Univ.+Amsterdam,+Annotation+Spat,+KuiperE.J.KroonI.DossierOGP2.compressed (1)

Univ. Amsterdam, Annotation Incuse Reverse casting

BnF Ms. Fr. 640, folio 155r

Transcription [tc_p155r, 6 April 2015]

<title id=”p155r_a1”>Mouler une rose</title>

<ab id=”p155r_b1”>Pourceque les branchetes du rosier qui sont aupart aultour de<lb/>

la fleur sont quelques fois fort dilatees & feroient<lb/>

un trop grand moule On les faict et moule a part Et la rose<lb/>

& quelquees boutons a part Et puys on raporte<lb/>

avecq souldure les branchettes & foeuilles de rosier a la<lb/>

queue de la rose a laquelle on laisse expressem{ent} de<lb/>

petits bouts des branchettes Mect la foeuille ou rose<lb/>

le plus bas que tu pourras dans le moule pourceque le sable<lb/>

la releve tousjours Tu en peulx aussy mouler plusieurs<lb/>

foeuilles ensemble estant disposees lune sur laultre les<lb/>

distingant avecq les filets co{mm}e dict est Et pour le regard<lb/>

de la rose tu peulx donner une legere couche de beurre fondu<lb/>

au dos de la foeuille de aulx premieres foeilles de dehors non a celles de dedans be pour laffermir & luy donner force de<lb/>

soubstenir affin que le sable destrempe ne les dilate & escarte plus quil ne fault Tu les peulx bien mouler aussy les foeuilles<lb/>

des rosiers fraisiers & semblables qui sont plates<lb/>

& qui se peuvent aplatir sans les gaster a deulx gects<lb/>

pour ouvrir ton moule quand il est recuit & le nettoyer<lb/>

de la cendre Toute et faire des souspirails &<lb/>

plusieurs gects Et ceste voye est la plus facille<lb/>

Mays laultre se peult faire aussy Et avecq de petits<lb/>

filons de cire adaptes & joincts de foeuille a foeuillle<lb/>

tu peulx fayre des gects Mesmes tu peulx faire<lb/>

despuys le dos de la premiere foeuille jusques un filon de cire<lb/>

qui se raportera au gect Tout cela facilite le gect<lb/>

Aulcu  Le principal est de laisser bien froidir les<lb/>

moules recuits plustost que les nettoyer & soufler dedans<lb/>

pour faire sortir la cire pourceque quand le moule est<lb/>

chault la cendre se tient co{mm}e attachee Mays quand il<lb/>

est froid elle sesperd et sort avecq le vent ou quand<lb/>

on retire lalheine a soy par le petit pertuis</ab>

Translation [tl_p155r, 6 April 2015] and suggested changes underlined

<title id=”p155r_a1”>Molding a rose</title>

<ab id=”p155r_b1”>Because of the little branches of the rose bush, which are around the flower, are sometimes very spread out, they would demand too big of a mold. We make and cast them separately, the rose and the rosebuds separately as well. And then one brings them together, soldering the little branches and leaves of the rose bush to the stem of the rose, on which you will have purposefully left bits of the small branches. Put your petal or rose as low as you can in your mold, because sand will always bring it up or raise it. You can also mold several petals together, arranged one on top of the other, separating them with some thread. And for the look of the rose you can give a thin layer of melted butter on the back of the petals, but only on the outside petals, not the inside petals, to stiffen them and give them the strength to withstand, so that the wet sand does not stretch or spread them out more than necessary. You can also mold well the leaves of a rosebush, strawberry plant and similar things that are flat and can be flattened without being spoiled. For two castings, to open your mold, when it has been reheated and then clean the ashes out, make some vents, and [you will be able to do] several casts. This is the easiest way but you can also do the other. And little veins of wax1 that has been adapted and joined from leaf to leaf,2 you can make casts. You can even make a little vein of wax from the back of the first petal, which will join up with the main cast. All of this will facilitate the casting process. The main thing is to let your reheated molds cool down rather than cleaning them and blowing inside them to make the wax come out, because when the mold is hot, the ash almost attaches itself to it. But when it is cold it, it detaches and leaves with air draft or when one draw in one’s breathe through the small opening.

<note id=”p155r_c1a”>You can also give a little thickness at the ends of the stems that are holding up the petals, by lightly oiling them underneath with melted butter, because the petals are big and weigh heavily, and the stem made of lead or tin will not have enough strength [to hold it].</note>

<note id=”p155r_c1b”>I would be of the opinion to mold the rose on its own with a bit of its stem close to its bud, and then to join the rose to a longer one [a stem] made of glazed brass, because the rose bloom is very big and heavy.</note>

<note id=”p155r_c1c”>Moisten your rose with spirits before placing it in the clay. Do not forget to oil the wax cast. And when you have thrown in your wet sand, blow heavily, until it begins to set.  The rose came out well.  But because the sand was mixed within the petals, soak your work in water for a long time so that when you shake it in the water, the earth comes off.</note>

BnF Ms. Fr. 640, folio 155v

Transcription [tc_p155v, 6 April 2015]

<title id=”p155v_a1”>Rose</title>

<ab id=”p155v_b1”>Pource que la fleur espanouye est vague & ha ses<lb/>

foeuilles confuses & entournees en diverses facons elle<lb/>

ne se monstre poinct belle quelle ne soict paincte & daulta{n}t<lb/>

aussy quelle ha pois on fir que la queue destain qui<lb/>

est aigre & subtile ne pourroict pas susporter On moule<lb/>

la fleur de la rose seule & apart Luy faisant le gect<lb/>

grosset affin quelle vienne b mieulx Puys on couppe<lb/>

ce gect au ras de la queue du bouton dans<lb/>

lequel apres on hante & soulde une tige de fil de letton<lb/>

a laquelle aussy on soulde les foeuilles Mays pourceque<lb/>

lestain estant ainsy tanvre est fascheux a soulder et se<lb/>

peult fondre quelque foeuille Et quaussy les fleurs<lb/>

gectees & principallement la rose ne sort pas belles sans estre<lb/>

painctes On ne prend poinct la peine de soulder Mays on le <lb/>

hante les pieces a raporter & on les colle avecq dela colle<lb/>

Translation [tl_p155v, 6 April 2015]

<title id=”p155v_a1”>Rose</title>

<ab id=”p155v_b1”>Because the rose bloom is rather wavy, and its petals are all mixed up and arranged in various ways, it will not be beautiful if it is not painted, and you must also consider that its weight cannot supported by the tin stem which is sour and fine.  One molds the flower of the rose in a separate mold, casting it thickly so that it comes out more easily. Then one cuts the cast at the edges of the stem of the bud, in which you graft and solder a stalk of brass wire to which you also solder the leaves. But because this tin, being so thin, is hard to solder, and may melt some of the leaves and also the cast flowers; [you should consider] that cast flowers, especially roses, are not beautiful without being painted, so one does not make the effort to solder them, but [instead] one grafts the pieces that you want to join together and glues them with fish glue that has been a little moistened and melted until thick. And so that it takes better, you heat the work in tin lightly and for a long time, because if it is cold, the glue will not take.  Once your flower is thusly repaired, you follow the joints of the added parts with some esbaucher wax, which is a white wax mixed with much well-ground ceruse, or even better, white lead, melting it and placing it on your work with a small warm bit of iron needle.  In the same way you can repair the little filaments that are in the middle of the rose, or the holes that may appear in some of the petals. Then paint your rose realistically. If you cast your rose in gold or silver, you can also rejoin [parts] and solder its. And in those materials, when you have [to] join something very delicate together with the flower, such as a fly or other similar things, fish glue is excellent, and holds very well, fixing it with a few little needles that act as nails. The leaves and buds can be cast in two molds that can be opened once they have been reheated, but not before.  Then these things join up [with the flower].</ab>

Annotation: On Molding a Rose

Giulia Chiostrini & Jef Palframan

The recipes “Rose” and “Molding a rose” (Bnf Ms. Fr. 155v and 155r) give advice on how to cast a rose by making a mold for each of the flower’s components and joining the resulting parts.3 This entry explores our reconstruction of techniques for the direct casting of a rose, experimenting with both a one-piece mold and two-piece molds, the latter allowing reuse of the pattern via several casts. A puzzle-like reconstruction of information, excavated throughout the manuscript as a whole, was necessary to construct our experiments, while at the same time this effort was valuable in revealing the significance and extent of the author-practitioner’s experience with and interest in life casting techniques.

Our reconstruction of the procedure reassembles the system of gate, vents, and veins needed for both molds by correlating the clues provided by the author on fol. 155r and fol. 155v with the instructions more explicitly presented in other life casting recipes from the manuscript. The molding technique used for plants are presented on fol. 117r and fol. 145v, recipes related to flowers in general. A description of the two-part mold process is described on fol. 159v, a recipe related to crayfish molding via life casting. Marginalia drawings from fol. 142v and fol. 124v illustrate the system of veins, vents, and gate needed to mold crayfish and lizards, and were helpful in constructing a two-part mold used to cast the bunch of leaves. Several of these recipes will be discussed during the narrative of these experiments. Our careful work of reconstruction not only results in a beautiful rose cast [Fig.1_the final rose flower cast.jpg], but it also reconstructs the author-practitioner’s evolving thoughts on this process as he self-corrects during the course of the activity recorded in the manuscript. This self-reflection reveals the author-practitioner as continuously learning through his own experiments, which appear to be motivated by the aspiration to imitate nature and transform an ephemeral thing into a tangible and fixed artistic creation that will remain unchanged. The use of precise terminology to name veins, vents, and gate in the molding construction (see analysis of the original French text in the first footnote of this essay) alone reveals the extreme attention and sensitivity of the author-practitioner towards the procedure of life casting as a delicate process, mastery of which had to be developed through the author’s self-correction. Following the sequence of the folios, detailed instructions and changes in the procedure that are provided by the author, shows that he is learning through his own making.

Similarly, the goal of our reconstruction is to learn from the author-practitioner’s experience in developing this artistic practice and its variations, considering the significance of his interest in experimenting with life casting as well as in the materials in common contemporary use (including tin, lead, and fish glue).

Assembling and Combining the Texts of the Recipes

While on fol. 117r (“A way to mold flower and herbs”) the author suggests that it is possible to mold a flower or a herb using a one-piece closed mold, in the later fol. 155r (“Molding a Rose”) and fol. 155v (“Rose”) a different casting method is described. Because a rose has several components (flower, stem, leaves, and buds), the author suggests making a separate mold for each of the rose parts, leaving “bits” of the small branches at the stem of the rose intact in order to facilitate connecting everything after the casting process is complete. The reader is instructed to place the flower and its petals as low as possible in the mold, indicating that the mold must be deep and perhaps that the object be oriented in a vertical position. No further instructions are provided regarding such a mold. Other recipes in the manuscript must be turned to for additional information.

Fol. 117r (“A way to mold flowers and herbs”) describes the use of a single mold in the shape of a lute outlined by thick walls. The whole flower is inserted into a “wax stick pointed like a big peg” which is in turn supported by a thick iron wire inserted through the center of one of the mold walls. In this way, the flower is positioned in a horizontal direction without touching the mold walls, surrounded “by air on all the sides.” This airspace is then filled with wet sand described as being “of equal thickness everywhere, and will be two fingers higher than your flower.” Once this wet sand is in place, it must dry before the external clay walls can be removed. This will take a few days, at which point the mold will be dry enough to be put in the oven without cracking. Once in the oven, the original rose will be reduced to ashes, and the wax elements melt, allowing the liquid molten metal to flow through the empty “veins” of the former wax sprues and fill the space left by the live rose. If the mold is made in one piece, it can only be used once, as the mold must be broken to remove the final metal object. If it is designed to separate into two pieces, it can be used again.

In the marginalia of this folio, two drawings show the flower stem inserted into the wax peg and positioned in a lute-shaped mold. Similar text and drawings are repeated elsewhere in this manuscript, including fol. 124v (“Casting a lizard”), fol. 142r (“Casting a crayfish”), and fol. 145v (“Casting herbs and flowers”). In both fol. 117r and fol. 145v the author suggests casting a “fine and delicate” flower or herb in the vertical position, with the additional instruction on fol. 117r to add “two vent holes with two small sticks” to the sides of the wax peg and on fol. 145v to run “a thread through the mold” to keep the object upright.

[Fig.2_a thread through the mold.jpg]

By the time he wrote fol. 155r, the author seems to have refined his mold-making technique, adding specific details like the discussion of a system of wax “veins” or sprues that will help the liquid metal flow evenly between the leaves and petals. The author also suggests making “a little vein of wax” from the back of the first petal to be joined to the “the main cast,” a description corresponding to the wax peg more fully described on fol. 117r. The author seems to assume the reader is aware of the instructions and marginalia drawings provided in previous folios.

There are some particular hints regarding the difficult casting of the delicate leaves. On fol. 155r the author briefly mentions making a two-piece mold that may be reused, while on fol. 155v he specifically recommends using a two-piece mold for the leaves and the buds.

On fol. 155r, the author suggests applying a thin layer of melted butter on the outside of the petals to strengthen them during the pouring of the wet sand and placing a thread between each petal in order to separate them during the casting process. In a note the author suggests applying melted butter to the end of the rose stem as well, to make it strong enough to support the weight of the flower and the leaves once the components are joined. For the same reason, it is also suggested that the stem be cast in “glazed brass” rather than the softer (and cheaper) tin or lead.4

Other suggestions in the notes include the use of spirits to moisten the rose and the oiling of the “wax cast” before pouring in the wet sand, to diminish the adherence of sand to the mold. The reader is still advised to soak the cast object in water in order to remove any trace of sand from the petals. The author also explains how to clean the ashes from the mold, suggesting that it is necessary to wait for the mold to cool down before blowing out the ashes via the small sprues “with air.” If the mold is still hot, the ashes will stick to the remnants of wax.

Tin and lead are suggested as casting metals on fol. 155r, while as mentioned above “glazed brass” is suggested for the stem. By contrast, on fol. 155v the author specifically indicates tin as the medium for stem, flower, and leaves.

The narrative of fol. 155r joins fol. 155v again when the author describes the process of attaching the various parts of the cast rose. The procedure of joining the rose components together is in fact the main subject of fol. 155v. Soldering with brass wire is presented as a first option. However, “because the tin is so thin” it is difficult to solder it without damage. A second “excellent” option, fish glue, is enthusiastically proposed by the author, who points out that as “cast flowers, especially roses, are not beautiful without being painted” there is no point in soldering when the glue will work just as well and be hidden by the paint. He also says the substance may be used to join other elements to the flower (such as a fly).

Once the components are joined, “white wax mixed with much well ground ceruse” or “white lead” can be melted and placed on the joins via a “small warm bit of iron,” and also used to fix imperfections such as “little filaments” or “holes on the petals.” White lead also creates a white ground for colors and embellishments. Both materials are poisonous and no longer used in modern industry, so we planned to use titanium oxide, which is similarly used as a white base for pigments.

Experiments

For our first experiment we made a one-piece mold for all the components of the rose: the flower, the stem, and the leaves. For our second experiment, we made a two-piece mold with the intention of reusing the pattern.5 In both cases we decided to solder the rose flower to the stem, intending to conclude the experiments by applying fish glue to fine-tune details of the cast rose and using titanium oxide as a white ground for the application of pigments on the joins of the piece as a whole.

Our choice of the rose flower was determined by the title of both recipes: “Rose” and “Molding a Rose.” While our use of a modern commercial rose might seem inaccurate at first blush, by the sixteenth century, the familiar shape of the modern domestic hybrid rose was already established. The plant itself was of course well known. Leonart Fuchs describes two species of rose in his 1558 L’Histoire des Plantes: the wild field rose, and the domestic rose cultivated in gardens.6 [Fig.3_rose image from Fuchs’s manuscript.jpg]The wild rose is noted for its single layer of five petals, but various subspecies of the two basic rosa were already being hybridized to obtain different colors, fragrance, and petal formations.[Fig.4_a rose flower image from a sixteenth century sheet.jpg] Elsewhere in sixteenth-century literature, illustrations of domestic white roses may already be seen with several layers of petals.7 The author of this manuscript does not specify the use of a wild or domestic rose, but the marginalia drawing of fol.155r shows a flower with more than five petals, pointing us towards a multi-layered hybrid for our test subject.[Fig.5_drawing from fol.155r.jpg] Our modern commercial rose, rich in petals, is thus a relatively authentic choice to represent a hybrid rose flower of the sixteenth century.

At the beginning of both experiments we cut the rose blossom and a bunch of leaves from the stem, leaving a small bit of the flower stalk on each to facilitate the joining process.

[Fig.6_rose components.jpg]

After that, we proceeded with the preparation for casting the three rose components according to the information collected from fol. 155r (see above). As earlier suggested on fol. 145v, we immersed the flower upside down in “a tall glass” of spirits to moisten it before placing it on the clay of the mold.

Spirits prevent the sand from bubbling and not to make little holes on the borders of the mold if the thing to be molded is very damp, the holes and farts and bubbling does not make it in the place of the mold which is thick but at the borders which are more delicate.

On the back of the petals and leaves, and on the stem, we applied a thin layer of melted butter using a brush, while wheat oil was applied on the wax peg and veins of all the three molds.8 This ensured a smooth surface for the sand to flow through. The author does not specify a type of vegetable oil, but he mentions wheat oil in previous recipes involving casting delicate things.9 Melted butter was also used to coat the stem, as we were curious to experiment with it elsewhere on the rose.10

Although the author suggests the use of just one thread to separate each petal, we found this difficult and instead placed several short threads, trying to reach the deepest area between adjacent petals (see fig. 7). In this way, we also opened up space that allowed the application of melted butter to small petals that would have otherwise been hidden.

Regarding the system of wax veins or sprues, we connected the outside of the first petal of the flower to the main cast as suggested by the author on fol. 155r, while adding two other thin wax sprues to connect the entire flower to the clay base of the mold.11 A similar procedure was used for the stem, making a wax sprue that connected the top of the stem to the mold base.

[Fig.7_system of gate,vents,and sprues.jpg]

While the flower and the stem looked well positioned and stable on the base of the clay through the wax peg (supported as they were by the two wax sticks on the side), the bunch of three leaves seemed weak. [Fig.8_leaves one piece mold.jpg] The melted butter applied on their obverse seemed to make them heavier and more fragile than they really were. The system of wax veins built to support them in a vertical position, as “fine and delicate objects” should be when cast as earlier described on fol. 117r, did not help when the sand was poured into the mold.12 As soon as the sand touched the base of the mold, the wax peg detached from the clay, the little wax sticks and the sprues (connected as shown in the marginalia drawing on fol. 155r) were destroyed, and the leaves lost within the mold. This failure encouraged us to experiment instead with a two-part mold for the leaves. We were encouraged by fol. 155r, in which the author-practitioner says to open the molds and clean the ashes out. This implies that he is suggesting a two-part mold for the leaves, using the same method he recommends for the life casting of small animals such as crayfish, found later in the manuscript.13

In our second experiment, we laid down the bunch of leaves on the base of the mold, building thick clay walls all around.14 We did not use melted butter on the leaves because there was no need to stiffen them in this position. On the contrary, we needed to prevent the clay from getting attached to the reverse of the leaves. For this purpose we used spirits, following the instructions provided earlier by the author on fol. 112v (“Affixing and arranging animals”).

If, once you have placed your animal on sheet of clay, you are distracted with other occupations, rub your animal with spirits and under the belly so that it does not stick or attach itself to the [clay] of earth.

We spread spirits on both sides of the leaves with a brush before laying it down on the clay.

[Fig.9_spreading spirit.jpg]

Our next challenge was to construct a system of wax sprues, connecting the leaves as illustrated by the author in the marginalia drawing of fol. 155r. However, we didn’t make the two souspirails (vents) at once.

[Fig.10_first half mold.jpg]

According to fol. 155r, our vents had to be made after the object being cast was burnt.

For two castings, to open your mold, when it has been reheated and then clean the ashes out, make some vents, and [you will be able to do] several casts.

The author suggests incising the vents directly in the mold after opening and cleaning it of ashes.15 [Fig.11_observation on the efficient use of spirit.jpg]

Finally, registration marks were incised into the wall of the mold next to the gate to ensure we refitted it correctly.[Fig.12_registration marks.jpg]

Among several kinds of sand suggested for casting in Bnf. Ms. Fr. 640, the author-practitioner specifies one type on fol. 159v (“Carnation”), writing that when it comes to molding flowers and delicate things “the sand has to be very thin, and you must blow very strongly.” In the following fol. 160r (“Sand to cast flower”) the author suggests mixing plaster, crushed brick, and stone alum to make sand for molding flowers and leaves. Elsewhere in the same folio, he notes:

In casting with thick sand, flowers crumple; it squeezes them into a mass. For this reason, be sure to dilute your sand very thinly, and blow on it so the flowers are not entirely covered. When you dilute your sand, do not only stir it with the small shovel, but beat it as you would egg white.

Based on previous experiments in the lab during the semester, we decided that the mixture described earlier in the manuscript (“Casting in silver”) from fol. 121v , was most suitable for our use. It is the most detailed recipe and was suggested for another example of life casting; in this case an animal.16 For our final sand recipe we used a proportion of two parts plaster of Paris to one of brick dust and increased the quantity of sal ammoniac from two teaspoons to four.17 Consequently, this mold took much longer to dry before it could be put in the oven and the leaves burned.[Fig.13_sal ammoniac on the mold surface.jpg] We also had to add more sand than we expected to the mold, and the final cast of the rose shows a sharp line on the outside of the first petal marking this addition.18[Fig.14_added sand and its effect on the flower cast.jpg]

When it comes to the metal used to cast the rose components, the author let the reader choose between tin or lead on fol. 155r, while he assumes that tin will be used for the casting of all the rose elements on fol. 155v. For all our experiments we decided to use an alloy of tin and lead as the author recommends earlier on fol. 116v (“Fine herbs, flowers, and greeneries”), considering that we already experimented with a flower casting with pure tin during Andrew Lacey’s residence in the lab (March 2015).19

For our work we used an equal amount of tin and lead. As a result, the cast rose and its stem are overly heavy when compared to a small medal cast in pure tin during previous class experiments. This result has the advantage of resolving the author’s concern that the stem, if cast in tin or lead, would be too fragile to support the weight of the rose’s blossom.20 It is possible that this is why the author changed his opinion on what metal should be used in life casting during the writing of the manuscript. A mixture of tin and lead is suggested earlier on fol.116, but by fol.155v the author seems to share Vannoccio Biringuccio’s low opinion of the alloy.21 The latter author says in his Pirotechnia that tin is “not better for any work when mixed than when pure, except for the advantage of the master, who…sells lead that is worth little for tin that is worth much.”22

The beautiful appearance of the final rose cast was defined by the richness of those “live” details of the flower that the butter froze, and the metal fixed in a metal artistic creation.23 Additionally, as already mentioned, casting the bunch of leaves in a one-piece mold was a failure, while the bunch of leaves cast in the two-piece mold resulted in a detailed cast object. [Fig.15_cast objects in one piece mold.jpg] This also proves the efficacy of laying the fragile leaves down in the mold, and of using spirits to keep sand from getting stuck in it.[Fig.16_cleaning the mold and incising the vents.jpg]

Two strips of copper were used to press and hold together the two halves of the mold, which was wrapped in cheesecloth dipped in a thin plaster mix during the pouring of liquid metal.[Fig.17_pouring metal.jpg] Unfortunately, despite the warning on fol. 116v (see footnote 19) we ran out of metal during pouring. Our final cast object thus shows a fracture in one leaf and a small broken stem.[Fig.18_leaves cast in two piece mold.jpg]

Given the final weight of the components, we had no choice but to solder the stem, the rose flower, and the bunch of leaves together, melting the small parts of sprues removed during cleaning. Fish glue would not have been strong enough to keep the rose together.24 However, we believe it would have been useful in fixing the fracture that appeared on the leaf.25

[Fig.19_soldering and final rose.jpg]

Conclusions

Our conclusions coincide with those expressed on fol. 159 (“Carnation”), where the author-practitioner says that while it is possible to mold any kind of flowers in a one-piece mold with successful results, if several casts are desired, the flower should be cut into its components and a one-piece mold made for the stem and flower and a reusable two-piece mold for the leaves.26 The text from this late folio in the manuscript expresses not only the author-practitioner’s technical achievement in flower casting, but it also communicates his increased confidence in the process as a way to finally fix the ephemeral in a physical object. The development of the author-practitioner’s skill in casting delicate things was studied and reconstructed in the foregoing essay by means of the detailed information about molding, casting, and materials used in creating life casts of plants and animals throughout the manuscript. The research presented here aims to provide a better understanding of life casting techniques especially in relation to the evidence in the manuscript that the author was learning through his practice, while also contributing to the study of casting practices for small and delicate things in early modern Europe, considering the scarcity of primary sources available on the subject.27

In sixteenth-century Europe, flowers like roses were associated with the concept of physical beauty subject to the damage of passing time.28 From this perspective, our work of reconstruction of the author’s experiments demonstrates that the life casting process is far from being merely a sequence of technical steps. On the contrary, life casting is an unique opportunity to give immortality to an animate, delicate thing that preserves its intrinsic values. This artistic practice thus becomes one of the author’s main preoccupations throughout the whole manuscript. His intensive effort to make life casting a perfect process through experimentation with “veins,” “breathing holes,” and many varieties of alloys and molds reveals a goal to suspend the ravages of nature in order to capture and fix the ephemeral form of a living rose in metal.

References

Biringuccio, Vannoccio. The Pirotechnia, The Classic Sixteenth-Century Treatise on Metals and Metallurgy. Translated by Cyril Stanley Smith and Martha Teach Gnudi. Massachusetts: Cambridge, 1966.

Cennini, Cennino. Il Libro dell’ Arte. Translated by D. V. Thompson. New York: Dover, 1960.

Cotgrave, R. Dictionarie of the French and English Tongue. London, 1611. http://www.micmap.org/dicfro/search/cotgrave (accessed April, 17 2015)

Fuchs, L. L’Histoire des Plantes. Lyon, 1558.

Lein, E. Ars Aeraria: Die Kunst des Bronzegiebens und die bedeutung von bronze in der florentinischen Renaissance, Mainz, Germany: P. von Zabern, 2004.

Harkness, P. The Rose: An Illustrated History. Italy: Firefly Book, 2003.

Platt, H. The Jewell House of Art and Nature: Containing divers rare and profitable Inventions, together with sundry new experimentes in the Art of Husbandry, Distillation, and Molding. London, 1594.

Smith, P. “Making as Knowing: Craft as Natural Philosophy.” In Ways of Making and Knowing: The Material Culture of Empirical Knowledge, edited by P. Smith, A. R. W. Meyers, and H. J. Cook, 17–47. Michigan: The University of Michigan, 2014.

Smith, P. and Beentjes, T. “Nature and Art, Making and Knowing: Reconstructing Sixteenth Century Life Casting Techniques.” Renaissance Quarterly 63 (2010).

Theophilus. The Various Arts. Translated by C. R. Dodwell. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986.

Thompson, D. V., The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Paintings. New York: New York, 1956.

---

1 Translating filons de chire requires some consideration. In a first translation, these two terms refers to “wax vents,” meaning the two vents necessary for air circulation during the metal pouring. However, in R. Cotgrave’s Dictionarie of the French and English Tongue (London 1611) filon means “a vein of metal in a mine,” and thus is this case must refer to “a vein of wax” or sprue within the recipe, perhaps implying its transformation in “a vein of metal” after the casting process is complete. Another term used by the author to indicate a sprue is cire abougie, candle wax (fol.142r, how to mold a crayfish). Piede de cire (fol.117r), means “wax peg,” while gect, (fol.155r), which according to the same dictionary mentioned above means literally “cast,” refers to this latter translation in the sentence “…[you will be able to do] several casts.” Our interpretation of the author’s instructions regarding the system of veins (or sprues) translates gect as “wax peg,” as in the sentence “You can even make a little vein of wax from the back of the first petal, which will join up with the main cast.” As we understand it, a vent is indicated instead by the phrase “…deulx souspirails avecq deulx petits bastons” (fol.117r), “…two vent holes with two little sticks.” Souspirail may be translated in English as “an overture, or passage, for air to come in and out,” according to Cotgrave’s 1611 Dictionarie.

