Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 395: Iohannes de Rupescissa OFM, Liber de consideratione quintae essentiae. Ramón Lull, Tertia distinctio. Alchemical Tracts

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Title:
Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 395: Iohannes de Rupescissa OFM, Liber de consideratione quintae essentiae. Ramón Lull, Tertia distinctio. Alchemical Tracts
Alternate Title:
Alchemica
Language:
Latin and Catalan
Extent:
ff. 2 + 133 + 1
Dimensions:
219 Height (mm) and 146 Width (mm)
Approximate Date:
[ca. 1400 - 1499]
Table of contents:
  • Quinta essentia
  • De uirtutibus lunariis
  • De fama
  • Tertia distinctio
  • Commentary on the Emerald Table of HermesOperatio lapidis
  • Quaestiones super benedicti lapidis philosophici compositione
  • Secretum
  • Pulchrum somnium
  • Dialogus inter Hilardum necromanticum et quendam spiritum
Description:
CCCC MS 395 is a compilation of alchemical texts copied partly in the early fifteenth century and partly in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century. It begins with a long text by Iohannes de Rupescissa OFM (Roqetaillade, d. c. 1362 - pseudo-Ramon Lull), his Liber de consideratione quintae essentiae. This section contains a few diagrams and coloured drawings, notably two full-page (ff. 49v-50r) illustrating lunaria grass. The style of this drawing and some texts in Catalan, suggest this part may have been made in Catalonia. Textual additions have been made by an English scribe, and the book seems to have come to England by the second half of the fifteenth century. In addition to a number of other minor alchemical tracts, the codex also contains a number of works attributed to Robert Green of Welby (c. 1467-after 1544), including De fama, Quaestiones super benedicti lapidis philosophici compositione, Secretum, Pulchrum somnium and Dialogus inter Hilardum necromanticum et quendam spiritum. Green's name is also inscribed on a flyleaf of the MS, though it is not clear whether this was intended as a mark of ownership or as a note of the authorship of the texts within the volume.
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