(14-01-2025, 01:27 AM)ReneZ wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Was aurum potabile a 'thing' in the early 15th century?
Honest question. I do not know.
Me neither. I checked a few of the usual suspects. Many manuscripts are not precisely dated so I don't have a definitive answer.
For example:
- You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. [ca. 1400 - 1499], p. 106, a text attributed to (Pseudo-)Raymund Lull: "Respice aurum potabile quod est maximum secretum in medicinis natura..."
- You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (15th century) f. 123: Les vertuz et proprietez de aurum potabile et la maniere comment on le fait.
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De vita philosophorum (a.k.a. Liber lapidis vitae philosophorum) is a compilation of various texts about potable gold and prolonging life by Pseudo-Arnaldus de Villanova (also ascribed to Raymund Lull).
Quote:Le De vita philosophorum [29] est une compilation de textes divers sur l’or potable (dont un extrait du De vinis d’Arnaud de Villeneuve) et la prolongation de la vie.You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
29. A. CALVET , « Le De vita philosophorum du pseudo-Arnaud de Villeneuve, texte du manuscrit de Paris, BnF ms. latin 7817 », Chrysopœia, 4, 1990-1991, p. 35-7
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is dated 1469. The chapter tilted "De compositione solis potabilis seu de auro potabili" is on f. 54r.
The text exists in other manuscripts. This one is dated 14th century in the Thorndike-Kibre Catalogue of Incipits: BAV Reg.lat.198 ff. 181-189v.:
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(But I didn't find the chapter about aurum potabile in it, not sure if it is included.)
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3 other 15th century texts that certainly mention "aurum potabile":
Guy de Montanor's Scala philosophorum is not well dated but probably early 15th c. or even earlier, nobody knows. "Et tunc habeatur aurum potabile verissimum balsamum Philosophorum efficacissimum, quod est preciosissimum Dei donum."
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This sentence may have been the inspiration for the title of the Preciosissimum donum Dei. Here, aurum potabile is the Elixir. The text itself in some manuscripts of the 16th century (like MS Ferguson 148) claims that it was written by George Aurach de Argentina in 1475. There is a manuscript dated 1485 (Mscr.Dresd.N.101) so the date is plausible.
George Ripley's Liber duodecim portarum was also written in the 1470s: 1471 according to You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
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You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. it is claimed that "Alchemists like Michael Scot, Roger Bacon, and Arnaud de Villeneuve had already written about “Aurum potabile” and how to obtain it already in the thirteenth century". The referenced You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (that lists the sources, presumably) is behind a paywall.