Mellon MS 16

 JOHN OF RUPESCISSA
 De consideratione quinte essentie, anonymously translated into German
 Germany, possibly Augsburg, unsigned, about 1475

Paper codex in German, 4to., 212 x 150, ff. 80, paginated in ink by an
eighteenth-century hand; no signatures preserved, catchwords at
quire-endings; narrow strips of parchment reinforcing the sewing at the
midpoint of each quire. Collation: (1-8)^^10. One column about 145 x 100,
faintly bordered in plumbate, 22-25 lines, no headlines.  Written throughout
by a very fine and bold German gothic cursive hand, the headings and capitals
(a few decorated) in red throughout, the text in dark brown to black ink,
moderately abbreviated with standard forms. Virtually without correction.
Watermarks of perhaps two differing batches of paper obscured by folds,
trimmed, and unclear.

BINDING: Original binding of reddish brown polished leather over finely
beveled wooden boards, troughs for two clasps and two spikes on front cover,
each cover with five nipplelike wrought brass bosses, one at each corner and
one in the center, the lower cover with two large brass roundels used to
fasten the now-missing strap ties which emerged from the lower fore-edge;
sides ruled to a simple geometric pattern, back with raised bands, the clasps
now missing and the hinges cracked, but the binding sound.

PROVENANCE: Early ownership unknown, though an erased inscription inside
front cover may have been an ownership inscription; Anton Pachinger, Linz,
1863; the former's son, 1895; circular rubber stamp, "Sammlung Pachinger
Linz," on f. 79v; Mellon MS X=161, acquired 1964.

CONTENTS

Front pastedown: [Erased inscription of seven lines at head of pastedown
written in a gothic cursive about 1500, not read. Below:] Zur Errinnerung an
den | 43ten Hochzaitstag von deinem Vater Anton Pachinger | Linz am 20.
Janner 1895. | [remainder blank.]

f 1r: [Bookseller's pagination and author notes in pencil.]

f. 1v: [In a nineteenth-century hand:] Ant Pachinger | Linz 1863 | [remainder
blank.]

f. 2r, 1: Hie hebt sich an das puech von der haymlich- | kait und pluemen
aller Ertznei und von dem funften | [end of the third line:] wesen |
[beginning of the third line:] Der almachtig himlisch | [line four:] vater
durch sein gruntlose parm- | herczigkait... [In the right margin a short
quotation in Latin from Liber sapientiae, ch. 7, in a neat
seventeenth-century hand; not transcribed.]

f. 53r, 1: In dem Namen unnseres herren nymbt hie daz | Erst puech ein ennde
daz da sagt von der betrach- | tung der funften wesen und vahet an dacz
andern puech | Wie wol das in dem ersten puech dacz von | der betrachtung...

f. 79v, 3: dass puech ain endt mit der hilf unseren herren ihesu cristi |
Amen | Hie hat daz puechlein ein enndt | Got uns den ebign kummer wenndt/ |
[below, circular stamp of "Sammlung Pachinger Linz," remainder blank. F. 80r,
1, in another fifteenth-century German hand, in Latin:] Receptum bonum pro
pillulo pro stomacho et ad expellendum humores... [Ends line 5. Line 6:]
Contra pestem [Three short recipes are given, ending line 13. Line 14:]
Contra vermes [Ends line 18. Remainder blank; f. 80v blank.]
 [John of Rupescissa, De consideratione quinte essentie, TK 458, etc., here
anonymously translated into German. Another hand has added a few medicinal
recipes at the end, which are unidentified.]

End pastedown: [At the top in an eighteenth-century German hand, roughly
written] anno i403: und 1506 | [remainder blank except for modern pencil
notes of inventory numbers and the like by booksellers.]

SUMMARY: No other manuscript of any early German translation of Rupescissa's
very popular cryptic alchemy has been noted in the literature consulted.
However, MS 30 in the Mellon collection (q.v.) contains a different
translation of the text written about fifty years later than the present
codex. MS 16, a very handsomely written and bound manuscript, though on paper
instead of costlier parchment, was certainly produced as a library book. As
is typical of such productions, it is devoted to a received text of literary
alchemy, its literary qualities emphasized by a fine vernacular translation,
produced just at that time when many such vernacular translations of secular
works were being written and printed. The character of the splendid cursive
writing and the language may suggest Augsburg as the point of origin of this
codex; especially the beautiful hand is reminiscent of the earliest typeface
employed by Johann Baemler in that city from c. 1472. Copies of the Latin
text of De consideratione quinte essentie are preserved in MSS 9.29, 11.1,
14.1, 21.1, 24.7, 26.1, and 32.1 in the collection, while MS 37 has an
English translation.