2 While initially the word foeuille was interpreted as petals, the previous Rose Molding annotation conducted by Carlson and Katz in Fall 2014 found “leaf” to be a more accurate translation, and it is thus used here. See the Fall 2014 Annotation by Carlson and Katz.

3 Raymond Carlson and Jordan Katz’s 2014 annotation, Rose Molding, discusses the cultural meaning of such rose casting within the artistic context of sixteenth-century France.

4 It’s not clear what “glazed brass” means. The author-practitioner probably means gilded brass, but further study of contemporary metal casting and materials is necessary to confirm this.

5 We decided not to proceed with casting the buds, as the process would have been the same as that used to cast the leaves.

6 See Leonhart Fuchs, L’Histoire des Plantes (Lyon, 1558), 448–450.

7 For a discussion of the introduction of a multi-petaled white rose into sixteenth century Europe, see Peter Harkness, The Rose: An Illustrated History (Italy: Firefly Book, 2003), 128. Unfortunately, there is not an illustration available of this rose in this book, and sixteenth-century illustrations of roses are rare.

8 The significance of the use of melted butter can be investigated from a cultural perspective too. According to Pamela Smith, (“ ‘Making as Knowing’: Craft as Natural Philosophy,” in Ways of Making and Knowing, The Material Culture of Empirical Knowledge, ed. by Harold Cook, Amy Meyers, and Pamela Smith et al. [Michigan: The University of Michigan, 2014], 17–47), eating butter is recommended in several sixteenth-century metalworking texts as a prophylactic against poisonous metal fumes. The author’s preference for butter instead of wheat oil may thus reflect a desire to extend this perceived power to the object being cast, to make it strong enough to resist the pouring sand.

9 on fol.129r, the author recommends brushing the petals with wheat oil instead of butter. In the recipe under discussion (fol.155r), he mentions melted butter, and in a later text (fol.154v), determines that wheat oil should “not” be used to strengthen flowers, but rather that melted butter should “coat” the backs of flower petals. As explained on page 6 of R. Carlson and J. Katz’s Annotation Rose Molding, Fall 2014,” “the author self-corrects” as the manuscript develops.

10 As reported by Pamela Smith and Tony Beentjes, “Nature and Art: Making and Knowing: Reconstructing Sixteenth Century Life Casting Techniques,” Renaissance Quarterly 63 (2010), the author specifies the use of butter on other delicate objects: grasshopper wings (fol.142v); hair on a rat (fol.152r); pansy petals (fol.110v); feathers on bird (fol.157v); flies’ wings (fol.156v).

11 The wax peg at the base of the mold functioned as the metal pouring gate.

12 See passage on fol. 117r: “[…] But if it is fine and delicate, plant up standing up with the wax peg so that the sand will always raise it up, it being very clear.[…]”

13 See fol. 159v description of how to mold a crayfish and burn its ashes out: “Try to make one side as thick as the other, that way the two parts will be equally reheated. You can open this kind of mold, in order to clean it, when you mold some animals, like crayfish, which burn. When your mold is reheated, do not wait too long before casting again, because it gets damp and loses its strength.”

14 Following what we learned experimenting in molding roses during Andrew Lacey’s residence in the lab (March 2015), the construction of our one- and two-piece molds required a base one inch wider than the cast object, while the walls had to be two inches taller than the object to assure that the sand completely covered and surrounded the cast object.

15 We applied spirits on the reverse of the leaves again. This time, we wanted to assure that the sand flows easily on their surfaces.

16 Bnf. Ms. Fr. 640, fol. 121v, “Casting in silver”: “You should place the animals as said and similarly compose the sand by taking four measures of plaster, two measures of annealed bricks, and one measure of annealed stone alum. Mix it well, and once it is ready and you wish to mold, take three measures from the sort of dish used by peasants to eat. Add pure annealed stone alum that has been ground in a mortar to this sand, as much as you will be able to grab with your four fingers and thumb or with a small joint. Then, mix well and dilute [this mixture] with a bit of sal ammoniac and the rest of common water. And stir it with your palette so that it all becomes like a thick sauce or light mustard. Once you have applied spirits with a brush on the animal, cast as well, and hit the table for the mold to shake and proceed similarly as the others. Do not forget to put crocum because it prevents mold from breaking and it is appropriate with every metal.”

17 Our protocol for the sand recipe was based on experience gained during the previously mentioned March 2015 lab. residency of Andrew Lacey. The increase of the amount of sal ammoniac is explained by the fact that the two-piece mold built for the bunch of leaves was much larger than the one-piece mold made for the previous experiment with the leaves.

18 Vannoccio Biringuccio’s 1540 volume Pirotechnia suggests yet another sand recipe, a powder made of ground pumice and iron scale to mold “every smallest thing, however thin it might be.” Although he does not specify if this includes life casting, it would be interesting to further investigate rose molding with Biringuccio’s dry powder recipe. See Biringuccio, Pirotechnia, trans. Cyril Stanley Smith and Martha Teach Gnudi (Massachusetts: Cambridge, 1966), 324–325.

19 Bnf. Ms. Fr. 640, fol. 116v, “Fine herbs, flowers, and greeneries”: “[…] You need more than 3 parts of tin for one part of lead. If this material is thick and fat, you need 3 parts lead. Heat the mostly tin mixture, which must become red and very hot. When you want to cast, remove your crucible from the fire, and add two or three grains of resin for one and a half or two pounds of lead or tin. With the resin, also some fat looking-glass tin, the size of an auclane with its shell, mix and cast. Make sure you have more metal than you need; some metal should be set aside. If you haven’t enough metal, keep casting and finish your cast, it will set, however it will not be so neat. Dip your mold into water, and dismantle your mold carefully with a point. Make an elongated cast in order not to damage anything. If you mold something very thin, you must make your cast with mostly tin.”

20 We decided not to experiment with casting the stem in brass as suggested by the author on fol.155r, because brass is hard to melt and would require equipment that was not available at the time in the laboratory.

21 See above, n. 19.

22 Biringuccio, Pirotechnia, 211 n. 17.

23 The detailed result of the casting was visible only after a long period of carefully cleaning the space between the petals from remnants of sand. As instructed by the author, we soaked our work “…in water for a long time so that when you shake it in the water, the earth comes off.” A sharpened metal needle was also needed to remove all the sand from the rose.

24 Because of time constraints, our experiment did not further investigate fish glue. If time had permitted, we intended to compose this glue from codfish skin as described on fol. 7r: “It is made from codfish skin that has been boiled rather than salted. Joiners use it on their masterpieces and guitar makers use it for their more delicate works. It needs to be strongly whipped, then soaked gently in hardly boiling water.” Future reconstruction of this fish glue will be helpful in determining its properties as an efficient repair material for delicate cast objects, as described for example on fol.156v: “If it happens that you have some defects with your fly’s wings, hammer some very fine tin, or gold or silver, if you cast it, and shape with scissors the amount you need for your wings. And then apply it with tweezers and glue it with fish glue, applied like it is shown underneath. And before doing thing this heat your work lightly so that its coldness does not repel the glue, which will dry quickly, heating it from afar. Then cover lightly the joints of whatever you’ve attached to the cast with some esbaucher wax, which is a white wax that is mixed with a lot of ceruse or white lead, melting it with and warm iron tip. You will also cut little bits of harpsichord string and will glue them with the aforementioned glue when they are dry. That is the say, the feet, having been reworked thusly, you will make them bigger with this same melted wax so that they are equal in proportion [with the rest].” Although the author refers to an image “shown underneath,” there is no drawing in the actual manuscript that would help visualize the application of the fish glue, making practical experimentation even more valuable.

25 Fish glue had other useful applications. Cennino Cennini mentions it in the context of restoration: “this glue is made from various kind of fish…it is good and excellent for mending lutes and other fine paper, wooden, or…” Daniel V. Thompson, The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Paintings (New York: New York, 1956) 58–61 describes a similar application of the fish glue for mending parchments, while also stating that “the chief importance of both size and fish glue in illumination was to act as a binder for the grounds upon which gold leaf was made.” The use of fish glue in repairing illuminated manuscript is also mentioned in the medieval De Diversis Artibus of Theophilus, which presents directions for grinding gold and mixing it with fish glue. Theophilus, The Various Arts: De Diversis Artibus, trans. C. R. Dodwell (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), Ch. XXXIII.

26 In another contemporary source describing the life casting of flowers and plants, Hugh Platt, also describes both types of mold. Platt doesn’t suggest a two-piece mold exclusively for use with leaves, but implies this technique should be applied to the whole flower or plant being cast. It would be interesting to experiment with creating a two-piece mold for a whole flower and to thus verify why our author-practitioner is so determined to cut the flower in pieces and use a double mold only for the leaves. Unfortunately Platt’s instructions are very vague, and would be hard to understand without previously study and experimentation with the manuscript under discussion in this essay. This example reinforces the thoughtful and detailed nature of our author-practitioner’s life casting procedure. Hugh Platt, The Jewell House of Art and Nature: Containing divers rare and profitable Inventions, together with sundry new experimentes in the Art of Husbandry, Distillation, and Molding (London, 1594), 50–56.

27 There are a few primary sources describing life casting techniques for small things. However, the instructions provided are never so detailed as those in Bnf. Ms. Fr. 640 manuscript, and they are dated to the early seventeenth century. See for example, Edgar Lein, Ars Aeraria: Die Kunst des Bronzegiebens und die bedeutung von bronze in der florentinischen Renaissance, (Mainz, Germany: P. von Zabern, 2004), 42-45

28 See Carlson and Katz in Fall 2014 annotation On Molding a Rose.

Annotation: Reconstruction of the Historical Recipe on fol. 20r “For Making Millas”

Giulia Chiostrini & Jef Palframan

Transcription [from tc_p020r, 30 march 2015]

<title id=“p020r_a1”>Pour faire les millas</title>

<ab id=“p020r_b1a”>Il fault faire fraiser du millet po{ur} en tirer la croutte Et puis le<lb/>

netoyeres bien apres Il fault le remouldre bien delie Et le passer par<lb/>

ung cedar bien delie ce faict Il fault detremper la farine avec du<lb/>

beurre frais fondu et du laict Et quil y ait aultant dung comme dautre<lb/>

de maniere quil soit fort clair comme pate po{ur} faire bignetz Et y<lb/>

mettres des Jaulnes doeuf selon la quantite de la farine de sorte<lb/>

quil revienne deux Jaulnes deouf po{ur} chaique millas puis y mettres<lb/>

du safran si vous voules po{ur} leur donner ung peu de couleur</ab>

<ab id=“p020r_b1b”>Il fault apres avoir des moulles Et fault quil soient de terre<lb/>

de la facon dung fond de chappeau a la catholicque mais Il<lb/>

fault quil soit ouvert par les deux boutz Et puis ayant faict<lb/>

bon feu vous nettoyeres la place du fouyé ou vous voules<lb/>

mettre voz millas Et puis vous prandres voz moulles et les gresseres<lb/>

bien fort affin que la pate ne se tienne pas quant elle sera cuitte<lb/>

ayant faict cela vous mettres voz d{ictz} moules sur la place du fouye<lb/>

bien nettoyee Et mettres ung peu de farine au fondz Et les<lb/>

emplires de la pate cy dessus dicte apres vous couvrires les<lb/>

dictz moules dung couvercle qui sera faict comme le moulle mais<lb/>

Il fault quil soit plus grand Et quil ne soit pas ouvert<lb/>

par dessus puis ayant faict cela vous mettres ung peu de foin<lb/>

sur le{dict} couvercle Et force rachaulx Et y feres bon feu<lb/>

tout au tour de charbon cela faict vous en descouvrires<lb/>

ung de la a peu de temps Et verres quant Il sera cuit Il<lb/>

faudra quil soit dur</ab>

Translation [from tl_p020r, 30 March 2015] and suggested changes:

<title id=”p020r_a1”>For making millas</title>

<ab id=“p020r_b1a”>You must have some millet soaked in order to remove the chaff and then clean it well. Next you must grind it again quite finely and pass through a cloth sieve. One must

soak the flour with fresh melted butter and some milk so that it is very light, like the pastry to make beignets, and add egg yolk depending on the amount of flour, so that there are two egg yolks for each millas. Then you will put in some saffron if you want to give them a little colour.</ab>

<ab id=“p020r_b1b”>Afterwards you must have some molds, which must be made from terra[cotta], in the shape of a bottom of the catholic hat [see note on the translation, below] but it must be open at both ends. And then, having made a good fire, clean where you want to put your millas and then take your molds and grease them very well so that the pastry does not stick to them when baked. Once you have done that, put your molds in a place in the oven where you clean and sprinkle a bit of flour on the bottom and fill them with some of the aforementioned pastry. Then you will cover the said molds, with a lid made like the mold, but it must be bigger and not open at the top. Then once done, you will put some straw on the said lid and a lot of hot charcoal, and set a fire around it, once done, you will […] one from it after a bit of time and will see when it is baked, it will be hard.</ab>

Note on the translation:

This entry corrects the previous translation of fol. 20r, which read fond (bottom) as fons (furnace). Careful analysis of the original French writing shows that the swash on the top of the d of the following word (de) is also functioning as the swash for the final d of fond.[Fig.1_original French text.jpg]

Annotation: Reconstruction of the Historical Recipe on fol. 20r “For Making Millas”

Giulia Chiostrini & Jef Palframan

Introduction

The sixteenth-century recipe “For Making Millas” (Bnf Ms. Fr. 640, fol. 20r) describes how to bake millas, a type of millet bread, in an oven using terracotta molds. The purpose of this historical recipe reconstruction is to investigate the original identity of the dish millas in relation to the background of the anonymous author of the recipe. This annotation will analyze the recipe text alongside relevant contemporary and modern sources.

The Text and Interpretation of the Recipe

This recipe is clearly structured in two paragraphs titled “For Making Millas.” In the first paragraph, the author lists the required ingredients and describes how these must be prepared before baking. In the second paragraph, the technology needed for the actual baking process is discussed, including a specific type of terracotta baking mold.

The recipe’s primary ingredient is millet grain. The baker is instructed to “soak [it] from the chaff and then clean it well.” Millet is widely grown in warm countries and regions with poor soil, and its seeds can be ground to produce coarse flour.¹ This coarseness is the reason the author directs cooks to “soak the flour with fresh melted butter and some milk so that it is very light, like the pastry to make beignet.” This reference to beignet pastry would no doubt be a helpful comparative reference for a contemporary reader or baker, signaling to them when the millas flour was ready for use. For modern readers, further research is needed to understand the allusion, as this type of pastry has changed in preparation since the 1600s.

Beignet pastry does not appear in the most obvious contemporary source, Francois Pierre de La Varenne’s 1653 The French Pastry Cook.² However, a modern Italian source online describes how to cook beignet pastry using an oven rather than a deep fryer (as is the general modern practice).³ This corresponds to the culinary technology used in the historic recipe. The modern beignet recipe thus helps interpret the unexpressed knowledge the recipe writer assumes a reader will have relating to the proportions of flour, milk, and melted butter. For example, the author specifies “two egg yolks [are needed] for each millas,” from which the reader is supposed to deduce the amount of flour needed. Similarly, saffron is suggested as a colorant, but the amount used or depth of dye achieved is not specified. The reader is assumed to know what the pastry looks and feels like before baking.

In the second paragraph the author provides more detailed instructions about the material and shape of the baking mold required. This indicates that readers were expected to know more about the type of cake being made than the specific shape and baking methodology used in this recipe. It calls for “terracotta molds in the shape of a bottom of the catholic hat, but it must be open at both ends.” This odd terminology requires some consideration. Excluding symbolic or slang meanings, it most likely refers to the shape of certain sixteenth-century hats fashionable among Catholic priests. Among these, we can identify the zucchetto, the biretta, and the Camauro. It is most probable that the author is referencing the last hat in the list.⁴[Fig.2_Camauro hat.jpg] The small, hemispherical shape of the zucchetto could not contain enough dough if “opened on both sides.” The square, horned biretta hat would make a creative shape for a baking mold, but the author explicitly says to use a mold opened on both ends, which implies cutting off the horns. A terracotta version of a camauro hat, though, would produce a practical cylindrical shape, tall enough to contain a certain amount of material and with a large base or “bottom” (the internal area in contact with the head during wear) which could easily be filled “with some of the aforementioned pastry” after being opened on both sides.⁵ In addition, since the fifteenth century the Camauro hat was exclusively worn by popes, making it “the Catholic hat” most easily recognized at all levels of society.[Fig.3_drawing of our mold shape interpretation.jpg]

The baker is directed to keep the mold open on both sides, indicating the dough was poured inside the cylindrical mold and it was placed directly on the flour-sprinkled oven surface. The author also provides a detailed description of the lid used to cover each mold. In the same shape as the mold, but larger and closed on the top, the lid allowed the baker to place “some straw and a lot of hot charcoal” on the mold, while the fire was set around it.

Although this analysis of the recipe text and terminology helps to visualize the appearance of the final baked millas and clarifies that its finished consistency was probably hard, it is still not clear what millas actually is. Millet was historically an ingredient used in savory dishes. In southern France, as well as in Italy, locally available millet or barley was cooked with milk by peasants and used to make polenta or bread until maize was introduced to Europe in the sixteenth-century.⁶ Consumption of the new grain spread rapidly, especially in southern Europe, and as it replaced millet and barley, maize polenta became a dish consumed by different social classes.⁷

Some use of millet continued, especially since some physicians preferred that people stick to familiar foods.⁸ That might explain why in this recipe millet grain is used even though the author was probably aware of maize grain as a possible substitute.⁹ It was certainly still being used in similar recipes. Broader research among contemporary sources has identified the presence of millet grain or “panico” in the recipe “Per Far la Minestra di Miglio e Panico Infranto” from Bartolommeo Scappi’s Opera (1570).¹⁰ In this recipe, millet is presented as a good grain with a stronger taste than wheat.

The replacement of millet with maize was also linguistic. In many Southern European dialects, the word used for the new grain was simply a variation of “millet.” For example, in the Occitan dialect spoken in Toulouse (where the author of the recipe under discussion probably came from) “maize” was called “millette.”¹¹ This raises the possibility that the author is actually referring to maize, not millet, in this recipe. However, in the original French text the author clearly calls for “millet” not “millette.” While the words are similar and confusion is possible, millet rather than maize still seems the most likely ingredient. This is reinforced by a modern French dessert made with maize flour, “millas, gateau du Sud-Ouest.”¹² According to the modern commentary on this recipe, this dessert was made with locally available millet flour and water in the sixteenth century. Today, it can be served as a savory dish instead of a dessert if salt instead of sugar is used as a seasoning. The consistency and taste of this dish are similar to Italian maize polenta.

Experiments

After studying this recipe, we decided to experiment with three versions: one using only the ingredients directly mentioned by the author, and two adding salt or sugar. The addition of either of these last two ingredients might have been assumed by contemporary cooks. Salt in particular might be unnamed, as in the sixteenth-century it was consumed by all classes. Sugar is less likely to remain a “silent” ingredient, as it (like saffron) was still enough of a luxury to deserve specific mention.¹³ However, we were curious to experiment with the information provided in the modern recipe mentioned above, and to explore the origins of this French millet flour dessert in a sixteenth-century Southern French culinary tradition.

In all our experiments we used the following basic ingredients and instructions, combining the information given by the author with those collected from the modern recipe related to pastry for beignet: take 3 cups of flour from ground millet grain, 2 egg yolks, 3 tablespoons of melted butter, 1 cup of milk, a large pinch of saffron, and enough pork lard or butter to grease the molds. Pour the flour into a medium bowl and mix it with the egg yolks and the milk. Melt the butter on a low fire and pour it into the center of the flour mixture. Stir the ingredients until the dough softens. Add a little saffron to give color to the dough. Grease 3 molds generously. Place 2 tablespoons of dough into each of the molds and cover with a lid. Place in a preheated 350° F oven for 30 to 40 minutes, until the dough is golden brown.

Apart from our molds (of which more in a moment) we used the same basic cooking equipment for all three experiments. It was clear from our first reading of the recipe text that we could not use the straw and charcoal it specifies inside our oven due to safety considerations, immediately affecting part of the authenticity of the results.¹⁴ Other equipment was easier to incorporate. A traditional ceramic mortar and pestle was used to grind the millet grain. [Fig.4_grinding process.jpg]

For each version of the reconstruction, the physical challenge of breaking a large amount of the tiny seeds was surprisingly tiring. The ground seeds had to be very fine in order to pass through a cloth sieve as described in the text. Several layers of cotton cheesecloth were used to extract the finest flour from the ground seeds. This first step of the process required focused, time-consuming labor, and the flour thus obtained was still characteristically coarse and heavy. [Fig.5_millet flour.jpg] This step of our recipe reconstruction raised a historical question about the average sixteenth-century French peasant’s use and consumption of grain.

A few types of mortar are listed among the cooking utensils at the beginning of Scappi’s Opera, while just one single mortar is included in the kitchen equipment owned by a fifteenth-century French peasant and listed by Le Roy Ladurie.¹⁵ Mortars could be used to grind grains as well as spices, but none of the sophisticated Scappi’s recipes include instructions related to grain grinding, while in the recipe under discussion the author explicitly says to clean the millet grain from its chaff and grind it very finely. Therefore, we assume that “For Making Millas” has its origins in a rural environment, where the population consumed and produced its own product.¹⁶ According to Le Roy Ladurie, in sixteenth-century rural France the quantity of grain produced annually for sale was very low. Most of the grain collected during the seasonal harvest was stored in bins by local farmers and consumed within the family. It is even more interesting to note that in the early seventeenth-century, when maize became profitable in the markets of the Toulouse region, French peasants were still keeping millet grain exclusively for their own consumption while simultaneously producing maize for sale.¹⁷

These historical considerations provide us a clue about the rural, poor context within which millas were most likely baked and consumed. From this perspective, our experiment with adding expensive, luxurious sugar seemed less valid. However, as shown later in this annotation, the third, sweet version of our baked millas actually helped us better understand the phenomenal success of maize in the early seventeenth-century grain market.

Our most puzzling challenge in executing the author’s recipe was reproducing the terracotta molds and their lids. Initially we attempted to purchase a suitable terracotta item, but it was impossible to find an appropriately shaped piece. We therefore decided to buy commercial clay and make our own molds, focusing on the reconstruction of the original shape according to our interpretation of the author’s description.¹⁸

For our first experiment, we made three different molds to test our ability in modeling the clay. We made one mold in the shape of a Camauro hat opened on both sides, foregoing a lid because we did not yet clearly understand the text concerning it.¹⁹ A second mold was formed in the shape of a small plate with a round lid. A third mold was made in the shape of a flower with large open petals. This mold was also baked without a lid.[Fig.6_the three terracotta molds.jpg] In this experiment, the proportion of ingredients used led to a “light” dough that was probably still too dense for our purposes. Once the molds were well greased with butter and filled with dough, we put them in the oven. During the baking process, all three versions produced a pleasant and appealing smell.

Our first millas tasted good at first bite, but a bitter aftertaste soon changed our perception of it. We assumed that the bitter taste was caused by our not soaking the grain before grinding it.[Fig.7_first baked millas.jpg] According to the recipe, “you must have some millet soaked in order to remove the chaff…” We did not pay attention to this instruction initially because we thought it was solely intended to clean the chaff from the grain, a step not needed because of modern harvesting methods. After some further research, we discovered that according to modern nutritional literature soaking millet grain is an important step. It reduces the unpleasant taste of millet grain, removes phytic acid, and makes it easier to digest.²⁰ Apparently this practice was known in the early modern period, too. In Scappi’s treatise, for example, most of the recipes that involve the use of any kind of grain begin by instructing the reader to soak it in water for “ten hours” before mixing in other ingredients.²¹ Reflecting this, in our last two experiments, we soaked the millet grains overnight in a large bowl of water, with enough liquid to completely cover the grains. Though the bitter aftertaste was diminished, it did not really disappear from our baked millas, suggesting one possible reason why in the sixteenth-century maize swiftly replaced millet in making certain dishes.

Adapting the instructions in the modern French recipe “millas, gateau du Sud-Ouest,” we made our next two batches of pastry with less millet flour but with a large amount of boiled milk: three cups added to the three tablespoons of melted butter and two cups of ground millet flour. We added ¼ of a cup of salt to the second trial and ¼ of a cup of sugar to the third. The two egg yolks were added to the dough once it cooled down, before pouring it into the mold and baking it as described above in our basic methodology. In both cases, the consistency of the pastry was creamier than that of our first experiment.

[Fig.8_dough consistency.jpg]

We decided to use only one of the molds previously made. Further reading and better understanding of the recipe text supported our choice of the mold in the shape of “a bottom of the catholic hat” (presumably a Camauro), while a larger lid made of the same red clay and closed on the top was constructed and used. [Fig.9_final mold reconstruction.jpg] We sprinkled flour on the surface of the oven tray, and placed on it the mold previously greased with butter and opened on both sides. We poured a small amount of pastry into the mold and used the lid to cover it. After baking, both salty and sweet millas came out of the oven golden brown. [Fig.10_the last two baked millas.jpg] The pastry became hard after “a bit of time” as suggested by the author at the end of the recipe. Although over the course of our experiments we doubled the amount of saffron used from one single small bag or pinch, no significant changes were noticed in dough color. Further trials should be done in order to establish the right amount of saffron required.

The taste of the salty millas suggested the common dish polenta, while the sweet version of the same pastry had no flavor after the light perception of sugar on the first bite, suggesting that the original millas was intended to be savory. Moreover, the addition of the salt to the millas dough did not really affect its flavor when compared to that baked strictly according to the author’s expressed instructions. Therefore, the result of our experiments shows that this written text from fol. 20r is, despite its simple appearance, probably a complete and “authentic” millas recipe reflecting a dish of a peculiar bitter taste.

Conclusions

In addition to our experiments, we also focused on the location of “For Making Millas” within the manuscript’s context, considering that there are no other recipes in Bnf Ms. Fr. 640 concerning millet grain or millas.²² On fol. 19r, an entry entitled “Enemas” precedes the culinary recipe under discussion, while an entry titled “Glazier” follows it. These three different recipes from three different fields (medical, culinary, and technical) are presented together, reflecting the manuscript’s sometimes seemingly random ordering of various unconnected recipes. In these three recipes, differences observed among the formulas of the three recipe texts reveal something of the author’s “identity” as a practitioner or as a simple observer of the practices he describes.

The “Enemas” recipe (fol. 19r) is described from the perspective of an observer, using “they” to refer to the people actually executing this medical technique, though the author also comments that “it is true that it gives some wind always at the end,” suggesting he tried the technique out himself. In the “Glazier” recipe, the author is not only knowledgeable about this craft technique, but seemingly is also a practitioner, for he uses specific adjectives to describe different types of glass that would not be known to a casual observer, as in: “Glass from Lorraine is smoother and more even than plate glass.”

In the case of “For Making Millas” the author follows a formula common to contemporary culinary recipes.²³ As was normal at the time, the recipe does not provide any quantitative measurements for its ingredients, but does give clear instructions on technique in an imperative style and concludes with information about the desired consistency of the baked millas.²⁴ The author was not employed as a cook, but was obviously familiar with explaining how to perform an unknown task and had probably personally eaten the end results of this one.²⁵ The author probably also had a tacit personal connection with millas via the culinary tradition of his apparent location in southern France. This is evident through the few instructions that imply a personal relation with the recipe and assume his readers will come from a similar cultural context.²⁶ For instance, he assumes they will understand references to molds shaped like a bottom of the Catholic hat and the consistency of beignet pastry.

