramium', and a king holding a sceptre with a scroll inscribed with words 'Coagula Maaschculium', and the moon and the sun above them.
f. 13v: Mines of silver and gold with miners working in them; below Esther before Ahasuerus.
f. 15r: Philosophical Tree with three generations of Aeneas’ family: Aeneas, his father Anchises, and his son Silvius up in the tree.
f. 16v: A young and old king.
f. 18r: A swampman and an angel.
f. 19v: A hermaphrodite with two heads.
f. 20v: Severing the head of a king's dismembered body.
f. 21v: A man being boiled in a cauldron; an illustration of Ovid's tale in which a wise old man, searching rejuvenation, has himself cut to pieces and boiled.
f. 23r: The personification of Saturn in his chariot; below people engaged in various physical works, and a child with dragon in an alchemical flask.
f. 24r: The personification of Jupiter; below three birds in a flask.
f. 25r: The personification of Mars in his chariot; below people engaged in war and a flask with a triple-headed bird.
f. 26r: The personification of the Sun in his chariot, below people engaged in various physical activities and an alchemical flask with a dragon inside.
f. 27r: The personification of Mercury in his chariot, drawn by two roosters, below a queen inside an alchemical flask and a city with people engaged in artistic and academic activities or trades.
f. 28r: The personification of Venus in her chariot; below people engaged in festive activities and a flask containing a peacock.
f. 29r: The personification of the Moon; below people engaged in hunting and fishing, and a flask containing a red king.
f. 30v: The black sun.
f. 31v: Children's plays.
f. 32v: Women’s work.
f. 33v: The red sun.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-001616146", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 3469: Splendor Solis" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-001616146 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 3469 : Splendor Solis - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[3470]/040-001616146
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_3469 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- German
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1582
- End Date:
- 1582
- Date Range:
- 1582
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
- Restrictions to access apply please consult British Library staff
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment.
Dimensions: 320 x 220 mm (text space: 190 x 150 mm).
Foliation: ff. 1* + 2* + 3* + 49 (+ 2 unfoliated parchment flyleaves at the beginning and 2 at the end; ff. 1*-3* and f. 49 are parchment flyleaves; modern paper interleaves are inserted in front of each miniature).
Script: Gothic.
Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house binding. Red leather with gold tooling; endpapers of pink silk; gilt edges.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
Germany.
Provenance:
Charles II, king of England (b. 1630, d. 1685): a manuscript comparable to Harley 3469 was seen by John Evelyn in the library of Charles II at Whitehall Palace, 2 Sept. 1680, being described by him as follows: 'There is also the Processe of the Philosoph[e]rs greate Elixir, represented in divers pieces of incomparable miniature; but the Discourse is in high-Dut[c]h & a MSS' (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 102).
Johann Cyprianus (b. 1642, d. 1723), German theologian: inscribed with his name (f. 3r*).
Mrs Priemer, niece of Johann Cyprianus: inscribed with her name by Edward Harley (f. 3r*).
The Harley Collection, formed by Robert Harley (b. 1661, d. 1724), 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, and Edward Harley (b. 1689, d. 1741), 2nd earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts. Edward harley's note: 'This fine book was given to me by my [erased] in 1721 was bought of Mrs Priemer who was niece to famous mr Cyprianus whose book it was' (f. 3r*).
Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta, née Cavendish Holles (b. 1694, d. 1755) during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (b. 1715, d. 1785), duchess of Portland; the manuscripts were sold by the Countess and the Duchess in 1753 to the nation for £10,000 (a fraction of their contemporary value) under the Act of Parliament that also established the British Museum; the Harley manuscripts form one of the foundation collections of the British Library.
- Administrative Context:
-
Origin: Germany
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 3469.
Salomon Trismosin, Splendor Solis, translated by Julius Kohn (London, Kegan Paul, 1920) [an English translation of Harley 3469 with black and white plates of the miniatures].
Eric John Holmyard, Alchemy (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1957), p. 158, pls. 30-32.
Deutsche Handschriften in England, ed. by Robert Priebsch, 2 vols in 1 vol (Hildesheim: Olms, 1979, first publ. Erlangen: Junge, 1896-1901), II: Das British Museum mit einem anhang über die Guildhall-Bibliothek, no. 26.
Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 102, 122, 278.
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Page: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), no. 212.
Joseph L. Henderson and Dyane N. Sherwood, Transformation of the Psyche: The Symbolic Alchemy of theSplendor Solis (Hove: Brunner-Routledge, 2003) [includes an English translation of Harley 3469, and colour plates of the miniatures].
Jörg Völlnagel, Splendor solis oder Sonnenglanz: Studien zu einer alchemistischen Bilderhandschrift (Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2004).
Sandy Feinstein, 'Horsing Around: Framing Alchemy in the Manuscript Illustrations of the Splendor Solis', Sixteenth Century Journal, 37.3 (2006), 673-99.
Joe Flatman, Ships and Shipping in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2009), pls 115, 116.
Splendor Solis (Barcelona: M. Moleiro, 2010) [facsimile with a commentary volume].
Jörg Völlnagel, 'Harley MS. 3469: Splendor Solis or Splendour of the Sun – A German Alchemical Manuscript', Electronic British Library Journal (2011), article 8.
- Exhibitions:
- A History of Magic, (online), 31 July 2017-
Alchemy: The Great Art, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin, 6 April 2017 - 23 July 2017 - Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)