Anonymous Italian alchemist and metallurgist - `Novelgilio Venale`

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£ 15 120
Дата аукционаClassic
13.07.2022 10:30UTC +01:00
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CHRISTIE'S
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Великобритания, London
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Аукцион завершен. Ставки на лот больше не принимаются.
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ID 794364
Лот 46 | Anonymous Italian alchemist and metallurgist - 'Novelgilio Venale'
Anonymous Italian alchemist and metallurgist - 'Novelgilio Venale'

Saggio analitico docimastico sperimentale, an encrypted alchemical manuscript, in cipher (Italian), decorated manuscript on paper [northern Italy], 1754.

A fascinating alchemical-metallurgical manuscript, written entirely in cipher, and illustrated with a series of watercolours depicting alchemical vases and furnaces.



165 x 113mm. v+238+iii leaves, all on paper except f.83 vellum, apparently complete, pagination 1-384 followed here, partially foliated, ff.171-2, 188-207, and 218-220 blank, c.30-32 lines written entirely in substitution cipher, the decrypted language Italian, 18 plates (including one fold-out) with monochromatic watercolour pictures of furnaces and alchemical vases, one inserted vellum leaf with a cabalistic wheel the phrase: ‘Innues. V. Lilia. Velo.’ (small tear to lower margin of p.1, some foxing and browning, a few stains, e.g. to pp.165 and 172). Contemporary blind-tooled vellum over pasteboards, brass clasps (yellowed, spine worn).



Provenance:

(1) The text of the manuscript is written entirely in substitution cipher, where a letter of the alphabet is replaced by a specific symbol. The titlepage (p.1) can be deciphered as follows: ‘Saggio analitico docimastico sperimentale et filochimici riflessi di Novelgilio Venale crisopeio: all aquisto et coltura delli amatori dell’arte idropirotica si espone / 1754’. Novelgilio (Novel Gilio – ‘New Lilly’) Venale could be an anagram for the name of the author, and indeed this seems echoed in the inserted vellum emblematic diagram on f.83: ‘Innues. V. Lilia. Velo’. He calls himself a ‘crisopeio’, or a ‘maker of gold’ (apparently a hapax legomenon in the Italian language). Perhaps a prospector, he goes into detailed descriptions of the mines around Bergamo (see p.49 ff.).

(2) Paris, Druot, 28 April 2001, lot 138.



Content: The content of the manuscript is undoubtedly alchemical in nature, with a focus on metallurgy and minerallurgy, although the author also delves into medicine and toxicology. Its deciphered opening reads: ‘Proemio del contenuto in questa opera. Dovendosi apiliare allo studo analitico delle miniere resta necessario per iscoprirne li accidenti […]’, ending on p.371: ‘[…] essicare il Magistero’. The author cites Paracelsus (p.123 ff.) and the Paduan 15th-century alchemist Bernardo Trevisano (p.182); he uses alchemical symbols (for sulphur and mercury, for example, see p.137), and draws extensively on the works of the late 17th-century metallurgist and author Christoph Andreas Schlüter (see p.35). He describes methods of mineral extraction that he has devised himself (p.36 ff.). Index ff.208-217v.



The exquisitely rendered watercolours depicting alchemical vases and furnaces (numbered 1-18, with no 5 labelled but not drawn) are on ff.221v, 222v, 223v, 224v, 226v, 227v, 228v, 229v, 230v, 231v, 232v, 233v, 234v, 235v, 236v, 237, 237v, 238 (foldout).





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