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A 16th century manuscript of Italian medical home remedies and domestic recipes
- Available as
- Online
- Physical
Details
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- Other Title
-
- First words of text: Secreto utilisso
- Format
- Manuscripts, Theses
- Language
- Italian
- Publication
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- [Italy], [between 1580 and 1599?]
- Physical Details
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- 1 volume (7 unnumbered pages) ; 16 cm
- OCLC
- on1368026946, on1381263088
- Title devised by cataloger.
- Includes 13 blank pages at end of text, not included in page count.
- A manuscript in ink, bound in 18th-century pastepaper wrappers, with twelve Italian medical and domestic recipes, written in a single legible italic hand. Several concern beauty and women's health, including a "Rare liquid to make face and hands beautiful;" a recipe "To wash away scars and marks on the face" (pig's fat, turpentine, and anise liqueur, with a ground up piece of "stone from a fortress"); "To make small boils go away;" "Topical unguent for sunburns that leave marks;" and "How to know if a woman can be impregnated" (involving drinking quail broth, taking a hot bath, and seeing whether or not the woman becomes sick). One recipe is for a nursing mother: "To make and multiply the mother's milk. Other medical recipes relate to wounds and include "To fix wounds caused by being beaten with wood or stone" (making a poultice out of the juice of the hairy babasso herb mixed with white wine) and "Liquid for healing all kinds of wounds, which each person needs to always have in their home, its ingredients being cheap and easy to obtain, and which has sacred virtues." Part of this recipe helps in dating the manuscript: "This topical miraculous liquid will heal all kinds of wounds, and it has been used by many experts that saw it in use by M. Lionello Pio da Carpi in Venice in the year 1578, he used it for a stab wound on the instep of his foot, which is very dangerous. If not for this liquid, the great man would not have lived." There are also a few recipes for domestic chores: "Secret to be used for washing of stained draperies;" "To make a liquid that sends away every dye and stain of the seas;" and "For fixing bruises or dents in stone." The paper's watermark is of a bird very similar to that in Briquet no. 12209 (Venice 1579, Rome 1580, & Fabriano 1565) and no. 12210 (Syracuse 1591). Although the manuscript is in Italian, there are also words that are in the Corsican dialect.