In conclusion, our experiments and research gave us the unique opportunity to sensorily and “intellectually” taste millas. Although further study is required for a better understanding of the original identity of this dish within its traditional culinary context of southern France, our initial linguistic and practical analysis of the recipe text functions as a key to understanding the author’s background, contributing to a better comprehension of the whole manuscript within its historical and cultural contexts.

References

Alonso-Almeida, F. “Genre Conventions in English recipes, 1600–1800.” In Reading and Writing Recipe Books, 1550 – 1800, edited by M. Dimeo and S. Pennell, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013.

Albala, K. Eating Right in The Renaissance. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.

Ayto, J. The Diner’s Dictionary. England: Oxford University Press, published online, 2013.

Beck, E. “Ecclesiastic Dress in Art Article VI (Conclusion).” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, vol. 8, no. 34 (January, 1906): 271–281.

Mason, L. Food Culture in Great Britain. USA: Greenwood Publishing, 2004.

Ladurie, E. Le Roy. The French Peasantry 1450–1660. Translated by A. Sheridan. England: Scholar Press, 1987.

Scappi, Bartolommeo. Opera. Venice: Michele Tramezzino, 1570.

Turner, W. A New Herbal. Cologne, 1568.

Willan, A., Cherniavsky, M., and Clafin, K. The Cookbook Library: Four Centuries of the Cooks, Writers, and Recipes that Made the Modern Cookbook. Berkeley: University of California, 2012.

Online References

“millet, n.1”. OED Online. March 2015. Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/118524?isAdvanced=false&result=1&rskey=9VZi6Q& (accessed April 16, 2015).

http://gourmandisesansfrontieres.fr/2012/06/la-recette-du-millas-gateau-du-sud-ouest/

(accessed April 16, 2015)

http://ricette.giallozafferano.it/Pasta-per-choux.html

(accessed April 16, 2015)

http://pamelasalzman.com/soak-grains/

(accessed May 5, 2015)

---

1 See John Ayto, The Diner’s Dictionary, Word Origins of Food and Drink (England: Oxford University Press, published online, 2013).

2 François Pierre La Varenne, Le Cuisinier françois (Paris: P. David, 1651).

3 http://ricette.giallozafferano.it/Pasta-per-choux.html (accessed April 16, 2015)

4 For a description of sixteenth-century ecclesiastical dress, see Egerton Beck, “Ecclesiastic Dress in Art,” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, vol. 8, no. 34 (January 1906): 271–281.

5 “The bottom of a hat” is still a colloquial expression in French and Italian, and retains this meaning.

6 Other culinary and medicinal recipes that include food from Bnf Ms. Fr. 640 include: 40r, 71r, 16v, 50r, 98v, 7v, 20v, 37r, 47r, 77r, and 84r.

7 Ken Albala, Eating Right in The Renaissance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002) 198.

8 Not all physicians agreed. In his 1568 New Herbal, for example, the famous English physician and natural historian William Turner describes bread made of millet flour as less of a “nourisher” than that made from other grains. William Turner, A New Herbal (Cologne, 1568) 57.

9 Albala, Eating Right, 217–240.

10 See Bartolommeo Scappi, Opera (Venice: Michele Tramezzino, 1570), Book II, 73. Millet grain or millas is not mentioned in other contemporary sources.

11 Albala, Eating Right, 234.

12 http://gourmandisesansfrontieres.fr/2012/06/la-recette-du-millas-gateau-du-sud-ouest/ (accessed April 16, 2015)

13 See the discussion of rural salt consumption in Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, The French Peasantry 1450–1660, trans. A. Sheridan (England: Scholar Press, 1987) 106.

14 According to Laura Mason’s Food Culture in Great Britain (USA: Greenwood Publishing, 2004), sixteenth-century ovens were built of stone or brick. Wood or furze was fired inside and allowed to burn away, heating the whole structure. The ashes were removed and the oven floor swabbed before use. This kind of large brick oven was built into even modest houses.

15 Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, The French Peasantry, 90.

16 See discussion of consumption and production of food in rural Renaissance France in Le Roy Ladurie, The French Peasantry, 106.

17 Le Roy Ladurie, The French Peasantry, 201.

18 The red terracotta clay we bought could be fired in the oven or allowed to self-dry. We decided to fire it in the oven to test its strength and be sure we could bake dough inside it for at least thirty minutes.

19 Our first attempt in reconstructing a mold in the shape of “a bottom” of the Camauro hat was not a good representation of our understanding of it. Further thinking was required to express our interpretation of the Camauro mold via the the clay model, as shown in our final reconstruction (see below).

20 http://pamelasalzman.com/soak-grains/ (accessed May 5, 2015)

21 For example, in the recipe “Per far minestra di formentone e orzo mondo”, Scappi says: “stare nell’acqua tiepida per dieci ore mutando l’acqua alcune volte…” Scappi, Opera, Book II, 72

22 Although in a short text from fol. 84r the author says that flour “ground during Alvast time flour lasts the whole year,” there is no particular connection to the recipe under examination here.

23 Francisco Alonso-Almeida, “Genre Conventions in English recipes, 1600–1800,” in Reading and Writing Recipe Books, 1550–1800, ed. Michelle Dimeo and Sara Pennell (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013), 68-92.

24 Most cookbook authors did not start to list the amounts of ingredients needed in recipes until the nineteenth century. Anne Willan, Mark Cherniavsky, and Kyri Clafin, The Cookbook Library: Four Centuries of the Cooks, Writers, and Recipes that Made the Modern Cookbook (Berkeley: University of California, 2012).

25 The only extraneous suggestion provided by the author concerns the use of saffron. The conditional sentence “put in some saffron if you want to give them a little color” is actually a formula repeated in different languages in numerous contemporary culinary recipes. For example, in Scappi’s Opera, exactly the same sentence (in Italian) is used in many savory or dessert recipes: si potrebbe dare il colore con. un poco di zafferano. The whole recipe for millas might have been copied by the author from such a contemporary source. See Per fare un brodo di pollo di gran sostanza ridotto in gelo, in Scappi, Opera, Book VI, 394

26 The text of fol. 20r was analysed during the summer 2014 palaeography workshop. Participants identified a different hand in this writing (see clues-composition in Google Drive). However, this initial observation can be interpreted in two different ways. Another hand may have added this recipe text, or the author may have confidently “copied” the formula of this recipe from another contemporary source. In either case the origins of millas in the southern French culinary tradition implies a personal/cultural connection with the author, confirming the nature of his manuscript as an expression of his identity as an author-practitioner within his cultural and historical context.

Geography and Knowledge Exchange in BnF Fr. Ms. 640

by Sofia Gans

<title id=”p128v_a1”>

Blanchiment de largent gecte </title>

<ab id=”p128v_b1a”>

Pourceque on gecte communem{ent} de bas argent & mesmem{ent} </lb>

les allemands Et que telle ligne face volontiers quelq{ue} </lb>

chappe ou croste qui est contraire xxx Nos Aulcuns orfevres de</lb>

france sont communem{ent} bien empresses a blanchir leurs </lb>

ouvraiges mesmem{ent} les grossieres Pourcequils meslent </lb>

que du commun bullitoyre que est de tartre & sel commun </lb>

presque auta{n}t dun que daultre Mays jay veu un </lb>

excellent allemand travailler ainsy ayant en ma presence </lb>

gecte un petit lezard de ligne de teston Il fist une croste </lb>

xxx sasle Et pour len nettoyer il le fist bouillir au bullitoyre </lb>

susdict de tartre & sel commun Et pulverise mesle deau commune au foeu </lb>

de sa forge en estant sorty il le grattebroissa et pourceque </lb>

il nestoit pas net a sa fantasie de ceste croste il fist brusler </lb>

du tartre dans du papier jusques a ce quil fut noir & ne fuma plus Puys </lb>

il destrempa ledict tartre avec de leau du bullitoyre co{m}posee </lb>

de sel & tartre & en couvrit tout son lezard puys le mit entre les </lb>

charbons de vifs de la forge & soufla un peu Quand le lezard fut </lb>

rouge il losta le laissa froidir puys le recuit au bullitoyre </lb>

apres le grattebroissa dans leau claire

</ab>

<title id=”p128v_a1”>

Bleaching casting silver </title>

<ab id=”p128v_b1a”>

People, even German people, commonly cast silver of poor quality. This kind of cast produces crusts which is contary to xxx. Our Some goldsmiths of France are commonly encouraged to whiten their works, especially the rough ones. Some silversmiths hasten to bleach their works including the thick parts. To do that they mix it with common “bullitoyre” which is made of calamine and common salt, in equivalent quantities. I saw an excellent German worker who cast in my presence a lizard with a teston which had produce a crust […] To clean that he did boil some “bullitoyre” made of calamine and common salt ground together with common water on the heat of a forge. Upon removing it he brushed it on, and because he thought it wasn’t clean enough of this crust for his liking, he burnt calamine with paper until it became black, and until it had stopped smoking, then he soaked this calamine in the water of the “bullitoyre” made of salt and calamine, he covered the entire lizard, then put the lizard between lighted charcoals in the forge, he blew a bit, when the lizard became red, he […], let it cool, then reheated it with the “bullitoyre” mixture, and brushed it in clear water. </ab>

The historiography of early modern metalworking technology has focused much of its energies on the innovations of the Italian peninsula, celebrating Donatello’s early experiments with life-casting,¹ Antico’s first adoption of hollow indirect casting,² the so-called “birth” of small collectors’ bronzes in northern Italy,³ or Cellini’s massive sculptures claimed to have been cast in a single pour.⁴ Certainly, many more writings by Italian metalworkers were printed and survive today than any other geographic region, which might help explain the sustained scholarly interest in the area.⁵ But how important were Italian ideas and technologies for the formation of artisans and craftspeople outside the peninsula in the sixteenth century? If we use BnF Ms. Fr. 640 as a window into the exchange of ideas in early modern France, a different story might emerge. The recipe cited above, fol. 128v, makes clear that our author-practitioner observed German metalworkers at work, and no equivalent observation exists for craftsmen of any other geographic region. Indeed, when it comes to remarking on the techniques used in specific locales, only Germany is mentioned in conjunction with metalworking techniques worth replicating.

While scholarly interest has favored Italy as the source of the Renaissance of innovation in casting technology in the early modern era, contemporary sixteenth-century chroniclers made it clear that Germany, and especially the Imperial Free Cities of the Holy Roman Empire, enjoyed prestigious international reputations as centers of innovation and invention. Nuremberg and Augsburg were especially highly regarded for their metalwork. Intellectuals and philosophers such as the astronomer Johann Regionmantus chose to settle in Nuremberg in the late fifteenth century “because I can easily procure here all necessary instruments, particularly those which are indispensable for the study of astronomy, and also because I can easily keep up a connection with scholars of all countries from here, for this city, on account of its concourse of merchants, may be considered the central point of Europe.”⁶ The importance of Nuremberg as a hub of commerce and wealthy merchants created a highly cosmopolitan city containing both scholars and craftsmen known not only for their work in fine arts, but also in the production of delicate astronomical and other instruments of great precision. The Parisian philosopher Petrus Ramus spent four days visiting the artisan workshops of Nuremberg in 1568 and was thoroughly impressed by the way these artisans unified theory and practice in their work.⁷ Indeed, just before the proposed date for our manuscript,⁸ the great Wenzel Jamnitzer was producing complex life-cast objects destined for imperial Kunstkammern from his “large and prosperous”⁹ workshop in Nuremberg. Given the clear interest of our author-practitioner in casting from life, portrait medals, and other objects that would have formed part of a Kunstkammer collection, it is likely that he would have been familiar with Jamnitzer’s work, an interest that could have drawn him to a study of German craft. Following the textual clues left us by our author-practitioner, we can begin to understand the ready exchange of knowledge across geographic borders that characterized the experiences of the early modern craftsman.

Fol. 128v provides several interesting glimpses of the esteem in which the author held German skill. The first sentence alone, “Pourceque on gecte communem{ent} de bas argent & mesmem{ent} les allemands” (People, even German people, commonly cast silver of poor quality),¹⁰ speaks volumes. The fact that he specifies that even Germans are known to use inferior materials from time to time indicates the high expectations placed on work of German origin. It is as though it might come as a surprise to the reader, or came as a surprise to the author-practitioner, that they, too, would deal with poor quality metals. He documents, in detail, the techniques of the “excellent” German metalworker whom he directly observed clean a silver lizard that had come out with some sort of crust. He makes a point of noting that the processes he records were observed directly, that the lizard was cast “en ma presence” (“in my presence”). It seems as though he is recommending that French craftsmen adopt this technique over the one commonly used, as it is more effective for cleaning and whitening.

Indeed, there are a variety of other recipes in the manuscript that indicate that the author had actually observed German craftsmen at work and spoken to them at length about their techniques and traditions. On fol. 125r, in a recipe discussing the methods for soaking plaster, the author provides a striking ethnographic detail: “De ce plaster ainsy recuit en pouldre il sen gecte des medailles quil ne craignent point les pluyes mesmement si elles sont vernis On les tient en allemaigne sur les maisons” (Medals are cast from this powdered, reheated plaster, [and the medals] will be waterproof as though they were varnished. In Germany, people hang these medals on houses). This specific observation indicates a familiarity with the domestic decorative customs of German homes that could have been obtained either from travel to the region or from conversations with its natives.

The manuscript precisely records a whole series of metalwork techniques that are ascribed specifically to the Germans, indicating his interest in the technology of the Empire. A recipe on fol. 32v indicates familiarity with German techniques of casting candelabra.¹¹ Fol. 63r includes a recipe that mentions German craftsmen’s preference for lead from Flanders.¹² Fol. 72v references the German tendency to casting lead very thinly.¹³ Fol. 149r includes two descriptions of German methods, one specifically related to the craft of goldsmiths, and the other titled “Various German ways of working,” which illuminates the German metalsmith’s use of mechanized hammers run by water mills, and the specific German method for drawing iron wire.¹⁴ On fol. 159v, the use of plaster in molding statues for German fountains is discussed in some detail.¹⁵ Finally, in a note on fol. 120r, he notes that certain mixtures that allow gold to run better have only been known in Germany for forty years.¹⁶ Such specific knowledge of the historical acquisition of technique would have likely required conversation with a German craftsman. In addition, he seems to know a good deal about where to source German materials such as the material “spalt” (outside Augsburg),¹⁷ or the best lead, used in Nuremberg.¹⁸ No other geographic region is given such attention by name, indicating a notable interest in German technique in particular. A great deal of observation would have to have been involved in the deliberate preservation of such a variety of foreign knowledge.

It was not uncommon for craftsmen from across Europe to travel abroad in the landscape of early modern workshops, as many journeymen apprentices looking to learn from master craftsmen in other communities would spend a portion of their training on the road. In Germany, this travel was known as the Wanderjahr,¹⁹ and was compulsory for all journeymen craftsmen looking to eventually establish themselves as masters in their own right. In 1449, 7% of Nuremberg’s total population was made up of such journeymen, working temporarily for local craftsmen.²⁰ In France, this voyage was called the Tour de France, and, while generally opposed by the monarchy,²¹ remained a popular way for journeymen to escape somewhat strict laws of apprenticeship in France.²² While both systems of travel seem to have focused mainly on the knowledge that could be gained within one’s own country, there are also plenty of documented journeymen who traveled internationally, always choosing a region or city with the best reputation in their craft.²³ It is important to note that despite being relatively equidistant geographically from both the Italian Peninsula and Germany, our author chose to focus on techniques from Germany, perhaps indicating that this country’s reputation for excellence in metalworking was greater than that of Italy at the time. Indeed, the only time he mentions Italy in relation to metalworking comes on fol. 109r, when he describes the Italians’ choice to mix their wax with tallow, which does not carve as cleanly as turpentine or butter. Otherwise, Italy and Italian artistic centers such as Florence, Venice, Milan, or Rome are only mentioned in relation to the materials that are sourced from there,²⁴ such as Venice turpentine or lake pigment, or lacquer or paper from Florence. Italian technique is only specifically noted in reference to painting.²⁵ Other countries with important artistic reputations, such as Flanders²⁶ are given a similar cursory treatment. Thus, purely from the textual evidence available in Ms Fr 640, we can conclude that, for our author, German metalworkers and their techniques were most worthy of documentation and emulation, indicating that Germany was perhaps a center of casting innovation equal to or greater than Italy at the time.

Bibliography

Allen, Denise with Peta Motture, eds. Andrea Riccio: Renaissance Master of Bronze. New York:

The Frick Collection, 2008.

Cole, Michael W. “Cellini’s Blood.” The Art Bulletin 81.2 (1999): 215–35.

Icher, François. The Artisans and Guilds of France: Beautiful Craftsmanship through the

centuries. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2000.

Kluge, Arnd. Die Zünfte. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2007.

Mukerji, Chandra. “Tacit Knowledge and Classical Technique in Seventeenth-Century France:

Hydraulic Cement as a Living Practice Among Masons and Military Engineers.”

Technology and Culture (47, 2006): 713-733.

Pincus, Debra ed. Small Bronzes of the Renaissance. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.

Reith, Reinhold. “Circulation of Skilled Labor in Late Medieval and Early Modern Central

Europe.” in Guilds, Innovation, and the European Economy, 1400-1800, 114-142.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Smith, Pamela H. The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.

Stone, Richard E. “A New Interpretation of the Casting of Donatello’s Judith and Holofernes.”

In Small Bronzes of the Renaissance. Edited by Debra Pincus. New Haven: Yale University

Press, 2001.

Stone, Richard E. “Antico and the Development of Bronze Casting in Italy at the End of the

Quattrocento.” Metropolitan Museum Journal 16 (1982): 87-116.

---

1 See Richard E. Stone, “A New Interpretation of the Casting of Donatello’s Judith and Holofernes,” in Small Bronzes of the Renaissance, ed. Debra Pincus (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 55-69.

2 See Richard E. Stone, “Antico and the Development of Bronze Casting in Italy at the End of the Quattrocento,” Metropolitan Museum Journal 16 (1982): 87-116.

3 See Debra Pincus, ed. Small Bronzes of the Renaissance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001); Denise Allen with Peta Motture, eds. Andrea Riccio: Renaissance Master of Bronze (New York: The Frick Collection, 2008).

4 See Michael W. Cole, “Cellini’s Blood,” The Art Bulletin 81.2 (1999): 215–35.

5 For example, Vannoccio Biringuccio’s Pirotechnia of the mid-sixteenth century; Benvenuto Cellini’s Treatise on Sculpture, sixteenth century, as well as his autobiography, Cennino Cennini’s Il Libro dell’Arte, c. 1400; and humanist Pomponius Gauricus’ more theoretical De Sculptura from 1504, for which he claims to have observed workshops.

6 Quoted in Pamela H. Smith, The Body of the Artisan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 65-66.

7 Ibid 66

8 BnF Ms. Fr. 640 probably dates to the 1580s, see Pamela H. Smith and Tonny Beentjes, “Nature and Art, Making and Knowing: Reconstructing Sixteenth-Century Life Casting Techniques,” Renaissance Quarterly, 63 (2010): 130.

9 Ibid 76

10 Emphasis added by author.

11 “En allemaigne ilz font des chandeliers fort legiers cest pource quilz les tournent par le moyen de leau mays ilz sont frangibles” (In Germany candelabras are made very light because they rotate by means of water, but they are breakable).

12 “Les allemands versent du plomb de flandre pourceque est fort doulx” (The Germans use lead from Flanders because it is very soft).

13 “Les Allemands jectent fort tenvre leurs plombs pourcequil semble quilz viennent mieulx que fort espes” (The Germans cast lead very thinly, because it seems to come out better than very thick).

14 “Les orfevres dallemaigne Lont voules affiner pensant le separer davecq ceste blancheur quilz evident estre argent” (Goldsmiths from Germany wanted to refine it in order to separate gold from the whitish color they thought to be silver); “Divers arts dallemaigne” (Various german way of working). “Ils saydent fort des moulins deau & la pluspart des artisans de metaulx dor & dargent & aultres font a ces martines faire battre leurs grands ouvrages Et pour tirer le fil de fer il rougissent de grandes masses de fer & luy ayant faict une poincte ilz le font acrocher ainsy tout rouge & tirent ainsy promptem{ent} le fil” (They work a lot with water mill, most of gold, silver and other metalworkers use the hammers of the water mill to hammer their big works and to draw iron wire, they redden a big lump of iron from which they make a point that they hang when red, then they draw the wire).

15 “Les allemands en font des statues aulx fontaines qui ne se gastent point mesmem[{ent}] esta{n}t vernissees Ains il sendurcist en leau” (German people use this plaster to make statues for their fountains, even if the statues are varnished they will not be damaged with water. On the contrary this plaster hardens with water). This recipe appears to refer to a substance similar to hydraulic mortar, a type of cement that hardens upon exposure to water that has been in use to varying degrees in Europe since the Roman Empire. For a discussion of the tacit preservation of the formula for making hydraulic mortar, see Chandra Mukerji, “Tacit Knowledge and Classical Technique in Seventeenth-Century France: Hydraulic Cement as a Living Practice Among Masons and Military Engineers,” Technology and Culture (47, 2006): 713-733. Although the recipe here does not conform to the typical construction of hydraulic mortar (lime and pozzolan sand from Italy), it appears to behave the same way. If this were true, it would further bolster Mukerji’s argument that the knowledge of making hydraulic mortar was not classical knowledge lost to time and rediscovered in the eighteenth century as a distinctly Roman technique, but rather a material whose making was preserved in a variety of ways in a variety of communities.

16 “Tu pourrois bien gecter lor en sable commun des orfevres Mays que tu y bouttes de la matiere qui faict courre Devant linvention du crocum on gectoit bien les fleurs en argent mays non point en or Il ny ha pas quara{n}te ans quon le scait en allemaigne” (You can easily cast gold with the common sand of goldsmiths, but [make sure] that you add some substance that makes it runny. Before the invention of crocum, one cast flowers in silver, but not in gold. This has only been known in Germany for forty years).

17 Fol. 107r, also fol. 106r, fol. 119r, and fol. 119v.

18 Fol. 30r.

19 For a thorough discussion of the history, regulations, structure, and demographic of the Wanderjahr, see Arnd Kluge, Die Zünfte (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2007).

20 Reinhold Reith, “Circulation of Skilled Labor in Late Medieval and Early Modern Central Europe,” in Guilds, Innovation, and the European Economy, 1400-1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 116.

21 Louis IX had produced a Livre des Metiers for Parisian craftsmen in 1268 in an attempt to control labor and undermine the collective power of guilds. This disdain for guild independence seems to have continued for many centuries. For example, in 1539, François Ier decreed that all craft fraternities and organizations be disbanded, a decree which was never followed to the letter, but which led to the somewhat clandestine nature of the Tour de France and guild practices. See François Icher, The Artisans and Guilds of France: Beautiful Craftsmanship through the Centuries (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2000), 29-32.

22 Ibid, 32.

23 Reith, “Circulation of Skilled Labor,” 123.

24 Fol. 3r, 5r, 6r, 32r, 57r, 58r, 61r, 73v, 80r, 81r, 137r.

25 Fol. 59r, 97v.

26 References on fol. 31r, 32r, 36v, 57v, 58r, 58v, 60r, 63r, 63v, 66r, 85r, largely mentioned in relation to materials or painting techniques.

Founders of Small Tin Works

by Jef Palframan and Giulia Chiostrini

Transcription [from tc_p080v, 21 April 2015]

<title id=”p080v_a1″>Fondeurs de menus ouvrages destain</title>

<ab id=”p080v_b1″>Ilz gectent communem{ent} de souldure mesmem{ent} les choses qui<lb/>

ne doibvent point venir vuides Car celles la requierent<lb/>

lestaim fin & doulx Qui touteffois ne despouilleroit pas<lb/>

& ne viendroit pas vuide sil estoit mesle ou avoyct de<lb/>

lestain de glace mesle parmy co{mm}e ilz en mectent un peu en lestain<lb/>

doulx Ilz gravent leurs ouvrages sur des pierres dequoy<lb/>

se font les coulx ou filieres des barbiers qui se trouve<lb/>

par grandes escailles vers les montaignes & retire a<lb/>

lardoise Il y en ha de trois couleurs de rougeastre<lb/>

qui nest pas si parfaicte que les aultres pourceque elle ne<lb/>

dure pas tant au foeu & co{mme} Lune dard de couleur<lb/>

dardoise obscure laultre blancheastre Quand ilz ont<lb/>

quelque relief ilz limpriment premierement sur du carton<lb/>

espes dun doigt pour leur servir de patron Puys avecq un petit compas & petits ferrem{ens}<lb/>

dont ilz sont assortis ilz gravent leurs figures ayant premierem{ent}<lb/>

aplani leurs pierres & usees lune contre laultre ilz font<lb/>

leurs p moules de trois ou quatres pieces pour faire<lb/>

un rond ou quarre qui se joinct parfaitem{ent} a cause que<lb/>

les pierres se rendent fort esgalles Plustost que gecter

ilz frottent de suif le moule qui la bien tost bu a cause<lb/>

quil est chault Puys ayant de la subtile pouldre<lb/>

de chaulx vive dans un linge ilz poncent le moule en<lb/>

frappant du linge dessus puys souflent un peu dessus<lb/>

cela empesche de soufler Le principal est de faire<lb/>

des souspirails Si louvraige est grandet ilz les font<lb/>

en ceste sorte co{mm}e tu voys represente Ilz persent en quelque<lb/>

endroit de la medaille qui est le moings aparent Et puys avecq<lb/>

un foret ilz percent le moule au coste de la medaille<lb/>

Et silz veulent que leur ouvraige demeure perce en<lb/>

quelque endroit ilz enchassent un peu de liege en cet<lb/>

endroit dans le moule Et le plomb ou estaing ne si<lb/>

attaque point</ab>

<note id=”p080v_c1a”>Fais que les chevilles de ton<lb/>

chassis entrent alaise affin quen<lb/>

[ouvrant] le chassis souvre aisem{ent}<lb/>

sans rien esbranler Que tes chassis destain<lb/>

se joignent bien & que la table soit<lb/>

bien unye</note>

<note id=”p080v_c1b”>Essaye de graver<lb/>

avecq vinaigre<lb/>

distille</note>

<note id=”p080v_c1c”>Essaye les coquilles<lb/>

dhuistres calcinees<lb/>

on dict quelles sont<lb/>

excellentes pour<lb/>

mouler</note>

Translation [from tl_p080v, 21 April 2015] and suggested changes in red:

<title id=”p080v_a1″>Founders of small tin work</title>

<ab id=”p080v_b1″>They usually cast from soft solder1 the things that should not become hollow, because [hollow works] require fine and soft tin. However, these things would not otherwise lose their coat or become hollow if they are mixed or include glass tin in them, just like they mix a little [glass tin] in the soft tin. They carve their work on stones of which the sharpening stones or barber’s files are made. These are found in great flakes near the mountains, and resemble slate. You can find these [rocks] in three colors: one reddish, that is not as perfect as the others because it does not sustain heat; [another] one is the color of dark slate, and the other is whitish. When they work a relief, first they print it on paper maché, which is one finger thick, to serve as a pattern. After planning the stones and rubbing them together, they use a compass or little iron tools to carve their figures. They make their molds with three or four stones, to make a circle or a square with the stones which join perfectly because the stones are of equal size. Before casting, they rub the molds over with tallow, and it [the mold] absorbs it quickly because it is hot. Then, having [put] fine powder of quicklime into a cloth, they rub the mold using pounce in beating the linen on top, then blow it a little on top; this prevents bubbles [from forming]. The main thing is that you make some vents. If the work is big, they do as it is shown [on the picture]. They make a hole in the medal, somewhere where it is least visible, and with a bit they pierce the mold on the side of the medal. And if they want their work to last, they pierce [it] somewhere and fit in a piece of cork. Lead or tin will not damage it. </ab>

<note id=”p080v_c1a”>Make sure the pegs of your frame fit in easily so it will open with ease without moving anything else. Your tin box molds should fit well, and the table should be very flat. </note>

<note id=”p080v_c1b”>Try to carve with distilled vinegar.</note>

<note id=”p080v_c1c”>Try calcined oyster shells; they are said to be excellent for molding.</note>

Annotation: Concerning the Use of Stone Molds, fol. 80v

by Giulia Chiostrini & Jef Palframan

[All figure file names have been abbreviated for readability, e.g. “AnnotationSpring2015_ChiostriniPalframan_80v_FoundersofSmallTinWork_Fig1_CalcinatedOysterShells.jpg” is here shortened to “Fig1_CalcinatedOysterShells1.jpg”]

The recipe Founders of Small Tin Works on fol. 80v describes in detail the process for casting metal in stone molds. The recipe is unique in that it appears to diverge from other casting recipes in the manuscript. Stone mold casting, like cuttlefish bone casting, does not receive as much attention from the author-practitioner of BnF Ms. Fr. 640 as other forms of casting (e.g., sand casting and plaster casting). Stone mold casting is mentioned once,2 and techniques related to cuttlefish bone casting of metal objects are mentioned only three times.3 In contrast, the number of sand (and plaster) casting recipes in the manuscript is well over fifty. Despite being the only stone molding recipe in the manuscript, the recipe is still richly detailed. It describes a molding process, which was used to mass produce tin and lead pilgrim badges in large numbers, a procedure for which little or no comparable contemporary written sources exist. This annotation describes our attempts to reconstruct and document the stone molding technique as described in the manuscript and speculates on questions about how and why the author-practitioner engaged with the practice.

Casting metal in stone was first performed in antiquity and it developed in tandem with other casting techniques, such as sand casting or lost-wax casting.4 Prior to and during the middle ages, stone molding was carried out in many regions of Europe. During the Bronze Age, Scandinavian peoples used soapstone molds to cast metal objects with many different types of metals.5 From the Medieval era and into the early modern period stone casting was used in the production of pilgrim badges. Pilgrim badges were typically cast in lead or a low-quality pewter,6 and poured into a carved stone mold. The stone molding recipe in BnF Ms. Fr. 640 appears to have been collected from artisans engaged in this practice, for the author-practitioner writes, “Those who cast these small items, sold in front of the churches, melt half a pound of lead on a pound of tin, and cast in a stone frame.”7

Collecting an account of the process from practitioners is in keeping with the lack of recipes for stone molding recorded in other technical writings, as far as we have been able to identify. Cennino Cennini, writing at the end of the fourteenth century, does give instructions on how to mold tin foil with stone molds in Il Libro Dell’ Arte, but these bear little resemblance to the technique described in Ms. Fr. 640.8 In his sixteenth-century metal and metallurgy treatise Pirotechnia, Vannoccio Biringuccio writes, “Indeed, [tin] is an easily melted metal, in common use for the utensils which are made for human needs, it is an art known not only to skilled men but almost to children, wherefore I could proceed without telling of it.”9 This view underscores the unwritten nature of stone molding, a technique to be learned by engaging with its practitioners, who were seemingly ubiquitous, judging from the many pilgrim badges still extant.

Indeed, casting metal objects in stone molds was a relatively simple process; first, practitioners sought out stones of the best consistency to make their carving, identifiable by their consistency, containing no large particles of differing hardness, or “close-grained.”10 Once two stones of sufficient consistency were found, they were ground together, or on a flat surface, until the pieces fit tightly together (a stone used for an open-face mold did not require grinding). Using a pointed tool made from a hard metal such as iron, a design was carved into the stone material. Once the design was complete, a venting and gate system was carved. A separating agent was applied and the stones joined together. Molten metal, typically a mixture of tin and lead, was then poured into the mold and, once cooled, the molded object was removed.

The first step in reconstructing this process was selecting an appropriate stone. The author-practitioner writes:

[Tin Founders] carve their work on stones of which the sharpening stones or barber’s files are made. These are found in great flakes near the mountains, and resemble slate. You can find these [rocks] in three colors: one reddish, that is not as perfect as the others because it does not sustain heat; [another] one is the color of dark slate, and the other is whitish.11

Determining exactly the type of stone to which he is referring was extremely difficult. Geological maps of the Pyrenees mountain ranges just south of Toulouse show the presence of limestone, sandstone, granite, and other metamorphic rock formations from various geological periods.12 Surviving stone molds from Western Europe from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century were equally varied and are made of a variety of materials like soapstone, limestone, mudstone, and more.13

Since we have not yet determined the exact type of stone specified by the author-practitioner, we decided to approach our selection of stone based upon material properties rather than stone types, since the author-practitioner approaches the stones in this way. He specifies that the stones used by tin Founders are those “which the sharpening stones or barber’s files are made… [and] resemble slate.”14 The use of these materials in the sharpening of blades used in shaving suggests that these stones were of a highly uniform nature. The slate samples we obtained displayed a fine texture throughout, although our samples proved impossible to use. Other examples of medieval stone molds also display a “close-grained… [and] fine-grained…” texture.15 Based upon these observations of grain, we decided to use two types of common stone with the finest texture we could find, namely, limestone and soapstone, although limestone is much more granular than soapstone.16 [Fig01_LimestonePreCarving.jpg] [Fig02_SoapstoneMoldCarving.jpg]

At first, we spent much time trying to get the stones flat enough so that they fit together seamlessly for a two-piece mold.17 Even after several grinding sessions, in which we rubbed the stones against each other and on a flat surface, the stones were still not perfectly flush and the grinding continued during and after the carving of the design. [Fig03_CreatingTheSeal.jpg]

As inexpert stone carvers, we soon discovered that stone is hard, especially when attempting to achieve precise detail.18 At first, our progress was slow, especially with the limestone. The relatively simple design we chose for the limestone took over 3 hours to complete using various files, chisels and brushes. [Fig04_MarkingDesign.jpg] [Fig05_SoapstoneMoldCompletedCarving.jpg] This lengthy production time can partially be attributed to our novice skill level, but it was also due to the hardness of the stone. Attaining any depth into the stone required patience and force. As the author-practitioner indicated, particular instruments were used to do this work, writing, “they use a compass or little iron tools to carve their figures.” Sixteenth century compasses and calipers were precision instruments,19 and while museum collections contain several examples of mold designs displaying a high degree of artisanal skill, [Fig06_Example of Detailed Mold] it would appear that this technique was mostly used to produce large numbers of relatively simple objects, indicating that the durability of the stone was of prime importance.

We also attempted to use distilled vinegar to carve, as indicated by the author-practitioner in a marginal note. The vinegar made the limestone easier to carve, but there was not much difference felt when vinegar was used with soapstone. Due to the chemical reaction between limestone and vinegar, it may be that the resulting dissolution of the limestone accounted for the greater ease of carving, which may also suggest that the stone described in the recipe was limestone or a stone chemically similar to limestone.20 [Fig07_CarvingwithDistilledVinegar.jpg]

The author-practitioner comments on the interaction of vinegar with other substances throughout the manuscript: for example, in Imitation coral on fol. 3r, vinegar is used make colophony “less brittle”; in Grenades on fol. 24r, vinegar is used to “soften the [gun]powder” in order to make it burn slower; in Argel-made work on fol. 52r vinegar is used to neutralize dangerous vapors; and in Making black gum on fol. 76v, vinegar is used to “dilute” black gum. Further experimentation on vinegar is required in order to say anything definitive on the material, however, from the text it appears that the author-practitioner regards vinegar as an agent that tempers or combines easily and usefully with other substances.21

Once we finished carving our designs in the stones with vinegar, we then drilled plugholes into the limestone with a drill and filled these holes with tin/lead alloy. The metal forms natural posts that enable repeated use of the molds and ensures proper alignment. [Fig08_DrillingPlugholes.jpg] [Fig09_LimestoneMoldClosedWithPegs.jpg] [Fig10_LimestoneMoldOpenWithPegs.jpg] [Fig11_SoapstoneMoldClosedWithPegs.jpg] [Fig12_SoapstoneMoldOpenWithPegs.jpg] The author-practitioner also advises to, “Make sure the pegs of your frame fit in easily so it will open with ease without moving anything else.”22 Thus, we ensured that the posts could easily release from their recesses. Most extant molds in the collections have lost their posts and only the holes remain as evidence of a two-piece mold backing.23

We also added an extraction hole to the soapstone mold as described in the manuscript, “They make a hole in the medal, somewhere where it is least visible, and with a bit they pierce the mold on the side of the medal. And if they want their work to last, they pierce [it] somewhere and fit in a piece of cork. Lead or tin will not damage it.”24 [Fig13_HoletoMakeMoldLast.jpg] [Fig14_CorkPlug.jpg] Generally, the extraction hole worked well, the cork was only slightly singed, and it greatly aided the release of the metal. Using an extraction hole seems a very specific detail, which shows once more that the author-practitioner likely practiced stone molding himself, and appreciated the tricks of the stone molder’s trade.

Once the posts had cooled, we applied a separating agent. Following the recipe, the molds were heated slightly (using a blowtorch) and the tallow was applied with a brush. [Fig15_ApplyingTallow.jpg] [Fig16_SoapstoneMoldApplyingTallow.jpg] [Fig17_SoapstoneMoldwithTallow.jpg] The heat from the mold melted the tallow and the mold appeared to “absorb it quickly because it [was] hot.”25

The next step was to select our separators. The author-practitioner specifies two different materials to be used as powdered separators in the recipe: quicklime and calcined oyster shells. The quicklime is mentioned in the main body of the recipe and appears to be from the same source as the rest of the recipe. The calcined oyster shells are mentioned in a marginal note and were likely added to the margin after the main recipe was written. Both of the materials, quicklime and calcined oyster shells, appear to be recommendations collected from other sources, rather than originating from his own experience. The quicklime appears to be from the main source of the recipe, possibly the tin Founders or pewterers, and the calcined oyster shells appear to be from a different source which is more generalized and indiscriminate, as he wrote, they “are said to be.”26 Based on our past experience with casting in sand we decided to complete the experiment by trying different separators (charcoal, quicklime, and calcined oyster shells) on our two types molds (limestone and soapstone).27

The separators were applied and the molds were sealed. [Fig18_SealingtheMold.jpg] [Fig19_CalcinedOysterShellSeparator.jpg] For all pouring, we used an alloy composed of 50% tin and 50% lead.28 Once the metals had cooled the completed badges were removed, the sprues were removed, and after this, work was performed on some of the badges using a soldering iron. [Fig20_CastingPreAfterwork.jpg] [Fig21_BadgewithAfterwork.jpg]

In order to evaluate the differences between the quality of the casts produced using different separators, we first had to understand exactly what a good cast meant for the author-practitioner. He is mostly vague on what constitutes good quality, and typically hides his assessments behind adjectives like “excellent”29 or “very good.”30 However, in one instance he writes, “I believe that the secret of casting well lies in finding a sand that conforms well to the metal, this one for lead, the other for another, because each has its own particular one, so that it be molded easily and keenly.”31 We interpreted molding “easily and keenly” (in French “a laise & curieusement”)32 to mean that the metal releases easily from the molding material, possibly retaining the mold for repeated use, and that the precise details from the mold are transferred to the metal with minimal loss.

Of the three separators, the charcoal was the least effective in meeting this standard. [Fig22_AllResults.jpg] [Fig23_LimestoneComparison.jpg] [Fig24_SoapstoneResultComparison.jpg] The charcoal left a grainy texture all over the badge, more so than the other separators. Pieces of charcoal became embedded in the metal itself and were still present even after repeated cleanings, giving the metal a dark colored tone.33 The charcoal produced the largest failure of all the pourings, with over half of one mold failing to fill at all.34 [Fig25_VentingFailure.jpg] The quicklime and calcined oyster shells both performed well, and overall, were better than the charcoal. These separators made the metal appear brighter and smoother than the charcoal separator. In all cases–charcoal, quicklime, and calcined oyster shells–the metal released easily from the molds and the molds were left undamaged, ready to be used again.

This reconstruction of the stone molding technique found in BnF Ms. Fr. 640 is by no means comprehensive. There are many remaining questions, such as the impact of different stones or of metal alloy types on the process. In addition, more research needs to be carried out on the craft and status of pewterers. Nonetheless, this recipe provides an unusually detailed and descriptive account of stone molding, and its singular appearance in Ms. Fr. 640 may reveal the relative lack of interest the author-practitioner had in a process of molding that did not involve changes of state in materials brought about by mixtures of different sands and binders, nor in one that resulted in simple and static forms rather than the life-like nature casts on which, in contrast, he worked so intensively.

Bibliography

Biringuccio, Vannoccio. The Pirotechnia of Vannoccio Biringuccio: The Classic Sixteenth-Century Treatise on Metals and Metallurgy. New York: Dover Publications, 1990.

Cennino Cennini, The Craftsman’s Handbook. New York: Dover Publications, 2012.

Constantinus de Pisa and Barbara Obrist. The Book of the Secrets of Alchemy. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1990.

Cotgrave, Randle. A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues. London: Adam Islip, 1611.

Greer, Sarah Elizabeth, A Comparison of the Ancient Metal Casting Materials and Processes to Modern Metal Casting Materials and Processes (MA Thesis, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 2009)

Hansen, Gitte. Everyday products in the Middle Ages: Crafts, Consumption and the Individual in Northern Europe c. AD 800 – 1600. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2015.

Kavey, Allison. Books of Secrets Natural Philosophy in England, 1550-1600. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007.

Leong, Elaine Yuen Tien, and Alisha Michelle Rankin. Secrets and Knowledge in Medicine and Science, 1500-1800. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2011.

Pomerol, Charles, and Jacques Debelmas. Geology of France: With Twelve Itineraries and a Geological Map at 1:2,500,000. Paris: Masson, 1980.

Price, T. Douglas. Ancient Scandinavia: An Archaeological History from the First Humans to the Vikings. 2015.

Spencer, Brian. Pilgrim Souvenirs and Secular Badges. London: Stationery Office, 1998.

Spencer, Brian, “Medieval pilgrim badges” in Rotterdam Papers / Uitgegeven Onder Redactie Van J. G. N. Renaud, 1968

Simpson, Bruce Liston. History of the Metalcasting Industry. Des Plaines, Illinois: American Foundrymen’s Society, 1969.

Theophilus, John G. Hawthorne, and Cyril Stanley Smith. On Divers Arts: The Foremost Medieval Treatise on Painting, Glassmaking, and Metalwork. New York: Dover Publications, 1979. Kindle Edition.

Trench, Lucy. Materials & Techniques in the Decorative Arts: an Illustrated Dictionary. London: John Murray, 2000.

---

1 Souldure should be translated as a “soft solder” and be understood to be a metallic alloy (usually made of tin and lead) that can be used for casting or joining.

According to the OED:

1. A fusible metallic alloy used for uniting metal surfaces or parts.

Various kinds are distinguished by specific names, as hard, soft (see sense 4), white, copper, gold, silver, pewterer’s, plumber’s solder.

4. soft solder: a. A common kind of solder, usually made from tin and lead.

According to Le Grand Robert:

Alliage fusible (plomb, étain…) servant à souder les métaux.

According to http://www.littre.org/definition/soudure:

Composition ou mélange de divers métaux et minéraux, qui sert à unir ensemble des pièces de métal. En fondant l’étain à partie égale avec le plomb, l’alliage est ce que les plombiers appellent de la soudure; et ils l’emploient en effet pour souder leurs ouvrages en plomb. Soudure grasse, celle dans laquelle domine l’étain ; on dit par opposition soudure maigre. Soudure au tiers, mélange de deux parties de plomb avec une partie d’étain. Soudure à huit, soudure des orfévres, composée d’une partie de cuivre sur sept d’argent.

2 In Steel Mirrors on fol. 5r a ‘white stone mold’ is mentioned in the process of mirror making and in Lead Tin on fol. 48v ‘stone molds’ are mentioned in conjunction with pewterers; however, there is no exploration of the technique in either of these recipes.

3 See BnF Ms. Fr. 640, Molding with Cuttlefish Bone on fol. 91r, Cuttlefish Bone on fol. 145r. and The Mode in Which Goldsmiths Mold Hollow Molds on fol. 157r.

4 Some scholars believes that the oldest-known cast object, Stand Supported by the Figure of a Frog, is believed to have originated from the ancient Mesopotamian city Kish around 3200 BCE, see Bruce Liston Simpson, History of the Metalcasting Industry (Des Plaines, Ill.: American Foundrymen’s Society, 1969), and Sarah Elizabeth Greer, A comparison of the ancient metal casting materials and processes to modern metal casting materials and processes (MA Thesis, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 2009). Based on photos of this object, which resides at the Field Museum in Chicago, the actual method of forming this object is unclear. It is most likely sand cast or lost-wax cast. A more detailed examination is needed. Nonetheless, it is a complex metal form, evidencing a high degree of skill. See Unknown, “Stand Supported by the Figure of a Frog.” Copper alloy and stone. Around 3200 BCE. Kish Collection. Field Museum, Chicago, United States. http://archive.fieldmuseum.org/kish/gallery_object.asp.

5 Douglas T. Price, Ancient Scandinavia: An Archaeological History from the First Humans to the Vikings (2015), 210, and Gitte Hansen, Everyday products in the Middle Ages: crafts, consumption and the individual in Northern Europe c. AD 800 – 1600 (Oxford [u.a.]: Oxbow Books. 2015), 55.

6 Brian Spencer, “Medieval pilgrim badges” (Rotterdam Papers / Uitgegeven Onder Redactie Van J. G. N. Renaud. 1968) 137.

7 BnF Ms. Fr. 640, Lead Casting on fol. 49r. “Ceulx qui gectent ces petits ouvrages qui se vendent devant les eglises y fondent une sur une lb destaim demy de plomb et gectent en pierre.” Since this comment appears earlier in the manuscript, at 49r, than the primary recipe, at 80v, it may also indicate that the author-practitioner returned at a later time to expand upon the technique. Although, in light of the seemingly random character of the rest of the manuscript, we should avoid reading a strict chronology into the order of the folios.

8 “You may also get a stone, carved with devices of any style you wish; and grease this stone with bacon fat or lard. Then get some tin foil; and, laying some fairly moist tow on the tin which lies over the mold, and beating it as hard as you can, with a willow mallet, you then take gesso grosso ground with size, and fill up this impression with the slice. You may embellish with these on a wall, on chests, on stone, on anything you please, afterward putting some mordant over the tin; and when it is a little tacky, gild it with fine gold. Then, when it is dry, fasten it to the wall with ship pitch.” See Cennino Cennini, The Craftsman’s Handbook (New York: Dover Publications: 2012), 1413-1418.

9 Vannoccio Biringuccio, The Pirotechnia of Vannoccio Biringuccio: The Classic Sixteenth-Century Treatise on Metals and Metallurgy (New York: Dover Publications, 1990), 374.

10 Brian Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs and Secular Badges (London: Stationery Office, 1998), 8.

11 BnF Ms. Fr. 640, Founders of Small Tin Works on fol. 80v. “Ilz gravent leurs ouvrages sur des pierres dequoy se font les coulx ou filieres des barbiers qui se trouve par grandes escailles vers les montaignes & retire a lardoise Il y en ha de trois couleurs de rougeastre qui nest pas si parfaicte que les aultres pourceque elle ne dure pas tant au foeu & co{mme} Lune dard de couleur dardoise obscure laultre blancheastre”

12 Charles Pomerol and Jacques Debelmas, Geology of France: With Twelve Itineraries and a Geological Map at 1:2,500,000 (Paris: Masson, 1980), 243-244.

13 See, “Stone mould.” Stone mould. 1380-1400. Sculpture Collection. Victoria & Albert Museum, London, England. http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O121632/stone-mould-stone-mould-unknown/; “Jewellery mould.” Carved mudstone mould. 1400-1500. Metalwork Collection. Victoria & Albert Museum, London, England. http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O126628/jewellery-mould-unknown/; and “badge-mould.” Engraved badge-mould. 15^th Century (?). Britain, Europe and Prehistory. http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=79354&partId=1&object=24129&page=1 for examples. Also Brian Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs and Secular Badges (London: Stationery Office, 1998), 8.

14 BnF Ms. Fr. 640, Founders of Small Tin Works on fol. 80v. “dequoy se font les coulx ou filieres des barbiers qui se trouve par grandes escailles vers les montaignes & retire a lardoise”

15 Brian Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs and Secular Badges (London: Stationery Office, 1998), 8. It is a mystery as to why the author-practitioner mentions slate as a material and does not simply say to use slate. Slate is a viable material to be utilized in stone-molding. This may have been because slate was unavailable.

16 We originally intended to utilize slate since he specifically mentions that the stones he used resembled slate. However, due to the awkward shape of the slate samples we obtained, we abandoned the material.

17 Within the collections there are many examples of two-piece molds. Often the back pieces of the molds are missing or not put on display. Two-piece molds can be identified by the presence of plugholes designed to hold the posts, which align the back of the mold to the front. See Unknown, “Jewellery mould.” Carved mudstone mould. 1400-1500. Metalwork Collection. Victoria & Albert Museum, London, England. http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O126628/jewellery-mould-unknown/, for an example of a two piece mold with its backing.

18 The sandstone design was based on a fourteenth-sixteenth century pilgrim’s badge from France. See Unknown, “Pilgrim’s Badge.” Metalwork-Lead. 14th-16th Century. The Cloisters Collection. 1977.240.101. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, United States. http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/472002. The soapstone design was based upon another 14th-16th century badge from France. See Unknown, “Pilgrim’s Badge.” Metalwork-Lead. 14th-16th Century. The Cloisters Collection. 1977.240.50. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, United States. http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/472075.

19 See Lorenzo Batecin, “Gunner’s Caliper.” 16^th Century. Venice, Italy. Instituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza, Firenze. Inventory no. 3176. http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=83696; Unknown “Gunner’s Caliper.” circa 1600. Dutch. Museum Boerhaave, Leiden. Inventory no. 22973. http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=38096; and Unknown “Compasses.” 16th Century. Italian. Instituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza, Firenze. Inventory no. 1357. http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=55801. Cotgrave translates compas as “Compasse, a circle, around; also a paire of comapsses.” See Randle Cotgrave. A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues (London: Adam Islip, 1611).

20 Limestone, composed calcium carbonate (CaCO₃), reacts with vinegar, an acid, to produce calcium acetate, water, and carbon dioxide, dissolving the limestone. The reaction is CaCO₃+ 2H⁺ > Ca⁺² + H₂O +CO_2.

21 Use of vinegar is common in technical literature. In Constantinus de Pisa’s The Book of the Secrets of Alchemy, de Pisa instructs the reader on the tempering qualities of vinegar in several instances: “…take quicksilver and boil it in pan with vinegar and salt, which will purify it of its blackness,” “…the mercury should be washed by cooking it in vinegar in which sal ammoniac has been dissolved, boiling it for one day,” and “Kill the mercury with vinegar and white lead in a mortar,” see Constantinus de Pisa and Barbara Obrist. The Book of the Secrets of Alchemy (Leiden: E.J. Brill. 1990), 277, 281,and 292. Theophilus describes vinegar as a tempering agent, “When [the ashes and the blood of a red-haired man] have been compounded, they are tempered with sharp vinegar in a clean pot,” see Theophilus, John G. Hawthorne, and Cyril Stanley Smith. On Divers Arts (New York: Dover Publications: 2012), 1945. Kindle Edition.

22 BnF Ms. Fr. 640, Founders of Small Tin Works on fol. 80v. “Fais que les chevilles de ton<lb/>

chassis entrent alaise affin quen [ouvrant] le chassis souvre aisem{ent} sans rien esbranler Que tes chassis destain se joignent bien & que la table soit bien unye”

23 “Badge-mould.” Engraved badge-mould. 15^th Century (?). Britain, Europe and Prehistory. http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=79354&partId=1&object=24129&page=1 Some molds have retained their posts.

24 BnF Ms. Fr. 640, Founders of Small Tin Works on fol. 80v. “Ilz persent en quelque endroit de la medaille qui est le moings aparent Et puys avecq un foret ilz percent le moule au coste de la medaille Et silz veulent que leur ouvraige demeure perce en quelque endroit ilz enchassent un peu de liege en cet endroit dans le moule Et le plomb ou estaing ne si attaque point.”

25 BnF Ms. Fr. 640, Founders of Small Tin Works on fol. 80v. “Plustost que gecter ilz frottent de suif le moule qui la bien tost bu a cause quil est chault.”

26 BnF Ms. Fr. 640, Founders of Small Tin Works on fol. 80v. “on dict quelles sont” For scholarship on the genre of ‘books of secrets’ and corresponding nature of collecting such information, see Elaine Yuen Tien Leong and Alisha Michelle Rankin, Secrets and Knowledge in Medicine and Science, 1500-1800 (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2011) and Allison Kavey, Books of Secrets Natural Philosophy in England, 1550-1600 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007).

27 The quicklime and calcined oyster shells used in our experiments should be understood to have been slaked by moisture in the air, meaning that they have been hydrated and have turned into calcium hydroxide. After the pouring of the metals, we tested the excess of quicklime and calcined oyster shells for a reactivity by adding water. No reaction was observed. Additionally, the charcoal was chosen for experimentation since it is used in other parts of the manuscript as a separator in other casting activities and it provides a standard for comparing results. In BnF Ms. Fr. 640, Sand – 81v, charcoal is mixed with clay and sand to form a casting sand; in Eau Magistra – 84v, charcoal “makes things come off well/ faict bien despouiller” “; and in Molding with Cuttlefish Bone – 91r, charcoal is used “because it helps [castings] come out easily/qui les faict bien despouiller & garde de rien enlever.”

28 The metal used in pilgrim badges in England was typically “an alloy comprising around 60-65% tin and 40-35% lead,” see Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs and Secular Badges, 10. The mixture half tin and half lead was used when the artisans want “their work [to be] whiter,” see Lead Casting on fol. 49r. “silz veulent leur ouvrage plus blanc ilz mectent la

moictie destain & moictie de plomb”

29 BnF Ms. Fr. 640, Try Calcineed Vitriol on fol. 69r. “excellent”

30 BnF Ms. Fr. 640, Making Gold Run for Casting on fol. 106r. “tres bien”

31 BnF Ms. Fr. 640, Sand Experiments on fol. 85v. “Je croy que de bien gecter gist de trouver un sable qui recoive bien le metal lun pour le plomb laultre pour un aultre car chascun en ha son particulier Quil soict moule a laise & curieusement.”

32 Cotgrave translates curieusement as “Curiously, precisely, nicely, quaintly, daintly,” See Cotgrave, A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues.

