davidjackson > 06-02-2020, 07:09 AM
-JKP- > 06-02-2020, 09:17 AM
-JKP- > 06-02-2020, 09:41 AM
Helmut Winkler > 06-02-2020, 10:04 AM
(05-02-2020, 09:00 PM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(05-02-2020, 08:18 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The book in question is I Consilia by Taddeo Alderotti.
I would rather expect to find the recipe in De virtutibus aquae vitae, and it is there indeed.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. There are some symbols I am not familiar with on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
Another manuscript : You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Compare with You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. The text is a bit different.
bi3mw > 06-02-2020, 05:21 PM
(04-02-2020, 10:43 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.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.
(06-02-2020, 07:09 AM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.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.
davidjackson > 06-02-2020, 09:55 PM
Koen G > 06-02-2020, 10:18 PM
bi3mw > 06-02-2020, 10:37 PM
Quote:Recipes/instructions for various processes, including distilling alcohol, making candy, creating military devices, making colored glass, gilding and painting or staining on glass.
bi3mw > 07-02-2020, 12:46 AM
Quote:The Mappae Clavicula (more or less “The Little Key of the Map”, but the title and its meaning are uncertain) is a medieval Latin text which contains recipes describing crafts techniques about metals, glass, mosaics, and dyes and tints for materials. The core was probably originally compiled around AD 600, perhaps in Alexandria in Egypt. The number of recipes was expanded over the course of the centuries, and some medieval copies have deletions as well as additions, so it is better thought of as a family of texts with a largely common core, not a single text. It was one of the few scientific treatises available in the Early Middle Ages in Latin Europe. Only the twelfth century and later versions contain the recipe for the preparation of alcohol in the form of a cryptogram. There exist slightly different versions of the cryptogram in different manuscripts, here is one of them:
“De commistione puri et fortissimi XKNK cum III QBSUF TBMKT cocta in ejus necocii vasis fit aqua, quae accensam flammam incombustam servat”
That, more or less, means:
“A mixture of pure and very strong XKNK with III QBSUF TBMKT cooked in the usual vessel make a water, which will flame up when set on fire but leave the material unburnt”
The three nonsense words are simple word puzzles with a mistake. They are formed by substituting for the proper letter - in Latin - the one which follows it in the alphabet: XKNK = VINI (wines); QBSUF = PARTE (part); and TBMKT = SALIS (salt). The ‘n’ in the word XKNK is probably a mistake of the amanuenses, it should have been an ‘o’.
It is interesting to notice how, in this first description of wine distillation, the name given to the new substance thus produced, which we call alcohol, is aqua, that is, water.
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bi3mw > 09-02-2020, 09:41 PM
Quote: