Harley Ms 57, ff 2r-25v

Albertus Magnus, De mineralibus et lapidibus.

This treatise by Albertus Magnus (1206-1280), scientist, philosopher, and theologian, relates to the nature of minerals, stones and metals, and was probably composed in stages between 1248 and 1262.

Rubric 'Incipit liber primus mineralium qui est de lapi/dibus tractatus primus de lapidibus in communi capitulum .i. / de quo est intencio et quae diuisio / et modus et ordo / dicendorum', incipit: 'De committione / et coagulacione / similiter autem et congelatione et li/quifactione', explicit: 'Et dictis enim / omnia quaecumque hic non nominata sunt de facili poterunt / agnosti / explicit liber mineralium'.

The work is divided into 5 books, each one subdivided into two or treatises, relating to: - (1) ff. 2r-5r, 5r-7r the formation of minerals, their appearance and properties; - (2) ff. 7r-8v, 8v-12v, 12v-15r, the nature and virtues of precious stones, the powers of each stone in alphabetical order, and signet stones; - (3) ff. 15r-19r, 19r-21r, the form and substance of metals, and their properties; - (4) ff. 21r-24r, the nature and properties of certain metals: quicksilver, lead, tin, silver, copper, gold, and iron; - (5) ff. 24r-25v, the nature and properties of materials considered between minerals and metals: salt, atramentum, allum, arsenicum, marchasita, nitrum, tutty, and electrum.

The title (f. 2r, upper margin) 'minerarium alberti' is added by a 14th-cent. English hand. Two sets of sparse marginal notes, the first comprising notabilia and nota signs in a 14th-cent. cursive hand in dark brown ink, the second consisting of marginal notes added by a late 14th-century English reader in a cursive hand in light brown ink; marginal nota signs and maniculae in red throughout.

The treatise was first printed in Padua by Petrus Maufer de Maliferis in 1476. On the text see A.G. Little, Initia operum latinorum quae saeculis XIII, XIV, XV attribuuntur (Manchester, 1904), p. 65; L. Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental Science, 3 vols (New York, 1923), II, p. 524, n. 3.

Other copies of the treatise in Additional MS 16584, ff. 4r-27v, and Additional 34900, ff. 83r-170v, Harley MS 79, ff. 27r-46r, Royal MS 13 A. v, ff. 190r-223v (imperfect); a short extract in Sloane MS 976, ff. 32v-33v.