33 This may also have been due to not grinding the charcoal finely enough.

34 Although, this may have been due to improper venting and/or the molds being too cold.

PLEASE NOTE: THIS ANNOTATION IS STILL IN PROGRESS

An exploration of molding delicate things:

BnF Ms. Fr. 640, folio 142v

French Transcription

<title id=”p142v_a1”>Mouler sauterelles et choses<lb/>

trop tanvres</title>

<ab id=”p142v_b1”>Si tu as à mouler un papier escript qui soict trop tanvre,<lb/>

apres que tu as faict le premier gect & qu’il ha faict prise,<lb/>

donne un peu d’espesseur au revers de ton papier avecq du<lb/>

beurre fondu, qui est le plus propre moyen qui soict, & pour<lb/>

fortifier les aisles ou d’un papillon ou d’une sauterelle,<lb/>

ou quelque delicate partye d’animal à quoy tu as besoing<lb/>

de donner espesseur. Mays advise d’apliquer ce beurre fondu<lb/>

dessoubs l’aisle ou en tel lieu qu’il ne soict poinct voeu.<lb/>

Pour donner espesseur à une pensée ou aultres fleurs,<lb/>

le boeurre n’est pas bon, ains l’huile de froment, qui est bien<lb/>

tost sec & tient ferme. La cire n’y seroit pas propre<lb/>

car elle est trop chaulde, estant fondue, & faict retirer<lb/>

la chose à quoy elle est apliquée. Mays le boeurre<lb/>

est amiable et maniant.</ab>

<note id=”p142v_c1a”>Si tu escripts<lb/>

sur papier ou carton<lb/>

commun, & que ta<lb/>

l{ett}re soict à gomme,<lb/>

l’humidite de la<lb/>

plaste d’ardille ou<lb/>

le sable destrempé<lb/>

pour noyau humectero{n}t<lb/>

ta l{ett}re [et] la defferont.<lb/>

Escripts doncq de<lb/>

cinabre destrempé<lb/>

à huile sur du<lb/>

papier huilé &<lb/>

imprimé.</note>

English Translation

<title id=”p142v_a1″>Molding grasshoppers and other things too thin</title>

<ab id=”p142v_b1″>If you have a piece of written paper to mold, which is very thin, after you have made a first casting and it has taken, add a little thickness to the back of your paper with some melted butter, which is the most appropriate means there is, and [this method applies as well] for strengthening the wings of either a butterfly or grasshopper, or any delicate part of an animal for which you need to add some thickness. Be advised [however] to apply this melted butter underneath the wing or whichever place, so that it is not seen. To give thickness to a pansy or other flowers, butter is not good, thus [one uses] wheat oil, which dries quickly and holds firm. Wax would not be appropriate [in this case] because it is too hot, having been melted, and it makes the thing to which it is applied draw in. But butter is good [to work with] and easy to handle.</ab>

<ab id=”p142v_c1a”>If you write on paper or on cardboard, and your piece of writing has been made with gum, the wetness of the clay pack or of the soaked sand for the noyau will moisten it [and] ruin it. Thus, write with cinnabar mixed with oil, on oiled and printed paper.</ab>

Introduction

The recipe “Molding grasshoppers and other things too thin” on fol. 142v is one of the many processes of molding and casting described in the manuscript. In BnF Ms. Fr. 640, the author-practitioner gives numerous detailed accounts of processes that range from large, heavy weapons (e.g., artillery and arquebuses) to small, delicate objects like flowers and insects, and even paper. Throughout the manuscript the scale of such objects and the challenge of casting them preoccupies the author-practitioner. Moreover, the delicate and ephemeral things (grasshoppers, butterflies, flowers) that he tries on fol. 142v not only are associated with transience and ephemerality; in the case of butterflies, they also go through processes of metamorphosis. Perhaps this heightened the author’s interest in these castings. As in his attempts to fix delicate roses into a metallic form, on fol. 142v he is also preoccupied with processes of transformation, not only from transience to fixed and durable form, but also with the combinations of sands and binders that will transform ordinary workshop materials into carriers of the most delicate impressions.

In order to accomplish such transformative processes, the author-practitioner found it necessary to coordinate and combine materials at different stages of the molding and casting process, a form of knowledge acquired through hands-on trial and error. Why? Because objects of different sizes and densities need a variety of techniques and molding materials (namely different kinds of sand, which we might see as the matrix), and different metals for casting. Aside from scale, the author-practitioner also makes a distinction between things that are rather “thick” and “fat” (or “round”), and things that are “thin” and “delicate” (or “fine”), forms that must be molded and cast in specific and appropriate sands and metals. Such recipes in the manuscript often focus on either medal-making or life-casting, and they constitute an important part of the entire manuscript.¹ Indeed, according to Smith and Beentjes, “both involve extensive knowledge of, and experimentation with, mold materials and metal alloys, and both aim for a very fine surface impression that demonstrates the maker’s expertise and virtuosity.”²

Our annotation focuses on our reconstruction of casting “things too thin” from fol. 142v; specifically, paper, pansies, and butterflies. The question we address through our reconstruction of these three things considers the role of materials with which the author-practitioner experiments in order to add thickness to their delicate elements, and thus improve their “castability.” In fol. 142v, the author-practitioner discusses different ways that some delicate parts of animals and plants (i.e., wings of a grasshopper or butterfly, and pansy petals) could be treated prior to casting from life. Throughout the manuscript, three materials are mentioned frequently that serve to thicken thin things: butter, oil, and wax. Interestingly, although the author-practitioner clearly states that wax is not appropriate for thickening thin things, he contradicts himself on several occasions about the efficacy of butter and oil. This inconsistency within the manuscript caught our attention, and exploration of its presence and significance informs our own experimental process in our reconstruction of casting the thin things from fol. 142v. Accordingly, this annotation investigates ambiguities in the use and description of thickening agents. We explore different characteristics of various materials in our interpretation and reconstruction of recipes from fol. 142v for molding paper, pansies, and a butterfly. Our focal point is the exploration of how the author-practitioner sought to re-animate the materials he used in casting thin things. Also, we highlight the limitation of the language he used in terms of our ability to understand the essence of the recipes set down in fol. 142v, particularly when it comes to the author-practitioner’s description of his own intimacy with materials. ruin it. Thus write with cinnabar mixed with oil, on oiled and printed paper.”

In this excerpt from fol. 142v, the author-practitioner offers advice about how to create a piece of writing on paper that can withstand the wetness of the molding materials (packed clay or soaked sand), as well as how to add thickness to the written paper. Both of these points address the question of how to prepare the paper to be molded in order for it to withstand the potential damage that its encasement in the mold could cause. This particular recipe appears to be unusual amongst other such contemporary sources about life casting as those provided by Vannoccio Biringuccio, Cennino Cennini, Bernard Palissy, and Hugh Plat – none of whom address the techniques of casting paper. There are several technical questions that a reconstruction of this recipe from fol. 142v can address: THERE IS FAR TOO MUCH DETAIL IN THE FOLLOWING SECTION. SINCE YOUR FOCAL POINT IS CASTING, YOU CAN SHORTEN THIS ENTIRE SECTION ON HOW YOU MADE THE WRITING AND HOW THE PAPER SHOULD BE PRE-TREATED. MENTION THESE THINGS, BUT REFERENCE YOUR FIELD NOTES.

1. Why should the piece of writing be made of cinnabar mixed with oil, and what kind of oil is the author-practitioner suggesting here?
2. What kind of paper is used here, and how it should be pre-treated before molding?
3. How should the written paper be molded and cast?

We began with writing on the paper. For this, we undertook the reconstruction of two attempted methods mentioned by the author: to write using gum, and to write using cinnabar mixed with oil. Interestingly, he rejects the method that uses gum. That said, it appears that gum is an important material in BnF Ms. Fr. 640. It is mentioned in many recipes throughout the manuscript, most of which are pigment related,³ and which enumerate various types of gum: gum arabic, sandarac gum, gum amoniacum, tragacanth gum. All of these forms of gum primarily function as water-soluble binding agents for pigment. Moreover, in a few recipes, gum was used as a binder for molding materials, and the term “gum water” or “gummed water” (gum arabic diluted with water) was used several times in recipes for pigments,⁴ which commonly involves soaking a powdered pigment in clear gum water.

According to internal references in the manuscript, we inferred that the water solubility of gum would make it an inadequate substance for the written material on the paper to be molded. However, on this subject, there is a contradictory recipe in fol. 131r, “Moulding letter paper.” This particular recipe calls for writing that uses “ink bien gommé” (well-gummed ink),⁵ and it suggests that writing should be made of well-gummed ink or any other pigment with body, and which does not dissolve in brandy. Thus, the recipe on fol. 131r contradicts the one on fol. 142v where the author-practitioner prefers cinnabar mixed with oil over gum. It could be a self-correction since this recipe on fol. 142v follows that of fol. 131r, and the remark about gum is a marginal note.

Using cinnabar mixed with oil as an alternative for the writing material might be also related to techniques of making colors and varnish with pigments and liquids. Indeed, in the very beginning of the manuscript, the author introduces several oil-based substances made by heating and mixing a kind of plant oil, a kind of natural resin, with a powdered pigment together,⁶ in which the viscosity of the varnish can be balanced by adjusting the proportion of oil and resin. Throughout the manuscript, the author-practitioner lists such diverse oils as plant oil, turpentine oil, walnut oil, linseed oil, mastic oil, and aspic oil, which provide clues about what kind of oil he could be referring to in the recipe on fol. 142v.

Perhaps the most confusing part of the recipe in fol. 142v is the phrase, “oiled and printed paper.”⁷ Oiling paper is a technique that gives the paper a waterproof coating, and makes it more transparent and durable. That is why oiled paper was used to cover the window openings.footnote? The annotation for fol. 131r, “Moulded Letter Paper,” makes suggestions about the specific kind of paper the author-practitioner is using here.⁸ In terms of how to mold the paper, both fol. 142v (“a first casting”) and fol. 133r (“cast both sides”) suggest a two-piece mold. However, both recipes provide no further instructions other than to place the written paper on a sheet of clay and to dampen it with spirits (the spirits work as the separator). Soaked sand is mentioned in various life casting recipes throughout the manuscript, and according to Randal Cotgrave’s contemporary dictionary, “noyau” also means a core mold.⁹ If we make an inference based on these two clues, it seems that the written paper should be molded in the same way as animals and plants are molded from life. The layer of melted butter should be added to the back of the paper after the first piece of mold has solidified.¹⁰

Our textual interpretation of the recipe regarding molding written paper provided us with relevant insights for our subsequent reconstruction:

1. Pigment related recipes in the manuscript support the idea that cinnabar mixed with oil works better as the writing material here because it is waterproof.
2. The oil to be mixed with cinnabar might be among the list of plant oils mentioned in the varnish recipes (namely, turpentine, walnut, linseed, mastic, and aspic).
3. The oil coating is supposed to make the paper water-resistant and durable.
4. The written paper should be cast in the same way as animals and herbages are cast from life.

The first question our hands-on reconstruction undertook to examine was the list of plant oils mentioned in the varnish recipes, in which one conforms well to cinnabar. The second question was whether the oiled paper can withstand the plaster molding process or not.

Part I: Reconstruction

“On moulding paper with writings on it”

Based on the “Molded Letter Paper’” annotation by Raymond Carlson and Jordan Katz, we made use of the same materials, i.e., paper, ink, and gum. Due to material constraints we modified the author-practitioner’s recommended combination of cinnabar and oil, and substituted cinnabar with Venice Red.¹¹

Based on our experiment with oiled paper,¹² we attempted to answer the question regarding which of the preceding recipes about the making of oil-based varnish could serve as a clue for the oil to be used in this specific recipe. Thus, we looked to varnish-making recipes in the manuscript that dealt with plant, turpentine, walnut, and aspic oils. We used three types of oil: wheat, linseed, and turpentine.

To mold our paper, we first made a sketch upon it of this Chinese character: 道 (Taoism) [Fig. 3 Sketching a Chinese character]. Then we tried the following four combinations of ink or color dyes with gum or oil:

1. Ink [Fig. 4] and gum powder [Fig. 5]
2. Venice Red [Fig. 6] and turpentine oil [Fig. 7]
3. Venice Red and wheat oil [Fig. 8]
4. Venice Red and linseed oil [Fig. 9]

Combination 1 (our ratio of 10 ml of ink and 2 teaspoons of gum powder) came out exactly the same as the experiment undertaken by Carlson and Katz in Fall 2014. The gum is viscous when mixed with the ink; however, the mixed liquid is sticky and uneven no matter how much we tried to stir it [Fig. 10 The mixture of ink and gum powder]. As a result (and just as Carlson and Katz found), it is hard to apply this unwieldy mixture to the paper. Our reconstruction confirmed the author’s assertion that the outcome of this combination is not desirable since the ink-gum mixture made our rendering of the Chinese character on the paper lumpy [Fig. 11 Writing on paper with mixture 1], which is not good for casting.

Combination 2 (our ratio of 2 teaspoons of Venice Red pigment and 10 ml of turpentine oil) worked better than combination 1. The pigment and the oil mingled with each other evenly [Fig. 12 The mixture of Venice red and turpentine oil]. When applied to the paper, this mixture dried quickly. However, when moved, some dried-out particles fell off the character [Fig. 13 The writing on paper with mixture 2]. Based on these observations, we determined that this combination was not sticky and viscous enough for the casting.

Compared to the preceding two trials, combination 3 (which used 2 teaspoons of Venice Red and 10 ml of wheat oil) proved to be the best one. The pigment dissolved in the wheat oil very well. Furthermore, this combination proved viscous enough to hold our Chinese character on to the paper and the pigment did not fall off of it when dried [Fig. 14 The mixture of Venice red and wheat oil]. Interestingly, when stirring the combined ingredients of Venice Red and wheat oil with the paintbrush, we could feel the resistance of this mixture against the brush, much more so than the other two above-mentioned combinations. Also, when this mixture was lifted with the paintbrush, it clung to the paintbrush for about ten seconds, a manifestation of its viscosity [Fig. 15 The writing of mixture 3]. Combination 4 (comprised of 2 teaspoons of Venice Red and 10 ml of linseed oil) came out as good as the mixture that comprised combination 3 [Fig. 16 The mixture of Venice Red and linseed oil], with almost the same viscosity.

Comparing the effects of the writing on paper apropos all four combinations above, we came to the conclusion that wheat oil and linseed oil is the best option in this context. Writing the Chinese character with combination 1 made it rise up on the paper, but its surface was too lumpy to for a good cast. Although combination 2 solved the problem of uneven surface, it went to another extreme in that the writing actually did not raise that much, and after it dried out some particles fell off. Compared to combinations 1 and 2, combinations 3 and 4 worked better. The character rose up evenly. The only disadvantage of the latter two combinations is that the character dried out much more slowly and the oil started to permeate to paper [Fig. 17 The permeation of the oil to paper].

At this point, from our reconstructions we were able to answer two questions. First, we showed that the oiled paper can withstand the wetness of the plaster quite well. Second, wheat oil and the linseed oil work better than turpentine oil when it comes to writing on paper for molding. When combined with the Venice Red pigment, both oils showed good consistency and capability in holding the particles of the Venice Red together. As a result, the character we wrote upon the paper using these two combinations rose up and created a convex surface on the paper, which is ideal for casting.

Although we were able to solve some puzzles posed in the manuscript, we were faced with new questions when we finally saw the cast of our reconstructions. According to the two-piece mold casting, we laid our paper painted with the Chinese character on a clay base and built up the sprue system (which would facilitate the metal flow when it is poured) [Fig. 18 The paper on a clay base with the sprue system], then we poured the plaster. Forty minutes later, we stripped out the clay wall and base, turn the mold upside down and were ready for the second cast [Fig. 19, the other side of the mold]. Before this second cast, we followed the author’s instructions for molding paper in fol. 142v and applied melted butter to the back of the paper so as to add to its thickness [Fig. 20 Applying melted butter to the back of the paper before second cast]. Then we baked the mold and poured the metal. When opening the mold, we finally saw the outcome of our casting [Fig. 21 the outcome of molding and casting paper], which was not a desirable cast since the metal failed to flow over the mold. This failure, however, is quite productive. It drove us to go back to the manuscript again and to find out the reason of the failure. How could it come out like this? Which crucial step did we miss? What kind of details led to this outcome? These questions will be revisited and discussed in our final reflection that concludes this annotation. Now let us turn to the second part of the recipe – molding pansies.

Part II: Interpretation

“On moulding pansies or other flowers”

“…To give thickness to a pansy or other flowers, butter is not good, thus [one uses] wheat oil, which dries quickly and holds firm. Wax would not be appropriate [in this case] because it is too hot, having been melted, and it makes the thing to which it is applied draw in. But butter is good [to work with] and easy to handle…”

The technique of casting pansies is closely related to the contemporary practice of making life casts of flowers and herbages. According to the annotation for molding roses by Carlson and Katz,¹³ there are important precedents for this in sixteenth-century Europe, and extant examples of this process can be traced back to the workshops of Bernard Palissy and Wenzel Jamnitzer. Indeed, Palissy mentions in Architecture, et Ordennance that he had cast “Scolopendrium, adiantum, maidenhair, polytrichum, polypody & other species of plants appropriate to this affair.”¹⁴ Life casting works by Palissy and the members of his atelier also included small plants like plantain, sage, rosemary, lavender, wheat, and oats.¹⁵ But he did not describe the process for molding these delicate objects in any surviving texts.¹⁶ The extant works of Jamnitzer, such as the bouquet of flowers in his tablepiece of 1549 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) [Fig. 22 Jamnitzer Tablepiece] and the separately casted plants, [Fig. 23 Jamnitzer Plants] are of extraordinary delicacy and speak to his virtuoso craftsmanship, however Jamnitzer does not discuss his process for lifecasting in writing. Hugh Plat’s Jewell House of Art and Nature, another recipe compilation contemporary to Ms. Fr. 640, mentions techniques of molding herbs and flowers.¹⁷ However, neither Palissy nor Plat relate particular techniques of strengthening delicate parts of the plants. To date, our manuscript seems to be the only textual description of how to strengthen the fragile parts of plants before casting them.

In BnF Ms. Fr. 640, the author-practitioner mentions three kinds of thickening agents for pansies or other flowers, and discusses their different effects in comparison to one another. He explicitly excludes wax. This is likely because of the temperature in which wax liquefies; its melting point is 62 to 65 degrees Celsius, and the heat in its liquid state would cause the delicate objects to shrink. In support of our hypothesis, the author-practitioner states: “Wax would not be appropriate [in this case] because it is too hot, having been melted, and it makes the thing to which it is applied draw in.” He also makes it clear that he regards wheat oil as a proper choice because it “dries quickly and holds firm.” However, his attitude towards butter seems to be contradictory. In fol. 142v, he rejects butter as a proper material to give thickness to pansies or other flowers (“…To give thickness to a pansy or other flowers, butter is not good…”), yet later he asserts that “…butter is good [to work with] and easy to handle…”. These statements prompt our question about process: which works better to strengthen petals, butter or wheat oil, and why?

To solve this puzzle, we consulted several other relevant recipes in the manuscript.

A note in the recipe in fol. 110v entitled “Wheat oil” makes the following remark on the effect of wheat oil when applied to flowers: “If you want to mold something delicate, like a pansy, some, to give it a little thickness, more than what is natural, some rub it with butter. But it is best to oil it with wheat oil because it has no opacity and does not block the smaller features as much, and makes the flower firmer” (italics are our emphasis). This note indicates the author’s preference for wheat oil over butter because it is transparent and thus does not cover over many details of the flower. The recipe on fol. 129r also emphasizes the drying quality of wheat oil, resonating with the

one detailed in fol. 142v.¹⁸ That said, a later recipe on fol. 154v entitled “Strengthening flowers and delicate things” offers a contradictory statement suggesting that melted butter should be used to strengthen flowers and herbages instead of wheat oil.¹⁹

According to the author-practitioner, it seems that there are two primary advantages wheat oil enjoys over butter. Firstly, wheat oil dries faster and holds firm; secondly, it seems to preserve more details of the original pattern. But in neither recipe does he specify preference in favor of or against the effect of butter. Interestingly, the only recipe that favors butter over wheat oil comes last in the manuscript. Could this be another self-correction? With these questions in mind, we began our reconstruction experiment.

Part II: Reconstruction

“On moulding pansies or other flowers”

For this experiment, we used four pansies from the university campus flower beds to test how butter and wheat oil work. We split them into two groups:

Group A: two white pansies to experiment with butter.

Group B: two purple pansies to experiment with wheat oil.

We observed that it was difficult to only cover the back of the petals, because once butter or wheat oil was applied to the back of one petal, the front side of another petal behind it would immediately stick to it. It turned out that both butter and wheat oil soaked through on both sides of the petals. In Group B, the petals of the purple pansies got heavier after completely absorbing the oil and they could not stand on their own any more. The petals also crumpled. The wheat oil, which was supposed to “dry quickly and hold firm,” had an opposite effect [Fig. 18 Group B after the wheat oil was applied]. In Group A, the petals of the white pansies stiffened right after being covered with a fine layer of butter [Fig. 19 Group A right after the melted butter was applied], but this only lasted for 20 minutes, and, just as with the purple pansies, the petals on the white variety also drooped. [Fig. 26 Group B 20 minutes after the melted butter was applied]. One possible reason is that the butter added weight to the petals which they could not withstand; the other reason might be that the pansies just got dehydrated and withered on their own.

Reflecting on our experiment, we concluded that our failure could be partly attributed to the characteristics of this type of artificially bred pansies, which have rather big and floppy petals as opposed to the petals of wild pansies. Therefore, for our second experiment we decided to use a different species of pansies with smaller and thicker petals obtained from a local florist. We cut four flowers from this plant to experiment with. They were also split into two groups:

Group A: Two pansies to experiment with butter.

Group B: Two pansies to experiment with wheat oil.

This time we heated the wheat oil a little bit to make it thinner, and applied it to Group B when it had cooled to 27 degree Celsius. Unfortunately, it failed again, and by the time we finished building the infrastructure, they had completely shrunk and curled up [Fig. 27 Dead wheat-oiled pansy]. We decided to give up experimenting with wheat oil and try melted beeswax on the other pansy in Group B. This also proved problematic, as the beeswax solidified quickly and we had to keep reheating it. It did not cause any untoward effect on the pansies, but it added a rather thick layer underneath the petals which would cost some details when casting in metal [Fig. 28 Pansy with a wax coating underneath the petals].

As for Group A, butter worked well at first, and we could see clearly that the petals with a layer of butter exhibited a rather stiff characteristic. But after all the infrastructure was built and a clay wall was rolled out and wrapped around the base, the buttered pansies died as well [Fig. 29 Dead buttered pansy (the one at the bottom)]. At this point, we came to realize that speed was of the essence for a successful casting, which was not referenced in the recipe but discovered through our own process of reconstructing the experiment.

After our second failure, we decided not to build the vents connecting the petals with the base to buy more time. Based on our experience, the metal would pour with only three vents attached to the stem. In this way, we were able to apply butter and wheat oil to the petals right before pouring the plaster. Judging from the final result, only the pansy with a wax coating worked out [Fig. 30 Waxed pansy casted in tin and lead] while the buttered pansy and the oiled pansy shrank greatly and was pulled out of their original shape [Fig. 31 Buttered and oiled pansies cast in tin and lead]. It could be that butter and wheat oil failed to make them strong enough to withstand the plaster, or the metal failed to fill the entire corolla without the vents.

Our reconstruction of casting pansies showed that both wheat oil and butter, which the author-practitioner recommended or discussed in different places in the manuscript, proved unsuccessful. In contrast, wax, which the author-practitioner rejected, turned out to be a good material to thicken the pansy. However, although wax worked well as a thickening agent, it failed to capture the details of the petals, just as the author-practitioner mentioned. That might be the reason he rejected wax, since the primary goal of molding thin things should be the precise replication of the fine details of the molding object. In this sense, wax is not a good option.

Our second unsuccessful reconstruction raised questions about the authenticity of reconstruction materials to achieve good results. According to the author-practitioner, wheat oil should dry fast when applied to the flower. In our case, however, the wheat oil had not yet dried when we poured the plaster.

Part III: Interpretation

“Molding a butterfly”

“…and [this method applies as well] for strengthening the wings of either a butterfly or grasshopper, or any delicate part of an animal for which you need to add some thickness”.

Molding a butterfly appears to have been interesting to the author-practitioner of Ms. Fr. 640 because, like several other recipes in his manuscript for delicate things, it poses a material and structural challenge. The range of creatures he mentions for casting all possess diverse “surfaces,” like those of lizards, snakes, crustaceans (such as crabs and crayfish), turtles, birds, bats, rats, and such insects as beetles, spiders, flies and butterflies – he even provides a recipe for casting spider webs. Moreover, as Pamela Smith has suggested, many of these creatures “inhabited more than one elemental zone within the early modern view of the cosmos, such as lizards, snakes, toads, the crabs, which lived both on land and in water, as well as insects and birds, which inhabited both air and land. In addition, many of the animals preferred for life casting were regarded as spontaneously generated from putrefying matter.”²⁰ Butterflies are insects that undergo metamorphosis and they are symbolic of impermanence; as such, they fit well into this list of interesting subjects for molding and casting “things too thin.”

Consistent with the theme of the whole recipe about molding thin things, in fol. 142v, the author-practitioner focuses on how to mold the delicate parts of “an animal.” As molding insects such as the butterfly and grasshoppers get only brief mention, we can only infer that the same method to thicken the petals of flowers is applied to the delicate parts of such creatures. Given the brevity of the above excerpt, we consulted other related recipes in the manuscript to inform our reconstruction of how to mold a butterfly. One of the problems we discerned in thinking about how to mold a butterfly is how to handle the hairy part of its body and its fragile antennas. This problem is related to our butter and oil discussion in molding pansies. In addition to the function of thickening the delicate parts, butter and wheat oil also help flatten the hairy parts of the animal. In the manuscript, the author-practitioner talks about this question several times but again, his conclusions seem to be ambiguous. For example, on fol. 110v he mentions butterflies when talking about wheat oil. Just as with molding pansies, he appears to believe that heated wheat oil is a good material to thicken the delicate part.²¹ Also, fol. 124r deals with the problem about how to mold hairy animals whose hairs rise up and become entangled. Here again, he states that wheat oil, which dries very fast, is the best material to keep the hair laid down. Similarly, on both fol. 129v,²² and fol. 130r,²³ he mentions again the use of wheat oil to lay hairs down flat and make them firmer. However, in a later recipe on fol. 152r,²⁴ the author-practitioner comes to a different conclusion. Here, he claims that “it is much better to rub hairy animals with butter than with wheat oil, because butter is much better and much more useful.”

If the manuscript is the chronological representation of the author-practitioner’s hands-on work, the sequencing of these recipes might constitute self-correction. Indeed, the following recipe on fol. 154v makes the situation more complex.²⁵ In this recipe, he comes to the conclusion that melted butter works better for plants such as flowers and herbages, while wheat oil serves better for flies and other small animals. As with his discussion about pansies, his advice about the advantage of butter is vague. Butter is just stated as being much better and much useful without any explicit reasons, as opposed to his observation about wheat oil, which he states dries very fast and firmly holds the delicate part. Why do these inconsistencies exist? It seems that every time the author-practitioner mentions the two materials butter and wheat oil, he arrives at contradictory conclusions. Our question then becomes, what can we learn from these self-contradictions?

In molding a butterfly, we questioned whether it should be done in a one-piece or two-piece mold, as there is no direct instruction about how to mold a butterfly in the whole manuscript. Thus, we had to make inference according to other similar recipes in BnF Ms. Fr.640. References about molding animals in the manuscript generally use a two-piece mold, which the author-practitioner specifies for casting the lizard, crayfish, crab, beetles, spiders and fly. However, what distinguishes a butterfly from these other small animals is its extreme flatness. Unlike the three-dimensional body of the fly or beetle, the butterfly’s morphology is related to paper; indeed, the recipe for molding paper on fol. 142v describes a flat surface with embossed letters, much like the wings and veins of a butterfly. Moreover, the recipe for molding paper suggests using a two-piece mold, and this reference informed our decision in how to mold the butterfly. However, we also considered a one-piece mold as a candidate, since the delicacy of butterfly wings is almost the same as flower petals, which utilizes this kind of mold.

Deciphering this part of the recipe left us with two questions. How will wheat oil and butter function in molding a butterfly? And what do these two materials say about the interaction with materials which are hard to represent in metal? Also, would the one-piece mold or the two-piece mold be better for molding a delicate butterfly?

Part III: Reconstruction “Molding a butterfly”

In casting the butterfly, we first tried out a two-piece mold. After applying wheat oil to the wings and body of the butterfly, we laid it out on a piece of clay. We tried to press the butterfly against the clay to affix it to the clay wall. Then we used four pins to pierce the edge of its wings so as to fix them onto the clay. However, after our application of the wheat oil to the butterfly, its wings seemed unable to resist the wetness of the oil and it became transparent and even more delicate. Also, the wheat oil failed to hold on to the clay, so that it was hard for the butterfly to rest seamlessly on the clay. At the same time, the wings were too delicate to withhold the pins. As a result, the wings broke.

