A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume I (of 2)

1460

De Morb. Curat. cap. 143.

1461

Chap. xxi. ver. 19.

1462

The exposition of Arethas is printed with Œcumenii Comm. in Nov. Test. Paris, 1630, 2 vols. fol.

1463

De Gradibus, quos vocant Simplicium, p. 362. This passage serves further to explain and confirm what I have said respecting Aristotelis Auscultat. Mirab. cap. 59, where we are told that copper-ochre promotes the growth of the hair and of the eye-brows. The works of Constantinus were printed at Basle, 1536–39, in two folio volumes.

1464

Matth. Silvaticus says, “Lapis lazuli Latinis, Arabibus Hager alzenar sive alzanar;” and also, “Lauzud. Arab. Azurinum, lapis lazuli.”

1465

Speculum Lapidum. Hamb. 1717, 8vo, p. 125.

1466

Of azur there are two sorts, one called by painters azurro oltramarino, and the other azurro dell’ Alemagna. The ultramarine is that made of the stone known by the name of lapis lazuli, which is the proper matrix of gold ore. This stone, after being pounded and washed, is reduced to an impalpable powder. It is then brought back to its lively and beautiful colour by means of a certain paste composed with gum, and is refined and freed from all moisture. This kind is that most esteemed; and according to its colour and fineness is purchased at a high price by painters; for it not only adds great beauty to paintings, but it withstands fire and water – two powers which other colours are not able to resist. – Pirotechnia, p. 38. The German azur of Biringoccio is not smalt; for he describes that colour before under the name of zaffera.

See also Fallopius, who in 1557 wrote his book De Metallis seu Fossilibus, chap, xxxiii. p. 338, who observes that ultramarine was then selling for 100 golden scudi per ounce.

1467

As young Pigna applied too closely to study, Bartholom. Ricci, in a letter still extant, advised him to be more moderate, as he was not compelled by necessity to labour so hard. “Without it,” he observes, “you are possessed of an estate sufficiently ample. Farms, country and town houses, the choicest furniture, all your own: besides, you have a father who is as good as a hundred estates to you; who in preparing one blue colour, called ultramarine (to say nothing of his skill and large profits in compounding medicines), has exclusively the secret, and is thereby enabled to acquire great riches, and indeed is daily adding to his store.” – Riccii Opera, vol. ii. p. 336; and Tirabosci Bibliotheca Modenese, vol. iv. p. 134.

1468

Institut. Chemiæ, p. 45.

1469

The work of Alexius Pedemontanus De Secretis is no contemptible source from which materials may be drawn for the technological History of Inventions; and on this account it will perhaps afford pleasure to many if I here give an account of the author, according to such information as I have been able to obtain. Conrad Gesner seems not to have known anything of him, as he is not mentioned either in his Epistolæ Medicinales or his Bibliotheca. Ciaconius, in Bibliotheca Libros et Scriptores fere cunctos complectens, Parisiis, 1731, fol. p. 94, says that his real name was Hieronymus Ruscellai. The same account is given by Haller in Biblioth. Botan., &c. Gobet, in Les Anciens Minéralogistes de France, Paris, 1779, 8vo, ii. p. 705, tells us that this Jerome Ruscellai died in 1565; and that his book was composed from his papers by Franc. Sansovino, who published many works not his own, and printed for the first time at Milan, in 1557. I have nowhere found a particular account of this Ruscellai; and indeed it is always laborious to search out any of that noble family, which I have already spoken in the article Lacmus. He appears to me to be none of those mentioned in Jochers Gelehrten-Lexicon. I have met with no earlier edition of his works than that of 1557: but I suspect that the first must be older. However much the book may have been sought after, it seems to me improbable that three editions should be published in Italian in the course of the first year; for, besides that of Milan, two editions printed at Venice the same year, one in quarto and another in octavo, are still extant. A French translation also was published at Antwerp, in 1557. Is it possible that an English translation could be published at London in 1558, if the original appeared for the first time only in 1557? At that period translations were not made so speedily. The Secrets of Alexis, London, 1558, is mentioned in Ames’s Typographical Antiquities, p. 296. I have in my possession a French translation by Christofle Landré, Paris, 1576, 12mo, which I seldom find quoted. It has a large appendix, collected from various authors.

It is well-known that Joh. Jacob Wecker, a physician at Colmar, translated into Latin this book of Alexius, and enlarged it with additions, under the title of De Secretis Libri xvii. The first edition, as Haller says, was printed at Basle in 1559, 8vo. Every edition seems to differ from the preceding; many things are omitted, and the new additions are for the most part of little importance. I have the edition of Basle, 1592, 8vo, in which there is a great deal not to be found in that of 1662, and which wants some things contained in the edition of 1582. The latest editions are printed from that improved by Theod. Zwinger, Basle, 1701, 8vo. The last by Zwinger, was published at Basle in 1753. Though these books on the arts, as they are called, contain many falsehoods, they are still worthy of some notice, as they may be reckoned among the first works printed on technology, and have as much induced learned men to pay attention to mechanics and the arts, as they have artists to pay attention to books and written information.

1470

See Savary, Dict. de Commerce, art. Outremer, which has been copied into Rolt’s Dictionary of Trade, Lond. 1756, fol.

1471

Chemical Gazette, May 31, 1845.

1472

See what is said under the article Artificial Rubies (#rubies).

1473

See the Annotations on Arist. Auscult. Mirab. p. 98.

1474

I am of opinion that this Latin name for cobalt was first used by Agricola.

1475

Lib. xxxiii. cap. 13. Theophrast. De Lapid. § 97.

1476

Aristot. Auscult. Mirab. p. 123.

1477

Bowles, Introducion à la Historia Natural y à la Geographia Fisica de España. – Madrit, 1775 p. 399.

1478

Recherches Philosophiques sur les Egyptiens et les Chinois. Berlin, 1773, i. p. 345. – Delaval’s Experimental Inquiry into the Cause of the Changes of Colour in Opake and Coloured Bodies. Lond. 1774, 4to, p. 56.

1479

Briefe aus Welschland. Prag, 1773, 8vo, p. 114, 136, 223.

1480

Blue enameled figures of the Egyptian deities may be found in Marbres de la Galerie de Dresde, tab. 190.

1481

[The blue colour of the glass, of which the beautiful Portland Vase is composed, is owing to cobalt.]

1482

Déscription de la Chine, ii. p. 223, 230, 232. I have, however, often heard, and even remarked myself, that the blue on the new Chinese porcelain is not so beautiful as that on the old.

1483

De Cæruleo Vitro in Antiquis Monumentis, in Comment. Soc. Götting. 1779, vol. ii. p. 41.