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Detailed record for Sloane 2560
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| Title |
Donum Dei (Alchemical treatise) |
| Origin |
Germany or Austria |
| Date |
2nd half of the 15th century |
| Language |
Latin |
| Script |
Gothic cursive |
| Decoration |
11 painted miniatures, the first accompanied by a large decorated initial with foliate extensions into the margin, in colours and gold (ff. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15). 1 large decorated initial with a full foliate border, in colours and gold (f. 1). Smaller initials in plain red, blue or gold (a few with red pen-flourishing, and 1 on f. 15 with foliate extensions into the margin). |
| Dimensions in mm |
210 x 155 (135 x 95) |
| Official foliation |
ff. 18 (+ 7 paper flyleaves at the beginning, and 13 at the end) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
BM/BL in-house. |
| 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. |
| Select bibliography |
Catalogue of Additional Manuscripts: Sloane 2497-2719 (London: British Museum unpublished manuscript of unedited descriptions, no date), no. 2560 [available in The British Library Manuscripts Reading Room].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 n. 55, 257. |
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f. 1
Initial and border |
f. 1
Detail |
f. 1
Detail |
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f. 5
King and queen with a flask |
f. 5v
Text page |
f. 6
Red king and white queen in a flask |
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f. 6
King and queen in a flask |
f. 6v
Text page |
f. 7
The chemical union of the red king and white queen. |
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f. 7v
Text page |
f. 8
Black flask |
f. 8v
Text page |
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f. 9
Black flask |
f. 9v
Text page |
f. 10
Black flask with worms |
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f. 10v
Text page |
f. 11
Black flask with a man inside |
f. 11v
Text page |
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f. 12
Black and white flask |
f. 12v
Text page |
f. 13
Flask with a flower inside |
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f. 13v
Text page |
f. 14
Diagram |
f. 14
Detail |
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f. 14v
Text page |
f. 15
Red and blue flask with a king inside |
f. 15
Miniature of the stage of the red elixir, a king or rosa ... |
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f. 15v
Text page |
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