After this first failure, we reconsidered the two-piece mold as a viable method for this particular kind of life casting. We also thought more deeply about the butterfly itself, as we used a desiccated specimen from the gift store of the American Museum of Natural History [Fig. 32 Butterfly specimen purchased from the American Museum of Natural History]. These factors urged us to think about the authenticity of the butterfly, and how the state of the butterfly would potentially influence the cast. Our consideration about its condition and how it might impact its replication was motivated by references in the manuscript where the author-practitioner talked about how to catch, keep, and kill animals which are used for molding and casting. Significantly, he provides information about how and when to kill animals according to different types. For example, in fol. 110r, he says to kill a snake “only a quarter of an hour before you want to cast it,” while in fol. 143r, when it comes to turtles, he suggests that “you must not mold them too soon after they die because they are still stiff. But on the day after, you will be able to manipulate them and bend their legs as you wish.” In fol. 156r, “Molding a fly,” he recommends to take them also and use them as quickly as you can after they have died, because if you leave them to dry out, their legs will break when you want to stretch them.” Essentially, all the “animals” that the author-practitioners used in his molding and casting appear to be freshly caught. Furthermore, it seems that the timing of killing is of crucial significance to a successful casting. The underlying principle is make sure that the dead animals are not stiff, in order to be easy to maneuver.²⁶ In our case however, our butterfly was a specimen whose body was dried out specifically to preserve it in its original material form. Also, we could not rehydrate it (like we did with beetles and spiders) since its wings are too fragile and brittle. As a result, the desiccated state of the butterfly adversely influenced our casting. It was stiff and hard to manipulate.

Based on what we learned about the butterfly’s fragility from our first trial, we decided to try out the one-piece mold so as to reduce our direct physical contact with it. Building a V channel on the clay base to serve both as the channel for metal to flow and also to support the butterfly [Fig. 33 V channel on the clay base], we used a pin to carefully pierce the belly of the butterfly and to fix it on the top of the V channel. After that we melted some wax to solidify the joint between its wings and body [Fig. 34 A fixed butterfly with body parts solidified by wax], since our specimen was rather fragile and the wings fell apart from the body part easily. Since our preceding experiment in coating a butterfly with wheat oil failed, we tried melted butter to both lay down the hairy part of its body and to thicken the wings. Our interaction with butter turned out to be the most difficult part of this process. The following excerpt from our field notes encapsulated our sensory feeling in working with butter:

“Facing the melted yellowish butter in front of me, my mind was actually unsettled. My hands even start to tremble when I recall my last entanglement with butter, when we are molding the pansy. Using a paint brush, I carefully applied the lukewarm butter to the petals of the pansy. Like drawing a painting, brushstroke after brushstroke, the pansy was covered with butter. Then it began to die! The petals failed to withhold the weight of the butter. How frustrated! This time again, I have to face the butter. My last unpleasant encounter with it simply makes me afraid, but I have no other choice. This time, instead of applying the butter brushstroke after brushstroke, which is really time-consuming, I decided to do it fast in order to same time. I dipped my paintbrush into the melted butter for some time and then pull it out. At the end of the brush there is a droplet of butter dangling and swaying. I then placed the brushstroke right beyond the wings of the butterfly, and waited the droplet to fall freely on the wings. Since the wings of the butterfly has a slight slope, the droplet of butter just fell and flew throughout the surface of the wings according to the declivity. The only thing I have to do is to blow the butter to flow more evenly through the surface of the wings and then to absorb redundant butter with paper towel at the lower end of the wings. And it works quite well! I was really excited about that. That moment is like a magic moment for me. It is like a sudden enlightenment disclosed through trials and errors. From this experience I learnt that melted butter has its own life and trajectory, its own agency and habits. When encountering with it, we must try to know more about its life and habit so that we can cooperate with each other.”²⁷

The description above serves as a good example of an auto-ethnography, which is widely used in sensory ethnographies to reflect the situation of the ethnographer. By “calling on the body as a site of scholarly awareness and corporeal literacy,”²⁸ auto-ethnography focuses on the corporeal and bodily practices, and is a good way to reflect on sensory experiences in writing.²⁹ To let the melted butter flow automatically using the declivity of the wings in space, is to follow the habit and the moving trajectory of certain kinds of material. At the same time, it keeps to the principle of reducing physical contact with the fragile wings to a minimum, since by this way the brushstroke does not necessarily have to have contact with the wings and do potential damage to it. In this sense, the butterfly, the wings with a slope in space, the paintbrush with drops of butter on it, as well as the flow of the melted butter, all constitute an agentic assemblage, a term defined here by Jane Bennett:

“…an assemblage owes its agentic capacity to the vitality of the materialities that constitute it. Something like this congregational agency is called shi in the Chinese tradition. Shi helps to ‘illuminate something that is usually difficult to capture in discourse: namely, the kind of potential that originates not in human initiative but instead results from the very disposition of things.’ Shi is the style, energy, propensity, trajectory, or élan inherent to a specific arrangement of things.”³⁰

The encounter with the melted butter in our reconstruction here is an example to follow the shi of the disposition and the propensity of materials, is to go back to things themselves, is an attempt to reflect on our anthropocentric tendency when interacting with matter. By encountering and interacting with materials, we start to get a sense of intimacy with materials. Indeed, materials in our reconstructions are not dead and lifeless things – instead they are vibrant matter.

Up to now, our reconstruction showed that melted butter proved to be a good material to thicken delicate things as long as one follows its habits. Furthermore, the one-piece mold proved better than the two-piece mold because in the former the potential damage to delicate things can be reduced to a minimum level. Also, our sensory encounter with the melted butter partly explains the tentativeness the author-practitioner exhibited when faced with using butter. In other words, in the sensory interaction with the material, the intimacy with material is beyond language. It resists some but not all linguistic capture. It is easier to feel than to express. The opaque and vague vocabulary and the contradictory attitude towards melted butter that runs through the whole manuscript might partly be explained by this reason.

Final thoughts

In this annotation, we mainly focused on the decipherment and reconstruction of certain recipes in fol. 142v, “Molding grasshoppers and other things too thin.” Belonging to the category of casting and molding things in the manuscript, this recipe shows the ambitions and interests of the author-practitioner in molding delicate and thin parts of small objects ranging from inanimate things (such as paper) to animate things (such as flowers and insects). Following the processes of textual analysis and then hands-on reconstruction, we start to get a sense of how the processes of making and knowing are intertwined with each other: how knowing aids or can hinder making, and how making both reinforces and brings new knowledge into being. We start to understand the importance and necessity of incorporating making as a methodology into historical studies: the making process can pose new and unexpected questions about the knowing process.

Bibliography

Amico, Leonard. Bernard Palissy: In Search of Earthly Paradise. Paris: Flammarion, 1996.

Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham: Duke University Press, 2010.

Lacroze, J. Cornand de. A historical grammar: or A chronological abridgement of universal history. To which is added, an abridged chronology of the most remarkable discoveries and inventions relative to the arts and sciences, & c. Designed principally for the use of schools and academies. Tr. by Lucy Peacock, from the 7th ed. of the French of Lacroze. Rev., corr. and greatly enl. by Caleb Bingham. Boston: Printed by D. Carlisle for C. Bingham, 1802.

O’Connor, Erin. “Embodied Knowledge in Glassblowing: The Experience of Meaning and the Struggle towards Proficiency.” The Sociological Review 55 (May 1, 2007): 126–41.

Saussure, Ferdinand de. Course in General Linguistics. LaSalle, Ill: Open Court, 2002.

Smith, Pamela H., and Tonny Beentjes. “Nature and Art, Making and Knowing: Reconstructing Sixteenth-Century Life-Casting Techniques.” Renaissance Quarterly 63, no. 1 (Spring 2010): 128–79.

Smith, Pamela H. “Between Nature and Art: Casting from Life in Sixteenth-Century Europe,” Making and Growing: Anthropological Studies of Organisms and Artefacts, Elizabeth Hallam and Tim Ingold, eds. Farnham, Surrey; Burlington, VT : Ashgate Publishing Company, 2014.

Spry, Tami. “Performing Autoethnography: An Embodied Methodological Praxis.” Qualitative Inquiry 7, no. 6 (2001): 706–32.

---

1 Pamela H. Smith and Tonny Beentjes, “Nature and Art, Making and Knowing: Reconstructing Sixteenth-Century Life-Casting Techniques,” Renaissance Quarterly 63, no. 1 (Spring 2010): 136.

2 Smith and Beentjes, “Making and Knowing,” 136.

3 Recipes relating to gum: fols. 3v, 4r, 6r, 8v, 10r, 19v, 29r and v, 62r, 65v, 67r, 71v, 74r and v, 75r and v, 76r and v, 78r and v, 79v, 84v, 89v, 101v, 129r, 130v, 142v, and 165r.

4 For recipes containing the term “gum water” or “gummed water” see fols. 8v, 74r and v, 75v, 78r and v, 84v, and 89v.

5 See the recipe on fol. 131r: “Le{tt}re papier moule” (“molded letter paper”) specifies “Escripts de quelque ancre bien gommee ou de quelque couleur qui aye corps & qui ne se defface point estant mouille deau de vye puys pose ton papier sur la plastre dardille & le mouille deau de vye & gecte dune part & daultre” (“Write with some ink bien gommé or any other color dye which has body, and which is not erased if dampened with brandy. Then put your paper on the sheet of clay, and dampen it with brandy. Cast both sides [of paper]”).

6 For recipes concerning oil-based varnishes see fols. 3r and v, 4r and v, 6r, 7r, 10r, 31r, 57r, 60r and v, 67r and v, 71v, 73v, 74r, 77v, 78r, 88r, 97v, 98r, 99v, and 101v.

7 The word “printed” was translated from the French word “imprime”, which means “printed, imprinted, stamped, sealed”; see Randal Cotgrave, A Dictionary of French and English Tongues, (London: Adam Islip, 1611). Cotgrave gives three possible interpretations of the phrase: 1) paper that has been printed; 2) as “stamped paper”, taking “stamped” as an action word, in juxtaposition with “oiled”, which means that the paper should be physically stamped or it should be imprinted (with something) before creating writing on it. The last takes “stamped paper” as a phrase, referring to revenue stamped paper, a foolscap piece of paper bearing a pre-printed revenue stamp. It has been widely used around the world to collect taxes on documents requiring stamping, such as leases, agreements, receipts, court documents and many others. The papers are bought blank apart from the pre-printed stamp and are available from stationers, lawyers offices, post offices and courts according to local regulations.^# Stamped paper is a Spanish invention and was introduced into Netherland in 1555, the time period around which it was introduced to France is yet to be specified. See J. Cornand de Lacroze, A historical grammar.

8 Carlson and Katz suggest that “the best type of paper to use for this recipe would be gelatin-sized sheets made of hemp and cotton fiber.” These sheets are now typically used in the conservation of rare books from the period, thus they are expected to have a comparable effect in terms of their reaction to the writing materials. The paper we used in our reconstruction was the leftover from Carlson and Katz experiment, which is “50-50 hemp and cotton, heavy weight for a book paper, and third quality.” See Raymond Carlson and Jordan Katz, Annotation for BnF. Ms. Fr. 640, fol. 131r, “Moulded Letter Paper”, Fall 2014.

9 For life casting recipes using soaked sand to make the mold see fols. 113r, 114r, 116r, 126v, 127v, 129r and v, 133v, 134r, and 157v. For the definition of “Noyau” as “the mould that is within the peece of ordnance when it is cast,” see Cotgrave, Dictionary.

10 Smith, “Life in Sixteenth-Century Europe,” 45.

11 Our research into the differences between cinnabar and Venice Red shows that cinnabar is mainly distinguished from other color pigments because of its reddish color. The physical and chemical properties of both cinnabar and Venetian Red are detailed in the Material Safety Data Sheet^# for both substances. THIS DATA SHEET INFO SHOULD ALL BE IN YOUR FIELD NOTES, NOT HERE

Cinnabar:

PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL PROPERTIES BOILING POINT: 171F

MELTING POINT: N/A

VAPOR PRESSURE: N/A

VAPOR DENSITY: Heavier Than Air

SOLUBILITY IN WATER: N/A

SPECIFIC GRAVITY: 0.932

COATING VOC LB/GL: 6.3899 lb/gl

COATING VOC GM/LTR: 766 g/l

MATERIAL VOC LB/GL: 6.8165 lb/gl

MATERIAL VOC GM/LTR: 817 g/l %

VOLATILE BY VOLUME: 85.671%

EVAPORATION RATE: Faster than Butyl Acetate.

WEIGHT PER GALLON: 7.762 lb/gl

PH: N/A

ODOR: N/A

APPEARANCE: Colored Liquid

Venetian Red:

BOILING RANGE: 387 deg F – 471 deg F

SPECIFIC GRAVITY (H2O=1): 1.35

VAPOR DENSITY: HEAVIER THAN AIR

EVAPORATION RATE: SLOWER THAN ETHER

COATING V.O.C.: 0.96 lb/gl, 115 g/l

MATERIAL V.O.C.: 0.43 lb/gl, 52 g/l

SOLUBILITY IN WATER: Complete

APPEARANCE AND ODOR: Liquid, mild odor

After comparison of the chemical and physical properties of these two materials, we came to the conclusion that one potential difference that might influence the result of our reconstruction is the solubility. The Material Safety Data Sheet only provides us with the solubility in water but not in oil. So we cannot tell what is the difference when these two materials are put into oil.

12 We began by carrying out an experiment to see the difference between oiled paper and non-oiled paper when it encounters soaked sand, which we determined to be plaster. We took two small pieces of paper, one without oil and one with oil applied on both sides of it [Fig. 1 Two pieces of paper, one oiled and one not oiled]. Then we put both pieces into plaster and waited for five minutes, after which point we took them out of the plaster. The one without oil was soaked and plaster just clung to the surface of the paper. In contrast, the oiled paper with its oiled surface resisted the soaking in the plaster, and its surface came out smooth with only a little plaster clinging to it. [Fig. 2 The outcome of the paper after five-minute soaking in the plaster]. Most certainly, the oiled paper was more waterproof than the non-oiled paper.

13 Carlson and Katz, Annotation for BnF Ms. Fr. 640, fols. 129r, “Molded Roses;” 155r, “Molding a Rose;” and 155v, “Roses,” Fall 2014.

14 Leonard Amico, Bernard Palissy: In Search of Earthly Paradise (Paris: Flammarion, 1996), 168.

15 Ibid.

16 Amico, Bernard Palissy, 168.

17 Plat, Jewell House of Art and Nature.

18 Fol. 129r: “Roses are molded with difficulty because of their leaves which are very delicate, double and soft. To obviate these disadvantages rub it with wheat oil which is very dessicant, once dried the oil stiffens the leafs which will withstand soaked sand. Do the same thing with flies, pansies, and other delicate things like capers” (our emphasis).

19 Fol. 154v: “One doesn’t use wheat oil to strengthen flowers and herbages, but one uses melted butter. Cover the back of the leafs of flowers, e.g. : roses, pansies with a fine coat of melted butter, do the same with flowers which need to be strengthened. One uses wheat oil to strengthen the feet of a fly or of any small animal” (our emphasis).

20 Pamela H. Smith,“Between Nature and Art: Casting from Life in Sixteenth-Century Europe,” in Making and Growing: Anthropological Studies of Organisms and Artefacts, eds. Elizabeth Hallam and Tim Ingold (Farnham, Surrey; Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2014), 45.

21 Fol. 110v “Wheat oil”: Is made on a blade of iron reddened in the fire, and the oil turns into drops, which is appropriate to oil the hair of a butterfly or similar thing, because this oil is instantly dry and makes the rest dry out. It is necessary that the coat or down of any animal that you want to mold be flat, because standing up, it will make the sand raise up and form bubbles.

²³Fol. 124r “Hairy animals and very thin delicate flowers.” It is difficult to mold hairy animals because hairs raise up and come out looking mixed and entangled. Therefore, it is necessary to keep it laid down with a drying agent and which makes it firmer, and the best thing to use is wheat oil, with which you will anoint it. Once cast, you will be able to repair it. The bodies of butterflies or of herbs that have a stem and leaves that are rugged with downy and lanuginous hairs must also be anointed in the same oil to keep this foliage laid down. With these, flowers that have very delicate and thin leaves because dry wheat oil straightens them and makes them firm. And, If someone brags to [be able to] cast anything that will be given to them, give them to cast the fuzzy head of the herb called dandelion or a papus, which comes from the seeds of lapasses and takes flight at the slightest sigh of wind.

22 Fol. 129v: Usually big spiders have hairy legs, which are molded with difficulty if you do not lay hairs down flat, or if you don’t burn it with the flame of a candle, you can make these hairs firmer if you rub them with wheat oil. Kill spiders into vinegar and urine or brandy as you had killed snakes. Then arrange your spider on a beautiful vine leaf, or another leaf, then you can make the hairs […] , hairs which are finely ground and rubbed with fish glue or something similar.

23 Fol. 130r: Also
 You cannot mold the hairy legs of big spiders, as any other hairy animal, if not laid flat, and rubbed with wheat oil which makes hairs firmer, and which dry very soon. Hairy things entangle in the sand, and do not burn very well

24 Fol. 152r: 
It is much better to rub hairy animals with butter than with wheat oil, because butter is much better and much more useful

25 Fol. 154v: One doesn’t use wheat oil to strengthen flowers and herbages, but one uses melted butter. Cover the back of the leafs of flowers, e.g. : roses, pansies with a fine coat of melted butter, do the same with flowers which need to be strengthened. One uses wheat oil to strengthen the feet of a fly or of any small animal.

26 See fol. 152r in which the author gives this guideline about killing an animal: “Do not mold your animals right away (except snakes and lizards), but rather wait a day or two so that they become easier to maneuver.”

27 From Shiye Fu’s field notes about the experience.

28 Tami Spry, “Performing Autoethnography: An Embodied Methodological Praxis,” Qualitative Inquiry 7, no.6 (2001): 706.

29 See also Erin O’ Connor, “Embodied Knowledge in Glassblowing: The Experience of Meaning and the Struggle Towards Proficiency,” The Sociological Review 55 (May 2007).

30 Jane Bennett, Vibrant Matter (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010), 35.

Molding fruits and animals in sugar

Celia Durkin

Transcription:

<title id=“p126r_a1”>Mouler fruicts en sucre<lb/>

et animaulx </title>

<ab id=“p126r_b1”>Le sucre est gras, et d’iceluy on gecte bien choses rondes<lb/>

& gros muscles, mays malaisem[{ent}] choses subtiles & delicates.<lb/>

Toutesfois essaye le sucre fort clarifié. Il fault tremper<lb/>

toute une nuict ou un jour le moule de plastre plustost que gecter<lb/>

le sucre affin qu’il soit bien abreuvé d’eau & ne boive pas<lb/>

le cirop. Il fault aussy qu’il soict bien en despouille<lb/>

car le sucre est aigre & brusc. Enfin ne pense de gecter<lb/>

rien en sucre qui ne soict bien en despouille et qui ne se<lb/>

puisse nettement mouler en deulx parties pour s’ouvrir<lb/>

quand besoing sera. Si tu veulx mouler un raisin, il le<lb/>

fault prendre co{mm}e touts aultres fruictz en sa vigueur<lb/>

naïfve, car s’il est fretri, il viendra de mesme. Advise<lb/>

doncq de faire tes moules en la naturelle saison de<lb/>

chasque chose. Le raisin co{mmun}ement qu’on veult<lb/>

gecter en sucre se faict artificiellement ou avecq de la<lb/>

cire ou terre, ou avecq des grains mesmes raportés<lb/>

avecq de la cire fondue sur quelque plaste & chose pleine,<lb/>

de facon qu’ils soient bien serés et en despouille & ne<lb/>

facent qu’une moictié. Ou bien si tu as de ces raisins qu’on<lb/>

apelle chauchés ou sauvignons qui ont le grain fort<lb/>

pressé. Enchasse la moictié d’iceluy dans la plaste<lb/>

d’ardille et gecte sur l’aultre moitié. Et s’il y a quelque<lb/>

grain qui ne soit en despouille, arrache le. Note qu’en<lb/>

sucre ne mesmes en metal le raisin qui ha les grains clairs<lb/>

& separés ne se peult bonnement gecter pource que les bouts de<lb/>

la grappe seroient si subtils, mesmement si le raisin est gard[é],<lb/>

qu’il ne pourroit soubstenir les grains massifs. Par ain[sy]<lb/>

il fauldroit gecter creux, ce que tu ne pourrois si le raisin

n’est reserré des grains & sans les avoir espars & clai[r]<lb/>

semés.</ab>

<note id=“p126r_c1a”>à couler et brusc & rompant estant sec</note>

<note id=“p126r_c1b”>Pour gecter poires &<lb/>

pommes en sucre, il ne<lb/>

fault point faire de<lb/>

gect, mays emplir une<lb/>

moictié de moule<lb/>

et puys<lb/>

joindre les<lb/>

deulx, et<lb/>

tourner<lb/>

tousjours<lb/>

jusques<lb/>

à ce que<lb/>

le sucre<lb/>

soict pris<lb/>

et froid.<lb/>

Il ne fault<lb/>

rien mesler<lb/>

au moule<lb/>

que le seul<lb/>

plastre<lb/>

recuit co{mm}e<lb/>

tu sçais.</note>

<note id=“p126r_c1c”>+ Il fault que<lb/>

le moule aye<lb/>

trempé tout<lb/>

un jour et<lb/>

une nuict da{n}s<lb/>

l’eau froide<lb/>

et soict<lb/>

humide quand<lb/>

tu gectes en<lb/>

sucre.</note>

<note id=“p126r_c1d”>Le signe que<lb/>

le cirop ou<lb/>

sucre fondu en<lb/>

eau est assés<lb/>

cuit pour<lb/>

gecter fruicts,<lb/>

c’est quand il<lb/>

faict des filets<lb/>

en le secouant. Et s’il passe ce poinct, il ne seroit pas bien car il se rendroit tousjour[s]<lb/>

humide. Si le sucre s’attaque, il fault y gecter un peu d’amydon dans le moule<lb/>

ou le frotter avecq une amande.</note>

Translation:

title id=“p126r_a1”>Molding fruits and animals in sugar</title>

<ab id=“p126r_b1”>Sugar is fatty, and, with it, round things and large muscles are cast well but fine and delicate things [are cast with] difficulty. However, try well-purified sugar. The plaster mold must be soaked in water for a full night or a full day before casting sugar so that it [the mold] is saturated with water and does not soak up the syrup [the sugar mixture]. The [plaster] mold must also be stripped very well from it [the sugar], because sugar is sour and brittle. Thus, do not cast anything with sugar which is not stripped easily from it, and which can not be neatly molded in two parts to open as will be needed. If you want to mold a grape, you must get it when it is very fresh; because if it is withered, it [the cast] will look the same. See to it, thus, that you make your molds in the natural season for each thing [fruit]. Grapes that one wants to cast in sugar are man-made, either with wax or earth or with grapes molded with melted wax, on some dish [plaste & chose pleine] in a way so that they are pressed closely together and easily stripped from it. And only a half [of the grapes] should be molded. Or, if you have some of those grapes called chauches or sauvignons which have well-pressed grapes, set half of the grapes in the dish of clay, and cast on the other half, and if any grape is not stripped from it, pluck it out. Note that a grape whose grapes are set apart and separated cannot mold well in either sugar or metal because the ends of the cluster are so fine. Similarly, if the grape is kept, that it cannot hold the bunched grapes. Therefore, a hollow should be cast, which you will not be capable of if the grape is not close together and without having them spread apart.</ab>

<note id=“p126r_c1a”>to cast and brittle, and [it] breaks when dry</note>

<note id=“p126r_c1b”>+ In order to mold pears and apples in sugar, do not cast. Rather, fill half of the mold, and then join the two [halves], and keep turning [it] until the sugar is stuck and cold. Do not mix anything in the mold except the reheated plaster, as you know.</note>

<note id=“p126r_c1c”>The mold needs to have been soaked in cold water for one full day and night and [the mold] must be damp when you cast in sugar.</note>

<note id=“p126r_c1d”>The sign that the syrup or the melted sugar has boiled enough in the water for casting fruits is when it makes threads when shaking it. And if it passes this point, it will not be good because it will make [it] damp. If the sugar attacks itself, throw a bit of amidin in the mold or rub it with an almond.</note>

Molding fruits and animals in sugar

BnF Ms. Fr. 640, fol. 126r.

The recipe on fol. 126r details the steps for casting fruits in a syrup of melted sugar, and refers to the properties of sugar and the transformations sugar undergoes during melting and hardening. Sugar, in its purest form, was very expensive and considered to be a luxury in the early modern period.1 It was employed as a medicine, preservative, binding/thickening agent, as well as to cast decorative objects for banquets.2 Medieval monks used sugar in the glassy state to impart gloss to their illuminated manuscripts,3 and Cennino Cennini included sugar and honey in recipes for mordants4 and gesso used under gold.5 This annotation explores a recipe for casting fruits in sugar, and the ensuing questions about the properties and behavior of sugar described in the recipe. The recipe describes sugar as both “fatty [gras]” and “sour and brittle [aigre & brusc]” – two seemingly opposing properties. In the context of the fat/lean dichotomy, fatty indicates unctuous and malleable, where sour and brittle suggest easily broken. Later in the recipe, the practitioner warns of sugar “attacking itself” [s’attaque], and if this happens, advises the reader to throw some starch into the mold or rub the mold with an almond.6 What might this mean? How is such a process to be recognized? Are there analogs to this seemingly violent quality in other materials? We sought to understand more about the multiple properties of sugar and its seemingly aggressive nature through reconstruction, as well as through comparison to other contemporaneous recipes. This annotation describes the experiential knowledge gained about the properties of sugar, the sometimes aggressive action of sugar, and concludes with an overall understanding of the agency of materials.

Multiple Properties of Sugar

The recipe suggests that because sugar is fatty [est gras], round things and muscles are cast well, while delicate things are not.7 In the fat /lean dichotomy, fatty is considered unctuous, dense, and malleable.8 However, later in the recipe, the author-practitioner warns that the mold must be easily stripped because sugar is sour and brittle [aigre & brusc]. A fat sand, with its ease and unctuousness, would seem to connote sweetness rather than sourness, and brittleness would seem to oppose the malleability of fat sand. Either sugar may possess opposing qualities at different times (or states), or these qualities do not oppose one another as much as previously thought. More research was necessary into the meanings of the words fat, sour, and brittle in the conception of materials of the early modern period. The following section of this annotation explores the concepts of both fat and sour in the context of sugar, as well as in the context of other materials mentioned in the manuscript and in the work of contemporaneous authors.

Sugar as Fat

Christ Forth, in his article “The Qualities of Fat: Bodies, History, and Materiality,” describes the conception of fat from antiquity through the early modern imagination. The descriptions of fat and lean have been used to signify qualities of soil dating back to antiquity, with fat soil being considered fertile, having the distinctive palpable qualities of oil or grease.9 Theophrastus, successor of Aristotle, utilized a taxonomy of fat and lean soil, which was shared by the Romans and indicated how it should be farmed.10 Virgil describes the tactile qualities of fat sand, as felt by the experienced farmer, for “never does it crumble when worked in the hands, but like pitch grows sticky in the fingers when held.”11 In addition to the unctuous and pliable qualities discerned from the hand, fat soil was theorized to exhibit a tendency to swell. Forth discusses a test to determine if soil is fat and fertile, as described in Columella’s writing On Agriculture. One could remove a handful of soil and then reinsert the soil into the hole: “If there is an excess as by some sort of leavening, it will be a sure sign that the soil is fat; if it is insufficient, that it is poor; if it makes an even fill, that it is ordinary.”12 On fol. 85v of the manuscript, the author-practitioner also refers to the swelling tendency of fatty sand – as “being fatty & even, [sand] puffs up & does not receive subtle impressions at all.”13 Sugar, as fatty, is also poor for receiving subtle impressions of metal, as the author-practitioner mentions in the recipe for sugar casting that “round things and large muscles are cast well but fine and delicate things [are cast with] difficulty.”14 Guided by the author-practitioner’s knowledge of properties of sugar, we chose to cast a pear and a bunch of grapes (fig 1). The “fat” quality of sugar that could be detected from the reconstruction was its unctuousness. Although the sugar did not noticeably swell (except when it was later poured), it did leave a greasy feeling on the fingers.

