Glassware for elixir vitae
Date
1670s-1680s
Creator
Robert Bacon (British) , Amanuensis
After
George Ripley (British) , Natural philosopher
Object type
Archive reference number
Manuscript page number
p69
Material
Dimensions
height (page): 193mm
width (page): 155mm
width (page): 155mm
Subject
Content object
Description
Marginal sketch of a glass vessel or retort used for the production of elixir vitae, in a recipe copied from the alchemist George Ripley (d. 1490). From Robert Boyle's papers.
Transcription
Title of section of letter (p.69): ‘Elixir vitae’.
Accompanying text reads: ‘Ordaine you a glass of this fashion or shape; and fill the 4th part thereof wth. most stronge & mightiest wine that you may get, that is very fine wine, pure & clean of his own proper grape wthout any mixtion, & doe theretoe the most precious faeces that you can get brayed fine & small into subtill powder, and lute your glass wth. a piece of glass, and let him dry well before you put him to work, and then set it in Balneo, and give it no great fire, but that the spirit of the wine within the glass may rise up and down by circulation, till the wine be waxed thick into an oyl that no spirit thereof will arise no more’.
Transcribed by the Making Visible project
Accompanying text reads: ‘Ordaine you a glass of this fashion or shape; and fill the 4th part thereof wth. most stronge & mightiest wine that you may get, that is very fine wine, pure & clean of his own proper grape wthout any mixtion, & doe theretoe the most precious faeces that you can get brayed fine & small into subtill powder, and lute your glass wth. a piece of glass, and let him dry well before you put him to work, and then set it in Balneo, and give it no great fire, but that the spirit of the wine within the glass may rise up and down by circulation, till the wine be waxed thick into an oyl that no spirit thereof will arise no more’.
Transcribed by the Making Visible project
Related fellows
Robert Boyle (1627 - 1691, British) , Natural philosopher
Associated place