Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS

[bi3mw]

Fractional distillation was developed by Taddeo Alderotti in the 13th century. The production method was written in code, suggesting that it was being kept secret.

I was more interested in the supposed cipher - which doesn't seem to exist - than the distillation method.

As far as I understand it, the encryption should disguise the distillation process. The copies of the "virtutibus aquae vitae" we have found so far are all younger than a possible original in which there might have been an encryption ( of whatever kind ). In any case, it would be understandable that Alderotti initially wanted to keep the process secret.