Sugar as Sour

Determining that sugar could be fatty and unctuous, we now turn to the seemingly opposite qualities of sour [aigre] and brittle [brusc]. In order to position these properties, we investigated further the meaning of aigre and brusc across materials in both the manuscript and in contemporaneous literature. According to Randal Cotgrave, aigre is defined as “ sharp, tart, biting, sower; also, brittle, or easily broken (with a hammer.)”15 Other mentions of aigre in the manuscript position it against doulx, which, according to Randal Cotgrave, is interchangeable with the word doux, meaning “sweet, delicious, dantie, pleasing, soft, pliant, smooth, tractable, gentle, mild, meeke, lovelie, kind, courteous, loving.”16 According to these definitions, doulx still would seem to be a property of a fat sand much more so than aigre.

However, a closer look at other instances of aigre in the manuscript reveals that the author-practitioner positions the term aigre against doulx to describe fusibility. On fol. 32v, the author-practitioner contrasts aigre and doulx metals, explaining that sour metals are easily melted, while sweet/soft metals are not. Describing the making of bells, he notes that “The softer great metals are, the harder they are to melt. Because the pewter used to make bells is fine and sour [aigre], it is easier to melt than lead,17 which is soft [doulx].”18 Biringuccio also uses the word sour to describe a metal’s fusibility. However, Biringuccio presents the opposite classification: sour metals are difficult to melt, or at least not easily extracted from their ore by smelting. He uses sour to describe a metal ore that is hard, dry, and not easily smelted:

With those ores that are sour and harsh with which you cannot proceed in the ordinary and direct way, try the extraordinary, mixing them, as I have said, with all those things that may induce them to easy smelting.19

…By itself [Ochre] is a material without any metal, although when it is used in smelting it helps to melt the harsh and sour ores of metals. 20

Although this contradiction potentially creates more doubt about what sour actually means, we can hypothesize from both references that the word sour pertains to a material’s fusibility.21

The author-practitioner also refers to sugar as easily melted. On fol. 31r, a recipe for coloring fruit cast from sugar, the practitioner cautions: “Don’t paint them with a brush like other color-moistened things, for the sugar would melt [fondroit]. But rub them with color with a finger.”22 This caution refers to the sugar after it has been cast. Thus, sugar, after being cast, could undergo a change of state: from fatty to fragile (brittle and easily melted). This fragility would explain why the mold must be stripped very carefully from the sugar. Although, in our reconstruction, we did not experience the easy melting of sugar after it had hardened, we did indeed find it to be brittle and fragile. When we released the cast sugar from the mold, a small chunk broke off in the process. Thus, sugar could have undergone a change of state through the process of melting and hardening, of which the author-practitioner was aware when he described sugar as both fatty and sour. Alternatively, the author-practitioner could have viewed the properties of fatty and sour as not mutually exclusive in a material, with sugar employing both properties throughout the entire process – being both unctuous to the touch as well as easily melted before and after being cast.

Sugar’s possession of multiple properties may be further illuminated by Medieval Islamic medicinal theories of sugar;23 specifically, a Medieval Islamic text written by Ibn al-Nafis, a physician considered the first to describe the pulmonary circulation of the blood. Born in 1213 in Damascus, al-Nafis wrote an encyclopedia titled Al-Shamil fi al-Tibb, in which he describes the medicinal effects of sugar on various pulmonary disorders. In the fourth section, describing sugar’s effects on the organs in the chest, he writes, “Sugar has atoms with a ‘gentle’ quality, and as it dissolves easily in liquids, it moves easily into the organs of the chest and is highly effective on them.”24 Later, speaking of sugar’s effects on the digestive organs, he states, “However, sugar may also damage the liver with its ‘hot’ quality because sugar, as mentioned above, can take on a bitter quality.”25 Here he presents sugar as composed of multiple, changing qualities. He explains the different qualities of sugar as pertaining to their elements – one atom of sugar is comprised of elements of water, gentle hot earth, and air. These elements interact during the hardening of boiled sugar: “When the water element’s properties arise, but there is little water present, the properties of the air element overtake those of the water element. When boiled sugar congeals, its water element properties naturally recede.”26 Here, Al-Nafis is essentially describing evaporation. Nevertheless, the Medieval Islamic view of sugar as comprised of multiple properties simultaneously sheds light on how sugar could exhibit both properties of “fatty” and “sour and bitter,” as described in Ms. Fr. 640. In the recipe for casting sugar, the author-practitioner might also see sugar as possessing multiple properties simultaneously, each emerging and receding as sugar changes state through the process of boiling and hardening.

Sugar melting

The manuscript lacks specific instructions on the ratio of sugar to water when making the syrup, but instead offers a qualitative sign for when the sugar is ready, stating in a note that “The sign that the syrup or the melted sugar has boiled enough in the water for casting fruits is when it makes threads when shaking it.”27 Other contemporary recipes to make syrup by boiling sugar and water are similarly vague. In Ouverture de Cuisine, written in France in 1604, Master Lancelot de Casteau explains to his master cook “To prepare sugar for casting images & fruits: mix melted sugar with rose water as much as you would like to have, & let it boil a long time until it becomes like syrup.”28 Other contemporaneous recipes sound similar, instructing the reader to dissolve as much sugar as is reasonable, thus suggesting that the making of sugar syrup was widely known. As in Ms. Fr. 640, most of the recipes include a sign to tell when the sugar is ready: the sugar should be boiled to a specific height in the pot.29 The recipe in Ms. Fr. 640 instructs the practitioner to continue boiling the sugar until it forms threads when shaking it [en le secouant].

This description raised some questions as to what is shaking and the appearance of the threads. Research into confectionary manuals illuminated the nature of the thread test. In The Art of Confectionary, Ivan Day describes an entire eighteenth-century system of reading the sugar’s behavior as it changes temperatures, based on the length of the thread it creates. The clear syrup is tested by dipping the tip of forefinger in the solution, pressing it onto the thumb, and then slowly separating the fingers. If the sugar was ready a short thread would form; if the sugar was boiled a little longer this thread would extend to a quarter as far as the forefinger and thumb could stretch, and the syrup was considered at “the great thread degree.”30 Luckily, a different recipe for casting sugar spares the fingers, and advises testing the degree of the syrup with a wooden spoon. In Sir Hugh Platt’s Delightes for ladies to adorne their persons, tables, closets, and distillatories with beauties, banquets, perfumes and waters, one boils the syrup “till by powring some out of a spoone, it will run at the last as fine as a haire.”31 Using the spoon method to test the syrup, we discovered this to be the case after about an hour of boiling the sugar. When removing the wooden spoon, the syrup would not drip from the spoon, but rather formed a long thread from the spoon into the pot. This thread signified the sugar syrup was ready to cast.

Sugar attacking / attaching to (itself)

After describing the sign for the syrup’s readiness, the recipe mentions the possibility of sugar attacking itself. The author-practitioner suggests, “If the sugar attacks itself [s’attaque], throw a bit of amydon in the mold or rub it with an almond.”32 This auto-aggressive quality of sugar raised still more questions. How can sugar attack itself? What does the process of sugar attacking itself look like? What qualities comprise attacking? Can we find instances of other materials attacking themselves or one another?

While researching the processes of sugar casting, we came upon many modern day recipes for making sugar candy that explained the process of melting sugar in water. We found that sugar is extremely hygroscopic, meaning it absorbs water very readily. When a solution is over saturated with sugar, the solution is considered extremely unstable, and has a high tendency to recrystallize.33 To remedy this sugar recrystallization, candy-making recipes suggest adding a bit of starch.34 Given that the author suggests amydon as a remedy for “sugar attacking itself,” and that amydon is an early modern term for starch,35 we hypothesized that “sugar attacking itself” was in fact sugar recrystallizing. Another source refers to early modern confectioners’ knowledge of the recrystallization of sugar while making rock candy. According to Kate Hopkins’ book, Sweet Tooth: The Bittersweet History of Candy, 16th century English confectioners were aware that “after boiling sugar to the point where you can make pulled sugar, also known as rock, its chemistry will result in its reverting to its crystalline state. Candy in this state will become brittle and fall apart, becoming more akin to its natural, granular state of sugar. This process is called ‘graining.’”36

During our reconstruction, we experienced this phenomenon. When finally reaching the point of sugar “making threads” when shaken (fig 2), we poured the sugar into one of two molds, both of which were still damp from being soaked in water all night. Soon after, while we were pouring the sugar into the second mold, it began to change suddenly and dramatically in texture. The sugar began to bubble so furiously that it sprang up over the sides of the mold and continued to spread (figs 3 and 4). The syrup turned from clear to white and thickened into a paste. Almost immediately after we poured the second mold, the remaining sugar in the pan ceased to be liquid, becoming a crystallized solid mass (fig 5). We assumed that this must be sugar “attacking itself,” but unfortunately, we did not have amydon on hand to remedy the “attack.” When the sugar cooled in the mold, it was relatively smooth and hard, so we decided to try to let the mold harden fully.

“Attacking” across materials:

It seems that sugar “attacking itself” would refer to a flash recrystallization, due to an oversaturation of sugar in the syrup, because of the loss of water during the boiling process. How, then, does this concept of attacking apply to other materials? There are a few other instances in the manuscript that mention a process of attacking with reference to other materials. On fol. 111r, a recipe for clay earth, the author-practitioner advises the clay to be “wet & well beat & kneaded as you know, is necessary for you to make the contour of your molds. But attend that it not be too soft. But likewise [attend that it be] sort of half dry such that it doesn’t attack [s’attaque] the hands at all, because otherwise it would attack your work.”37

The author-practitioner warns that the clay will attack the hands if it is too wet. During the reconstruction, we experienced this. While rolling the clay to make the contour of our molds, we felt that the clay we were using was too dry, so we opened an unopened block of clay, which was much more moist. We noticed when rolling it out that it stuck to the rolling pins, the counter, and our hands. In order to continue, we had to adopt a “pizza dough method,”38 which involved flattening out the clay by throwing it from hand to hand in the manner of shaping dough for a pizza crust. In this case, clay attacking the hands was simply the clay sticking to another material. The interpretation of attacking as sticking could also apply to the sugar, as recrystallization is essentially sugar molecules sticking to one another. However, this does not seem to be how the author-practitioner would have conceived of this process, as he uses different terminology in the manuscript to describe sticking.39

Further investigation into the meaning of the word “s’attaque” led us to Randle Cotgrave, and then back to the manuscript to find other instances of this word as used by the author-practitioner. “Attaquer” is defined by Cotgrave as “to assault, or set on; to incounter…any way to meddle with.”40 From our experience with the materials in the reconstruction, we found this to be a bit odd, as clay did not exactly assault our hands; however, it did bond somewhat aggressively. The word attaque is very similar to the word attacher, meaning to attach, which would more accurately describe our experience with the clay. According to Cotgrave’s dictionary, attacher means “to tye fasten, claspe, knit, annex…or clap upon a pot, wall, etc.”41 Even more interestingly, Cotgrave provides a definition for “s’attacher a,” meaning “to coape, deale, meddle, scuffle, grapple, quarrel, fight, brabble with.”42 This led us back to the manuscript, where we noticed many more instances of materials that “s’attaque a l’…” another material, specifically with “s’” in front of a form of attaque, followed by the pronoun “a”. On fol. 42, wax will attack/ attach itself to paper [sattaquera au papier]. On fol. 154r, lead, if fat, will grip and attack the knife or chisel. [A cause quil est gras & se grippe & attaque au costeau ou ciseau mouille le & tu le coupperas co{mm}e verre]. While it is unclear whether or not the author-practitioner was referring to the meanings of ‘attach’ or ‘attack’, Cotgrave’s definitions of both words imply an aggressive agency. The author-practitioner’s use of “s’attaque a” therefore hints at an early modern belief in the agency of materials.

Agency of sugar

The use of the word “attacking” personifies sugar and clay, giving the materials their own agency. To better understand this conception of materials as active, we can look to contemporaneous sources such as The Admirable Discourses of Bernard Palissy. In his chapter “Treatise on Metals and Alchemy,” Palissy presents a Socratic dialogue between the characters “Theory” and “Practice,” where Practice disproves Theory’s assumption that “metals are dead and insensible bodies.”43 Practice tells Theory a secret – that all metals were created with the same life force as plants:

Just as I have told you that the seeds or matters of all vegetative things were created at the very beginning of the world along with the earth: also I have told you that all mineral matters (which you call inert bodies) were also created like the vegetative ones, and exert themselves to produce seeds to generate others. Also, the mineral ones are not so inert that they do not generate and produce from one degree to another, more excellent things, and to make you understand it better, the mineral substances are intermixed and hidden among the waters, in the womb of the earth, just as every human and brute creature is conceived as water in its formation: and being intermixed among the waters, there is some supreme substance which attracts others of its nature to form itself.44

Palissy sees minerals as imbued with agency and a drive to reproduce, comparable to humans, brute creatures, and plants. This agency manifests in the attraction of like substances. Practice describes this force of attraction found after grinding a rock of fusible matter:

After having thus pulverized it (the rock), I mixed it with clay, and a few days later when I wished to work with this clay, I found that the rock had begun to gather together, even though it was so thoroughly mixed with the clay that no one could have found a piece of it as large as the little motes that are seen in the sun’s rays when they come in to a room…that must make you believe that the materials of metals gather together and congeal admirably, according to the admirable order and power that god has ordained for them.45

Palissy personifies the fusible rock as a material with its own agency, attracted to pieces of its like form, and able to find those pieces and combine with them. In Palissy’s dialogue, practice disproves the theory of metals as dead substances. The agency of materials can be seen through practice, and the attraction of like minerals to form larger structures signifies a much larger life force and purpose imbued in the materials.

In Ms. Fr. 640, Palissy’s view of material agency is reflected by the author-practitioner in his description of the sugar attacking/ attaching to itself. The use of the word attack implies an aggressive action or fight and potentially parallels Palissy’s personification of battling elements of water and fire, as “fire is the destroyer of water, and wherever it enters it must expel the water, or if it does not, the water will kill it.”46 During the reconstruction, practice served to further elucidate sugar’s agency, mostly during the sudden boiling over of the sugar, and the sugar’s subsequent, almost instantaneous change of state from a liquid to a crystallized mass. As the action of the sugar was so sudden, the aggressive reattachment of the sugar so fast and irreversible, the semantic lines between the words attacking and attaching were significantly blurred. The recrystallization was both an attachment and an attack. Witnessing sugar’s aggressive recrystallization shed light on why the author-practitioner used the term “attacking” to describe this action of the sugar. Sugar seemed to be acting of its own volition, perhaps imbued with the life force that Palissy describes.47

Through the reconstruction, we developed a new understanding of the agency of materials, as we experienced the affordances and limitations of sugar. We can now shift from Palissy’s early modern idea of material agency to present day theory of material affordance. Material agency or affordance, as Anne-Sophie Lehmann describes it, involves “the restriction or encouragement of certain actions that result from the specific properties of the material.”48 During the reconstruction, the properties in sugar restricted and encouraged certain actions. Because sugar is fat, and does not take delicate impressions well, we were encouraged to mold round objects. As sugar is also brittle, we were encouraged to mold grapes in bunches positioned close together. Because of its material properties, sugar affected the subject matter of the object to be cast.

Describing other evidence of material agency, Lehmann states, “Material agency also shapes the tools used in the process of making so that they can exploit the potential as well as cope with the constraint of a material.”49 The process of tool shaping occurred during the reconstruction, as we had to experiment with various methods of opening the molds and releasing the grapes. We ended up using a chisel to open the molds and a blowtorch to melt the wax which had coated the grapes. As Lehmann also points out, in the act of making, action “is not simply exerted by the actor on the material,”50 but moves back and forth between the two. This type of material agency implies an action exerted by the material that instigates a reaction in the maker. This type of material agency correlates most directly with Palissy’s views that materials are imbued with a life force, and was seen when sugar attacked itself.

This act of recrystallization seemed to be initiated by the sugar and instigated a reaction in the practitioner – to throw starch into the mold. In the manuscript, whereas the instances of sticky or sticking are slightly passive, the instances of attacking describe an action exerted by the material and initiating a reaction from the experimenter. These instances of attacking can be treated as either obstructive or constructive, and the practitioner can either attempt to ward against them or harness them. Either way, the final product of making is a result of the interaction between material and maker.

Bibliography:

Anon. A closet for ladies and gentlevvomen. or, The art of preseruing, conseruing, and candying With the manner hovve to make diuers kinds of syrups: and all kind of banqueting stuffes. Also diuers soueraigne medicines and salues, for sundry diseases.

London F: Kingston, 1608.

Biringuccio, Vannoccio. Pirotechnia. Translated by Cyril Stanley Smith and Martha Teach Gnudi. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1990.

Cennini, Cennino. Il Libro d’el Arte. London: George Allin and Unwin, 1122.

Columella. On agriculture, I, trans. H Boyd. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968.

Cotgrave, Randal. A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues. London: Adam Islip, 1611.

Day, Ivan. The Art of Confectionary.” The Pleasures of the Table. London: Philip Wilson, 2001.

de Casteau, Master Lancelot. Ouverture de Cuisine. Liege: Leonard Steel, 1604

Forth, Chris. “The Qualities of Fat: Body, History, and Materiality,” Journal of Material Culture 18 (2013): 135-154.

Goldstein, Darra. The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Hopkins, Kate. Sweet Tooth: The Bittersweet History of Candy. London: Macmillan Press, 2012.

Lehmann, Anne-Sophie. “Kneading, Wedging, Dragging. How Motions, Tools, and Materials Make Art.” In Barbara Baert and Trees de Mits (eds), Folded Stones. Leuven: Acco, 2009.

Middleton, Henry. Illuminated Manuscripts in Classical and Medieval Times, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1892

Mukherjee, Ayesha. Penury Into Plenty: Dearth and the Making of Knowledge in Early Modern England. New York: Routledge, 2014.

Palissy, Bernard. The Admirable Discourses of Bernard Palissy [1580], ed. and trans. Aurèle La Roque. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1957.

Platt, Sir Hugh. “The Arte Of Preserving Conserving, Candying.” Delights for Ladies: To Adorne Their Persons, Tables, Closets, and Distillatories with Beauties, Banquets, Perfumes, and Waters. Reade, Practise, and Censure. London: Humfrey Lownes, 1609.

Renou, Jean de. A medicinal Dispensatory: Containing the Whole Body of Physick. London: J. Streater, and J. Cottrel, 1657.

Sato, Tsugitake. Sugar in the Social Life of Medieval Islam. Leiden: Brill Publishing, 2014.

Virgil. Virgil I: Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid I–VI. translated by H Rushton Fairclough Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Sugar-Glass/

http://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/candy/sugar.html

http://resources.amdigital.co.uk.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/gc/price/index.html?p=pro

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/plants-fungi/seeds-of-trade/page.dsml?section=crops&page=spread&ref=sugar_cane

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/melting-points-mixtures-metals-d_1269.html

---

1 The price of sugar in England in 1582-93 was between 17.10 and 19.10 pence per pound. Ayesha Mukherjee, Penury Into Plenty: Dearth and the Making of Knowledge in Early Modern England (New York: Routledge, 2014), 158. In 1583, I pound of sugar would trade for almost 15 grams of silver. http://resources.amdigital.co.uk.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/gc/price/index.html?p=pro

[accessed 5/20/2015] In 1500 in Madiera (the world’s largest sugar exporter at the

time, 100 lbs of sugar was worth one ounce of gold. Now, two tons of sugar is worth one ounce

of gold, making sugar forty-five times cheaper today than in 1500.

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/plants-fungi/seeds-of-trade/page.dsml?section=crops&page=spread&ref=sugar_cane [Accessed 5/20/2015].

2 “Sugar abates acrity, retunds acidity, gratifies austerity, and makes all vapours more suave.

Whence not onely Confectioneres, but Bakers and Cooks frequently use Sugar, for no delicate

dish comes on the Table that doth not participate of Sugar: for if Water, Wine Fruits, Flesh, Fish, or other Edibles or Potables be nauseated, the mixture of a little Sugar will make them current. All sugar is moderately hot, conducible to the roughnefs of the tongue, asperity in the breath, and to the cough; it moves spittle, but hurts the teach for it effects nigritude, mobility and rubiginy in

them.“ Jean de Renou: A Medicinal Dispensatory: Containing the Whole Body of Physick

(London: J. Streater, and J. Cottrel, 1657), 56.

3 Dara Goldstein, The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2015), 670.

4 In a recipe for mordant for illuminated manuscripts, Cennino Cennini calls for a mordant made of

fine gypsum, ceruse and sugar of Candia, that is ordinary pure white sugar. Henry Middleton,

Illuminated Manuscripts in Classical and Medieval Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press,1892), 237.

5 “If you want to put on any diadem or field of burnished gold, to bring you honour and fair name,

take gesso sottile (slaked plaster of Paris) and a little Armenian bole, ground together very finely

with a morsel of sugar. Then with the usual size, and a very very little white of egg mixed with

biaca, go thinly twice over, where you want to put on the gold.” Cennino Cennini. Il Libro d’el Arte, (London: George Allin and Unwin, 1122), 146. Interestingly, honey and sugar are constantly ingredients in the gesso used under gold in the but not otherwise.

6 Si le sucre s’attaque, il fault y gecter un peu d’amydon dans le moule

ou le frotter avecq une amande.

7 Le sucre est gras, et d’iceluy on gecte bien choses rondes

& gros muscles, mays malaisem[{ent}] choses subtiles & delicates

8 For a discussion of fat/lean dichotomy, refer to: Yijun Wang, Fol. 89r, “Powder of Ox Bone and

Rock Salt,” Fall 2014.

9 Chris Forth, “The Qualities of Fat: Body, History, and Materiality,” Journal of Material Culture 18

(2013) 141.

10 Forth, “Qualities of Fat,” 140

11 Virgil, Virgil I: Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid I–VI, trans. H Rushton Fairclough (Cambridge: Harvard

University Press, 1978), 132–133.

12 Columella, On Agriculture, trans. H Boyd. (Harvard University Press: Cambridge, 1968), 58.

13 Ains estant gras & uny

il soufle & ne reçoit point les traicts subtils

14 Le sucre est gras, et d’iceluy on gecte bien choses rondes

& gros muscles, mays malaisem[{ent}] choses subtiles & delicates.

15 Randal Cotgrave. A Dictionary of French and English Tongues, (London: Adam Islip, 1611), 68.

16 Randal Cotgrave. A Dictionary of French and English Tongues, 68.

17 The melting point of lead is 621 degrees fahrenheit, whereas tin (pewter being an alloy comprised

of 80-90% tin) has a lower melting point of 450 degrees fahrenheit.

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/melting-points-mixtures-metals-d_1269.html [accessed

5/20/2015]

18 Car tant plus les

grands metaulx sont doulx, tant plus ilz sont difficiles à fondre.

L’estain de cloche, qui est estaim fin et qui est aigre, est plus

aysé à fondre que le plomb, qui est doulx.

19 Vannoccio Biringuccio, Pirotechnia. Translated by Cyril Stanley Smith and Martha Teach Gnudi

(Dover Publications, Inc.: New York, 1990), 143.

20 Biringuccio, Pirotechnia, 116.

21 Biringuccio also indirectly refers to sugar’s fusibility, when he describes natural borax as “a clear

fusible stone of a form like that of sugar candy or rock salt.” Biringuccio, Pirotechnia, 117.

22 On ne les paint pas au pinceau co{mm}e les aultres choses

de couleur destrempée, pource que le sucre se fondroit.

Mays on les frotte de couleur avecq le doigt.

23 “Medieval European physicians learnt the medicinal uses of the material from the Arabs and Byzantine Greeks. One Middle Eastern remedy for rheums and fevers, enthusiastically adopted by the cold-prone inhabitants of Northern Europe, were little twisted sticks of pulled sugar called in Arabic al fänäd or al pänäd. These became known in England as alphenics, or more commonly as penidia, penids, pennet or pan sugar. They were the precursors of barley sugar and our modern cough sweets. In 1390, the Earl of Derby paid ‘two shillings for two pounds of penydes.’ A medicinal confect called diapenidion, in which penids were ground to a powder with pinenuts, almonds, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, liquorice and starch, was an early Arab pectoral medicine which was still being prescribed in 17th century England ‘for such as those who have Coughs, Ulcers and Consumptions of the Lungs’.” Ivan Day, “The Art of Confectionery.” The Pleasures of the Table (London: Philip Wilson, 2001), 4.

24 Tsugitake Sato. Sugar in the Social Life of Medieval Islam, (Leiden: Brill Publishing, 2014), 103.

25 Sato, Sugar in the Social Life of Medieval Islam, 104.

26 ibid 104.

27 le cirop ou

sucre fondu en

eau est assés

cuit pour

gecter fruicts,

c’est quand il

faict des filets

en le secouant.

28 Master Lancelot de Casteau. Ouverture de Cuisine. (Leonard Steel: Liege, 1604).

29 Anon. A closet for ladies and gentlevvomen. or, The art of preseruing, conseruing, and candying

With the manner hovve to make diuers kinds of syrups: and all kind of banqueting stuffes. Also

diuers soueraigne medicines and salues, for sundry diseases. (London; F. Kingston, 1608), 42.

30 Ivan Day. “The Art of Confectionary,” 14.

31 Platt, Hugh. The Arte Of Preserving Conserving, Candying. Delights for Ladies: To Adorne Their

Persons, Tables, Closets, and Distillatories with Beauties, Banquets, Perfumes, and Waters.

Reade, Practise, and Censure. (London: Humfrey Lownes, 1609), 14.

32 Si le sucre s’attaque, il fault y gecter un peu d’amydon dans le moule

ou le frotter avecq une amande.

33 http://www.instructables.com/id/Sugar-Glass [accessed March 13, 2015]

34 http://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/candy/sugar.html [accessed March 13, 2015]

35 Randle Cotgrave defined “amydon” as “Fine wheat flower steeped in water, then strained, and let

stand untill it settle at the bottome; then drained of the water, and dried at the Sunne; used for

bread, or in brothes it is very nourrishing.” Cotgrave, A Dictionarie of the French and English

Tongues, 38.

36 Hopkins does not provide an early modern reference to this statement. She only provides a

reference to the French cook, J Gilliers. In his Le Cannamaliste Francaise, published in 1751, he

includes a recipe for “greasing,” which involves adding acid in order to prevent sugar from

“graining.” Kate Hopkins, Sweet Tooth: the Bittersweet History of Candy (London: Macmillan

Press, 2012), 115.

37 quelle ne s attaque point aulx mains pour ce que autrem{ent} elle sattaqueroit a la besoigne.

38 We subsequently learned that over-wet clay must be kneaded (wedged) on an absorbent surface,

such as terracotta or wood to improve its ease of handling.

39 The author practitioner differentiates the words “attacking [attaquer]” and “sticking/ sticky

[s’arraper/ gluante]” in the manuscript. Where as in fol. 16r, the author practitioner describes iron

attacking another metal: “And when the charcoal is almost dying at the furnace’s level, you will be

able to pour in the moulds and iron or metal shells, which is even better for one metal will attack

[s’attaque a] the other. And the inside of the mold has to be covered with soaked ashes, so it

doesn’t stick [s’arrape] in it. [Tu pourras couler dans des moules & coquilles de fer ou de metail

qui est encores meilleur pourceque un fer sattaque a laultre Et fault que le dedans des moules

soient bien cendres avecq de la cendre destrempee affin quil ne sarrape pas.] There appears to

be a distinction between attacking and sticking to, or getting trapped in, the mold. He also

describes a sulphur steam as “sticky steam [vapeur gluante]” in fol 13r.

40 Randal Cotgrave, A Dictionary of French and English Tongues, 68.

41 ibid., 68.

42 Ibid., 68.

43 Bernard Palissy, The Admirable Discourses of Bernard Palissy ed. and trans. Aurèle La Roque,

(University of Illinois Press: Urbana, 1957), 92.

44 Palissy, Admirable Discourses, 92.

45 ibid, 99.

