appearing to be water damage) may contain hidden information about medicinal or chemical solutions, or even heavy metal contamination, which is not evident by sight alone. Signs of this practical use may be obvious, such as burn marks from furnaces, but innocuous-looking stains (e.g. Many of the most interesting manuscript stains are found in the bindings and folios of soiled, heavily-used medical and alchemical texts. performed multispectral imaging and analysis on a selection of alchemical manuscripts from the Science History Institute based on stains identified during cataloguing by BiblioPhilly. William (Bill) Christens-Barry of Equipose Imaging.

Heather Wacha (CLIR postdoctoral fellows at the time of the project), with the generous help of Michael (Mike) B. Prior to the recent work of the BiblioPhilly project, these manuscripts were undigitized and several have never had a printed edition. In 2016, the Bibliotheca Philadelphiensis project catalogued manuscripts from the Science History Institute and its Othmer Library of Chemical History, which houses over 140,000 objects, including an invaluable collection of medieval alchemy manuscripts.

The project ran for one year, from August 2017 to September 2018, during which stains from about forty Western European manuscripts, ranging from the twelfth to sixteenth centuries, held in the special collections of five partner institutions, were imaged, and subsequently analyzed. Labeculae vivae was a project supported by a microgrant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). Philadelphia, Science History Institute, MS Othmer 1, front cover Recipes and extracts on alchemy, medicine, metal-working, cosmetics, veterinary science, agriculture, wine-making, and other subjects, Northwestern Italy, Probably before 22 December 1438. 8/52Ī guest post by former Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies CLIR Fellow, Dr. Events Lectures, workshops, and symposia, virtual and in personįifty-two discoveries from the BiblioPhilly project, No.Visiting Undergraduate and Graduate Classes.Rare Book School Courses taught by SIMS Staff.Teaching Make use of our expertise and collections in person or remotely.Fellowships Opportunities for students and scholars.Projects Initiatives currently underway.Publications Our journal, books, and other publications in print and online.Resources Tools for studying manuscripts in the digital age.About Learn about SIMS, its founders, and its staff.

Alchemical medieval manuscripts