The yellow/blue cube in f102v2

[MarcoP]

Isn't it generally perceived that this is a "recipe" section and the items illustrated are ingredients, not *products*. Soap would be a product, not an ingredient.

Meanwhile I seem to recall Lapis was an occasional ingredient in the manufacture of certain medical treatments, IIRC.

I agree with this interpretation. This section of the VMS has a recurring structure: raws with a container on the left and a number of plants on the right. It is reasonable to assume that the plants are the "simple" ingredients for the "complex" compound stored in the container. I don't know of other equally good explanations for this structure.

We can add this assumption to what can be observed of the cube:
* it has a cubic (actually, parallelepipedal) regular shape
* it is mainly blue and partly yellow
* it could be an ingredient in some compound

Soap fits well the first point, but I am not sure that it could fit the other two.

Meydenbach's 1491 Hortus Sanitatis mentions the "sparatencus" black soap: "Et est ali[us] Gallicus et alius muscatus et alius moll et niger et vocatur sparatencus" (there is a French one and a musk one and another soft and black which is called 'sparatencus')

The "Operationes" section briefly mentions the use of soap with other medicinal ingredients, but no specific recipes are provided: "Et si admiscetur cum aliis medicinis calefacit mediocriter" (if mixed with other medicines, it warms moderately).

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