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Sloane MS 2560
- Record Id:
- 040-002114929
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002112337
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000653.0x0000f3
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100165172651.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Sloane MS 2560
- Title:
- Alchemical compilation
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r-18r: Donum Dei (also known as the Pretiosissimum donum Dei). The beginning of this copy has the same initial paragraphs as found in another popular alchemical treatise, the Rosarium (according to the 1550 printed edition).
Decoration:
Eleven painted miniatures, the first accompanied by a large decorated initial with foliate extensions into the margin, in colours and gold (The manuscript has 11 of the 12 images that commonly accompany the Donum Dei).
The subjects of the miniatures are as follows:
f. 5r: King and queen with a flask
f. 6r: Red king and white queen in a flask
f. 7r: The chemical union of the red king and white queen.
f. 8r: Black flask.
f. 9r: Black flask.
f. 10r: Black flask with worms.
f. 11r: Black flask with a man inside.
f. 12r: Black and white flask.
f. 13r: Flask with a flower inside.
f. 14r: A queen or Rosa alba (white rose) in a flask.
f. 15r: A king or Rosa rubea (red rose) in a flask.
One large decorated initial with a full foliate border, in colours and gold (f. 1r).
Smaller initials in plain red, blue or gold (a few with red pen-flourishing, and one on f. 15r with foliate extensions into the margin).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Sloane Collection
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002112337
040-002114929 - Is part of:
- Sloane MS 1-4100 : Sloane Manuscripts
Sloane MS 2560 : Alchemical compilation - Hierarchy:
- 032-002112337[2552]/040-002114929
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Sloane MS 1-4100
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100165172651.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1450
- End Date:
- 1499
- Date Range:
- 2nd half of the 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 210 x 160 mm (text space: 135 x 95 mm).
Foliation: ff. 18 (+ 7 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 13 at the end); 1 unfoliated medieval parchment leaf between f. 11 and f. 12.
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Germany or Austria.
Provenance:
Sir Hans Sloane (b. 1660, d. 1753), baronet, physician and collector: purchased as part of the Sloane collection from Sloane's executors and incorporated into the newly founded British Museum in 1753.
- Information About Copies:
-
Complete digital coverage available for this manuscript; see Digitised Manuscripts http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts.
Select digital coverage available for this manuscript; see Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.
- Publications:
-
Catalogue of Additional Manuscripts: Sloane 2497-2719 (London: British Museum unpublished manuscript of unedited descriptions, no date), no. 2560 [available in The British Library Manuscripts Reading Room].
Dorothea Singer, Catalogue of Latin and Vernacular Alchemical Manuscripts in Great Britain, 2 vols (Brussels: Lambertin, 1928-30), I, no. 322; II, no. 449.
Fritz Saxl and Hans Meier, Verzeichnis astrologischer und mythologischer illustrierter Handschriften des lateinischen Mittelalters, ed. by Harry Bober, 4 vols (London: Warburg Institute, 1916-66), III: Handschriften in englischen Bibliotheken (1953), p. 246.
Gareth Roberts, The Mirror of Alchemy: Alchemical Ideas and Images in Manuscripts and Books from Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century (London: British Library, 1994), pls IV, VII, X, XI.
V. A. Kolve, Telling images: Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative, 2 vols (California: Stanford University Press, 2009), II, pp. 218-19.
Jonathan Hughes, The Rise of Alchemy in Fourteenth-Century England: Plantagenet Kings and the Search for the Philosopher's Stone (London: Continuum, 2012), pp. 234, 257.
- Exhibitions:
- 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)