46 ibid, 85. Biringuccio also presents this battling of elements when he describes “all hot things are

direct enemies of everything cold and moist.” Biringuccio, Pyrotechnica, 250.

47 Biringuccio also uses many aggressive adjectives to describe the actions of the materials, imbuing these materials (and elements) with agency. “When [the bronze] is to enter the mould cavity, it encounters the air theirin which would necessarily find itself entrapped and would either refuse entrance to the bronze or break the mould in order to escape. Biringuccio, Pyrotechnia, 249.

48 Anne-Sophie Lehmann, “Kneading, Wedging, Dragging. How Motions, Tools, and Materials Make Art.” in Barbara Baert and Trees de Mits (eds), Folded Stones, (Acco: Leuven, 2009), 44.

49 Lehmann, “Kneading, Wedging, Dragging,” 45.

50 ibid, 45.

Calcined Alabaster as Excellent Sand

by Sofia Gans

<title id=”p083r_a6”>Sable excellent</title>

<ab id=”p083r_b6”>Albastre calcine dans un crusol a foeu de charbon tant quen le<lb/>

touchant il vienne en pouldre Esta{n}t froit pulverises le subtilem{ent}<lb/>

& passes par un double tamis & le rendes co{mm}e impalpable Et d avecq<lb/>

une lb de albastre il fault une ℥ de sel armoniac Mesles bien<lb/>

& incorpores tout ensemble Puys le mettes dans une cave cave ou<lb/>

lieu humide et de ceste paste moulles ce quil vous fauldra & apres<lb/>

seiches le moule au foeu & y gectes tel metal quil vous plaira<lb/>

pendant que le sable est chault & vous gecteres aussy net que le principal<lb/>

& le sable sert tousjours le mectant en lieu humide & seichant au foeu</ab>

<title id=”p083r_a6”>Excellent sand</title>

<ab id=”p083r_b6”>Burn alabaster in a crusol under charcoal fire until [upon touching it] it turns into powder. Once [it is] cold, finely pulverise it [and pass it] through a sieve to make it impalpable. With a pound of alabaster, one should use an ounce of sal ammoniac. Mix well and incorporate everything together. Next, put it in a cellar or a wet location. And with this paste, mold whatever you need and then dry the mold under a fire. While the sand is hot, you cast whatever metal you may like and your cast will be as neat as the principal. And the sand [will] always work if it is kept in a wet location and dried by the fire.</ab>

The recipe for “Excellent Sand” on fol. 83r falls among a list of various sands and techniques for use in box molds. Most “sands” in the manuscript call for some sort of dry powder, which is then combined with a liquid binder. This recipe follows such a pattern, calling for the powder of burned alabaster, ground and well-sieved, mixed with a certain ratio of sal ammoniac, and left to humidify until it forms a paste. Two different types of stones are known as alabaster. One, calcite alabaster, is found primarily in the Middle and Near East. The other, which would have likely been that used by the author, is called gypsum alabaster, and is found throughout continental Europe and the United Kingdom. Gypsum alabaster is a fine white stone understood today to be of the same chemical composition as gypsum, CaSO₄·2H₂O. When heated, both substances release their water molecules and become calcium sulfate hemihydrate, which is plaster.¹ The use of plaster (also denoted as a “sand”) is widespread in the manuscript, notably as a mold material used in life casting. While the plaster in these recipes would have been a liquid poured around the object (plant, animal, flower, etc.) that was to be cast in a clay mold, the sand referred to here would be for box molding, wherein the object to be reproduced is pressed into damp sand held in a wooden frame. The manuscript’s author-practitioner was clearly aware of the material connection between plaster and alabaster, as he notes in the margin of fol. 125v that “Lalbastre co{mmun}ement apelle qui touteffois est plastre est bien dur mays il se retire fort” (Alabaster, which is plaster in any case, is very hard, but it shrinks quite a bit).² Thus, we set out to determine whether there was a qualitative difference between sand made with pulverized alabaster and that made with plaster that would cause the author-practitioner to mention alabaster by name as a specifically “excellent” material for molding sand. And if there is no clear difference between the products cast in alabaster and in plaster, what might account for his inclusion of each as a distinct mold material? We investigate here not only the physical properties of alabaster sand, but also its symbolic connotations, as they reveal much about its status as an elite material in late medieval and early modern Europe, which might have encouraged our author-practitioner to highlight its excellence.

This recipe falls among a variety of others addressing the composition of various sands. The search for the perfect mold sand seems to have preoccupied not only our author-practitioner, but many early modern craftsmen whose technical writings have come down to us.³ Additionally, the process followed in this recipe is comparable to several other sand recipes, most notably that for sand using powdered ox bone and rock salt on fol. 89r. Both use a calcined raw material that is then finely ground, mixed with salt, and humidified to form a paste for molding. The annotation for ox bone lays out how salt acts as a binder in this class of recipes, rather than the various forms of liquid binders mentioned.⁴ It is clear that for the early modern craftsman, mold materials were of equal intellectual and experimental interest as the metals themselves. Of course, these molds rarely survived past the production process, and thus our text-based reconstructions are some of the only ways to shed light on the properties of these various mold materials. It remained for us to determine the properties of alabaster.

Our author was not the only one to deal with burned alabaster as a mold material. Hugh Plat, in The Jewel House of Art and Nature, first printed in London in 1594, describes in the section “The Art of Molding and Casting” how to prepare molds for casting branches or flowers from life from a mixture of “burnt alabaster and plaister of Paris” in equal portions.⁵ As in our manuscript, he recommends to mix three parts of this alabaster and plaster mixture to one part ground brick or terra cotta tile, a small amount of “spawd,”⁶ and water with sal ammoniac. He also mentions that if one wants to cast in wax, the mold can be made from plaster or alabaster alone, or a mixture of the two. Of course, this is a liquid mold material for life casting, rather than a “sand”-filled box mold. However, it is interesting to note that our author is not the only one to see a distinction between the chemically identical materials of burnt alabaster and plaster of Paris. Indeed, contemporary pigment companies such as the German Kremer Pigments sell “Alabaster Modellgips” (modeling plaster), which they claim is “von primärer Kristallinität und erhärtet besonders hart und durchscheinend”⁷ (of prime crystallinity and hardens particularly hard and translucent). This provides further impetus for our comparative experiment.

We began our experiments with 2 kg of raw gypsum alabaster. After laboriously breaking the raw stones into smaller chunks to facilitate even calcination, we calcined them in both a toaster oven in the lab and in our home ovens. A bit of research determined that alabaster calcines at approximately 170 degrees Celsius.⁸ The manuscript indicates to calcine the stones “tant quen le touchant il vienne en pouldre” (until they powder at the touch).⁹ Initially we assumed this meant that the stones would disintegrate with pressure when they were fully heated, but we eventually realized that it probably referred to more of a visually powdery surface that would form on the stone fragments, which then still needed to be ground in a mortar once cool. By an hour and a half in the oven, the stone fragments had turned a pure white, and the small pieces could be crushed with relatively little force [Figure 1, video of crushing calcined alabaster chunks]. We determined that this indicated the completion of the calcination process. The next step was to “pulverises le subtilem{ent}”¹⁰ (gently grind the stones) and sieve them through a “double tamis”¹¹ (double sieve). We ground the stones in marble mortar and pestles, and sieved them through tightly woven cheesecloth lining a plastic sieve. Despite calcination, this was a labor-intensive process that required many rounds of sieving to achieve the desired “impalpable” consistency. Even at the end of our labors the powder wasn’t quite impalpable; small granules could be detected when the powder was rubbed between fingertips.¹²

In this instance, the ratio of sal ammoniac required is mentioned directly in the recipe: “avecq une lb de albastre il fault une ℥ de sel armoniac” (with a pound of alabaster, one should use an ounce of sal ammoniac). However, a recipe a few pages later, on fol. 89v, also deals with sal ammoniac and calcined alabaster as materials for sand which “moule fort net & est de tres belle despouille”¹³ (molds very cleanly and is easily removed from the mold). In this instance, the author-practitioner recommends two ounces of sal ammoniac for a pound of alabaster. We decided to divide our calcined alabaster and make one mold using one ounce of sal ammoniac, and the other with two. We mixed the sal ammoniac (i.e. modern ammonium chloride, which comes in the form of small granular crystals like table salt) with the alabaster powder.

The next step was to simulate the “cave ou lieu humide”¹⁴ (cellar or damp location) in which the powder was meant to rest until it formed a “paste.” As we did not have a humidifier on hand, our initial attempt involved soaking fabric in water and leaving these rags in a cabinet with our sand overnight [Figure 2, initial attempt at humidifying the sand]. This produced no discernable change in the powder mixture, and we resorted to mixing water in slowly by hand until a paste-like consistency was reached that, when squeezed, would stick together firmly without being too wet. We had to add the water very slowly and mix vigorously with our fingers, as if we poured too quickly, the mixture would form large hard clumps that had to be reground.¹⁵ An apparently appropriate consistency was reached after the addition of 20 ml of water [Figure 3, the “squeeze” test showing how the sand material stuck together].¹⁶ We were then ready to pack our wooden box molds. We applied vine charcoal as a separator on the surface of our plaster medals [Figure 4, the plaster medallion to be cast with charcoal separato applied],¹⁷ before carefully packing the damp sand around them to fill the molds [Figure 5, packing our box mold].

The recipe indicates that the molds must be “chault” (hot or warm) to be cast into, so our next step was to heat them. We chose to do so in a toaster oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Unfortunately, at this point our wooden box molds caught fire and we had to start the project from scratch.¹⁸ To avoid having to repeat the laborious process of regrinding alabaster, we decided to purchase pure powdered alabaster ground from raw stones mined in Volterra, Italy. We additionally bought pure powdered gypsum mined in Utah in order to determine if there was a difference between alabaster and gypsum once both were reduced to powder. These substances were calcined at 170 degrees Celsius in the kiln for an hour and half [Figure 6, commercial alabaster and gypsum powders in the kiln], and the two different ratios of sal ammoniac were mixed in.

To humidify this batch, we acquired a humidifier and decided to set up a system that would expose the powder to moisture in a more sustained way. The different calcined powders were put on terracotta plates and elevated so that the humidifier could blow directly beneath them [Figure 7, the elevated terra-cotta plates]. These powders were then covered with a domed plastic lid, and the whole apparatus was draped in linen to trap moisture [Figure 8, the humidifying set-up]. The sand was left to humidify for seven hours. The resulting sand was quite satisfactory for packing, fairly hard to the touch but easy to break apart with light pressure, and held its form readily when pressed, as described on fol. 118v “Casting in a box mold” [Figure 9, the “squeeze” test]. It was interesting to note that the gypsum powder remained fairly white, while the alabaster powder looked slightly more yellow in its paste form. We packed four molds, one with calcined commercial alabaster powder and one ounce of sal ammoniac, one with calcined commercial alabaster powder and two ounces of sal ammoniac, one with the leftover calcined alabaster powder ground from the raw stone mixed with one ounce of sal ammoniac, and one with calcined commercial gypsum powder and one ounce of sal ammoniac. These molds were left to dry overnight in the fume hood [Figure 10, packing the box molds].

The next day, we removed the models from each mold.¹⁹ Most came away relatively cleanly [Figures 11, 12, 13, impressions in the box molds], however the portrait medal we used in the commercial alabaster with one ounce of sal ammoniac did not [Figure 14, failed portrait medal mold]. A huge chunk of the mold material stuck to the surface of the medal, and a chemical reaction occurred leaving a blue residue on the medal’s surface, rendering this mold unusable. The remaining three molds were placed in the kiln to warm for 30 minutes at 80 degrees Celsius [Figure 15, box molds in the kiln to warm for casting]. We cast a tin/lead alloy in a ratio of approximately 1.5 parts tin to 1 part lead, as described on fol. 139r, testing when the metal was hot enough to pour using a piece of paper [Figure 16, the paper used to test the heat of the metal], as described in a marginal note on fol. 72v. When the paper turned brown, we poured the metal into the open top of each mold [Figure 17, pouring the tin/lead mixture]. In order to maintain pressure and allow the metal to cool and flow evenly, as soon as it was poured, we placed flat pieces of soapstone over the open mold until the metal had cooled [Figure 18, the molds with soapstone covers].

The results were not surprising: there was no discernable difference between the impressions of objects cast in alabaster versus those cast in gypsum [Figure 19, 20, 21, the results of our casts with the original models for comparison]. As to the “excellence” of our sand, the finished objects did not come out as cleanly as we would have expected from our subjective understanding of what “excellent” sand for molding could accomplish. This is likely due to our inexperience with box molding more than any fault with the material.²⁰ While a certain amount of detail was picked up in each, the most subtle surface gradations were not captured. This was especially evident on the cast of a necklace pendant with a relief of a bird perched on a branch [Figure 21, cast of bird pendant]. The original had quite fine outlines of individual feathers on the wings and tail, which were barely registered in the cast replica. However, the very fine feet of the bird, as well as the branch on which it was perched, were picked up clearly. The flat surface surrounding the bird showed evidence of granularity. The edges of each object weren’t very cleanly impressed, as the edges of the impressions crumbled slightly when the objects were initially removed from the molds. Despite these imperfections, it was clear that this was a sand that packed quite well and dried quite hard, but again, no differently whether it was made of gypsum or alabaster. So, if alabaster is no different from plaster when calcined in terms of the impression it picks up, why was it specifically indicated as an excellent sand for casting?

Alabaster is of course best known as a fine material for carving sculpture, prized for its pure white color, its surface capable of being highly polished, and its softness allowing for ease of carving. Both it and gypsum are extracted from the same quarries, though alabaster is much rarer. Most of the material quarried in alabaster quarries is gypsum, which is too soft and crumbly to be carved, and was sold as raw material for plaster.²¹ Acclaimed alabaster sculptures were produced in several artistic centers in Europe during the Middle Ages and early modern era. Most well-known are probably the English workshops centered in South Derbyshire and Staffordshire which, beginning in the mid-14^th century, produced thousands of relatively small-scale alabaster devotional images.²² The popularity and affordability of these prolific workshops resulted in the purchase and transport of their products across Europe, until Henry VIII put a stop to production during his campaign against the Church and its devotional furnishings.

More relevant for our author-practitioner are likely the Burgundian ducal workshops that produced breathtakingly intricate alabaster tombs for several generations of dukes in their administrative capital of Dijon. These tombs [Figure 22-23, tomb of Duke Philip the Bold and Duke John the Fearless of Burgundy, Musée des beaux-arts, Dijon] consist of fully-painted white marble effigies reclining on black marble slabs, which are in turn supported by elaborate micro-architectural arcades of alabaster, populated with small alabaster mourning figures [Figure 24, an alabaster mourning figure from the tomb of Duke John the Fearless, Musée des beaux-arts, Dijon]. It is these mourners that have received most attention, due to their arresting detail and life-like gestures. Unlike the marble effigies, these sculptures were only sparingly painted, highlighting the glowing white surface of the alabaster. The choice to leave the alabaster surface exposed indicates a certain reverence for the stone itself.²³ Indeed, the contracts for each tomb explicitly specify alabaster as the material to be used for the tomb,²⁴ and there were several documented delays in production due to difficulty securing enough alabaster.²⁵ The clear importance of alabaster specifically as a material for such an elite project is evidence that it held a high position in the hierarchy of stone for sculpting in the region of Burgundy. Additionally, there are surviving alabaster sculptures from the Toulouse region [Figure 25, an alabaster sculpture of St. Margaret of Antioch carved in Toulouse in the late 15th century, The Metropolitan Museum of Art] that also seem to have been left unpainted, and would have circulated among an elite audience. One can imagine the metalworker visiting the workshops of these sculptors and reclaiming the dust leftover from carving to use as molding sand. In fact, we might consider that, knowing of alabaster sculpture’s hard shining surface, and that fact that these objects displayed particularly crisp details (due to the stone’s ease of carving), our author-practitioner might have hazarded that it would be a hard, durable mold material especially suited to capturing the minute details and contours of the object to be reproduced.²⁶

The use of alabaster for tomb sculptures was not only tied to its fine appearance, but also to its theological significance. Alabaster is referred to in the gospels, in Mark 14:3, Matthew 26:6-7, and Luke 7:36-38. Though the location of the story differs according to each author, the basic story is the same: a pious woman comes to Christ bearing an alabaster jar full of precious ointment, which she uses to anoint him. Mark additionally specifies that the woman breaks the jar of alabaster to access the ointment. This moment received sustained exegetical attention from early Christian theologians such as St. Augustine²⁷ and St. Jerome.²⁸ Aleksandra Lipinska sums up the interpretation of this moment as such: “The woman bringing the jar signifies the Church; the alabastron [alabaster jar] filled with perfume oil symbolizes the body of Christ filled up with faith; and the breaking of the vessel stands for the death of Christ on the Cross…”²⁹ This trope was extended to encompass the bodies of the faithful as well. Twelfth-century english abbot Aelred of Rievaulx writes to his followers to “Break then the alabaster of your heart and whatever devotion you have, […], pour it all out upon your Bridegroom’s head, while you adore the man in God and God in the man.”³⁰ The association of alabaster with the body of Christ, and by extension the bodies of the faithful who modeled themselves in the image of Christ, led to its use in funerary sculpture as a symbol of the body’s potential for resurrection. This coupled with its remarkable similarities in tone and texture to human flesh when highly finished made it a potent, polyvalent material.

Marble was another such material celebrated for its ability to mimic flesh. In this vein, there is evidence that in Europe in the late Middle Ages, alabaster was sometimes called marble, and vice versa. For instance, the arcades of the tomb of Duke Philip the Bold were referred to in medieval sources as alabaster, however recent analysis has shown that they are actually white marble.³¹ Aleksandra Lipinska argues that this indicates that up until the 18th century “alabaster, like other polishable minerals and rocks, was counted among the family of marbles.”³² Marble, with its ancient imperial connotations, was a stone of great power and prestige, and alabaster took on those associations.³³ Pliny the Elder was perhaps the first to associate marble and alabaster, referring in Book X of his Natural History to a stone called onyx marble that is sometimes called alabastrites. Though he is likely referring to calcite alabaster, as mentions the stone is found in Egypt, he specifically states that this type of stone “is suitable too, when burnt, for plasters.”³⁴ Thus we see as early as the first century AD, the continuum between marble, alabaster and plaster was codified. Medieval lapidaries continued to group alabaster as a type of marble, for instance Isidore of Seville in his Etymologies. There, alabaster is included among a list of other marbles, described as “a white stone, tinted here and there with various colors.”³⁵ However, he, too is referring to calcite alabaster, as he states that the whitest stones are to be found in Egypt, Syria, and India. Whether medieval patrons and sculptors understood the difference between the two types of alabaster remains unclear. It is nevertheless evident that alabaster’s close connection to marble lasted through the middle ages.

In fact, one recipe in our manuscript seems to be making this connection as well. On fol. 101r-101v, a recipe for “sel a fayre fondre” (salt for founding) describes the process of making a modeling material out of salt and saltpeter that, when ground and heated, will make “une matiere blanche dure & unie comme albastre dequoy tu pourras jecter medailles qui sembleront marbre” (a white, hard and and uniform matter, similar to alabaster, from which you will be able to cast medals which will look like marble). Here, the resulting material looks as white as alabaster, and will create objects that look like marble. The two terms seem almost interchangeable. Interesting in the case of this manuscript is that the author-practitioner also makes clear reference to alabaster’s relationship to plaster. Lipinska states that alabaster’s chemical relationship to gypsum was not widespread knowledge before the early eighteenth century,³⁶ yet the working knowledge of our author seems to indicate that the connection between alabaster and the “raw stones”³⁷ of plaster was indeed a part of artisanal knowledge by the end of the 16th century. This acknowledgment could perhaps broaden our understanding of marble’s early modern taxonomy, as connected both to alabaster and to plaster. Although, it seems that Theophrastus’ third century BC De Lapidibus makes the connection between gypsum and alabaster, as he refers to an earth called gypsos, and a stone called alabastrites that can be found within this earth, both of which give off “stickiness and heat, when…wet,”³⁸ after having been burned. He states that it is “used on buildings and is poured around the stone or anything else of this kind that one wishes to fasten.”³⁹ He even mentions that painters in Italy use it for their art (ground alabaster and gypsum are still used in the preparation of gesso today).⁴⁰ Theophrastus clearly refers to gypsum plaster here, and distinguishes the hard stone form of it as alabastrites. We can therefore understand the continuum of marble, alabaster and plaster that our author-practitioner is experimenting with as ancient mineralogical knowledge.

Thus, if we consider that our author-practitioner was interested in the materials he chose for their known properties, it would make sense that alabaster, as an elite stone closely associated with marble and celebrated for its ability to produce luminous and delicate carving in a sacred and commemorative context, would be assumed to have some finer and more “excellent” properties for molding than the much more easily attainable plaster, which was not used for art objects of as high status and caliber as its chemical counterpart. Moreover, the symbolic and biblical connotations of the material, connected to the transformation of the bodies of the faithful through resurrection, could have held special interest for our author-practitioner. His interest in transformation of materials is clear in his many experiments. Therefore, it is perhaps this symbolic potency of alabaster that leads the author to assume that it produces more “excellent” sand than plaster. This raises the question of whether our author had actually experimented with this sand, or was simply imagining that it would be a fine material. When comparing this recipe or the recipe using ox bone and rock salt with certain other recipes, such as that for “sand, for the most excellent lead of all, for large and small reliefs” on fol. 84v, or that detailing “sand experiments” on fol. 85v, the difference in rhetorical style is striking. While the alabaster recipe and the ox bone recipe have relatively clear, step-by-step instructions in declarative statements and certain specific ratios of materials, they do not have any of the narrative flair of the two recipes on fols. 84v and 85v. These recipes give full accounts in the first person of the processes attempted, and include descriptions of failures as well as successes.⁴¹ He makes note of changes in his technique over time and new knowledge he uncovers.⁴² Why would he insert such copious detail in some recipes and relatively little in others? We might take this to indicate that he had actually attempted certain sand recipes, and others he was merely collecting, perhaps for posterity, perhaps for later experimentation. Thus, the use of alabaster was perhaps merely a thought experiment, based on the prized properties of the material for sculpting, that the author-practitioner predicted might translate well to mold-making when incorporated into the typical sand paradigm of finely powdered substance mixed with a binder. It is certainly a functional sand, but perhaps no more “excellent” than others.

Bibliography

Barry, Fabio. “Walking on Water: Cosmic Floors in Antiquity and the Middle Ages.” The Art Bulletin 89-4 (2007), 627-656.

Biringuccio, Vannoccio. Pirotechnia. Translated by Cyril Stanley Smith and Martha Teach

Gnudi. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1990.

Cannan, Fergus. “‘If Marble will not Serve’: Medieval English Alabaster Sculpture, from Quarry

to Object of Devotion.” in Object of Devotion: Medieval English Alabaster Sculpture

from the Victoria & Albert Museum, edited by Paul Williamson. Alexandria, VA: Art

Services International, 2010.

Cellini, Benvenuto. The Treatises of Benvenuto Cellini On Goldsmithing And Sculpture.

Translated by C.R. Ashbee. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2006.

Isidore of Seville. Etymologies. trans. Stephen A. Barney (New York: Cambridge University

Press).

Jugie, Sophie. The Mourners: Tomb Sculptures from the Court of Burgundy. New Haven: Yale

University Press, 2010.

Kremer, Georg. “Gips, Gispspat, Calciumsulfat.” on Kremer Pigmente. accessed May 4, 2015:

http://www.kremer-pigmente.com/media/files_public/gips.pdf.

Lipinska, Aleksandra. “Alabastrum, id est, corpus hominis. Alabaster in the Low Countries

Sculpture, a Cultural History.” Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 63 (2013):

85-115.

Plat, Hugh.The Jewel House of Art and Nature. London: Printed by Bernard Alsop, 1653.

Alexis Piemontese, pseud. [Ruscelli, Girolamo]. The secrets of the reuerend Maister Alexis of

Piemont. Translated by William Ward. London: Peter Short, for Thomas Wight, 1595.

Pliny the Elder. Natural History Book XXXVI. trans. D.E. Eichholz (Cambridge: Harvard

University Press, 1962), accessed May 15, 2015:

http://www.loebclassics.com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/LCL419/1962/volume.xml.

Theophrastus. On Stones. trans. Earle R. Caley and John F.C. Richards (Columbus: Ohio State

University, 1956).

Wang, Yijun. “Fol. 89r, Powder of Ox Bone and Rock Salt.” Fall 2014.

Williamson, Paul ed. Object of Devotion: Medieval English Alabaster Sculpture from the

Victoria & Albert Museum. Alexandria, VA: Art Services International, 2010.

Wirsching, Franz. “Calcium Sulfate.” Ullmann’s Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry (2000).

accessed April 20, 2015. doi: 10.1002/14356007.a04_555.

---

1 Franz Wirsching, “Calcium Sulfate,” in Ullmann’s Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry (2000), accessed April 20, 2015, doi: 10.1002/14356007.a04_555.

2 This note, written in the same hand but a different ink, appears next to a recipe for plaster molds to cast with wax. A cross appears at the head of this note.

3 See for instance Biringuccio, Pirotechnia, trans. Cyril Stanley Smith and Martha Teach Gnudi (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1990), pp. 218-220; Girolamo Ruscelli, The secrets of the reuerend Maister Alexis of Piemont, trans. William Ward (London: Peter Short, for Thomas Wight, 1595), fol. 105-106; Benvenuto Cellini, The Treatises of Benvenuto Cellini On Goldsmithing And Sculpture, trans. C.R. Ashbee (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2006), p. 112.

4 Yijun Wang, Fol. 89r, “Powder of Ox Bone and Rock Salt,” Fall 2014.

5 Hugh Plat, The Jewel House of Art and Nature (London: Printed by Bernard Alsop, 1653), 194.

6 Perhaps the same substance as our manuscript’s “spalt.”

7 Georg Kremer, “Gips, Gispspat, Calciumsulfat,” on Kremer Pigmente, accessed May 4, 2015: http://www.kremer-pigmente.com/media/files_public/gips.pdf.

8 Fergus Cannan, “‘If Marble will not Serve’: Medieval English Alabaster Sculpture, from Quarry to Object of Devotion,” in Object of Devotion: Medieval English Alabaster Sculpture from the Victoria & Albert Museum, ed. Paul Williamson (Alexandria, VA: Art Services International, 2010), 22.

9 Fol. 83r

10 Fol. 83r

11 Fol. 83r

12 A comparison with commercially calcined bone and oyster shell revealed that some powders are so fine that it is hard to register contact with the surface of the material by touch. This seems to be the indication for what a truly “impalpable” sand should feel like. The manuscript references impalpability in a variety of recipes concerning the many formulas for sands for casting, on fols. 42v, 68v, 69r, 87v, 88v, 89v, 90r, 90v, and 92v. It is logical for such “impalpability” to be desired, as the finer-grained the mold material, the clearer and more precise the cast impression would be.

13 Fol. 89v

14 Fol. 83r

15 A later trial resulted in a fair amount of alabaster that had to be thrown away because the water was added too quickly and the whole amount of powder grew warm to the touch and began to harden, the same exothermic reaction that occurs when mixing plaster. We came to the conclusion that time is needed for the transformation of this material to take place, as slow humidifying allows for salt crystals to grow and bind the material, preventing an exothermic reaction resulting in the formation of hardening plaster.

16 The appropriate consistency for sand is described by Biringuccio as follows: “When [the sand] has been made as desired in this way it is moistened again before use with water, urine, or vinegar just enough so that it holds together when it is squeezed in the fist. Then, when it has been brought to this point, it is moulded as you will hear.” Biringuccio, Pirotechnia, 34. In Ms. Fr. 640, on fol. 118v, the author describes moistening the sand “in order to give it a nice hold, though it still came apart easily” (de facon quil faisoict bonne prise sesmiant toutesfois aisement). See also the Fall 2014 annotation by Cataldo and Visco on “Sands and Binders.”

17 The author-practitioner describes his own use of charcoal as a separator in box molds on fol. 118v: “Jay saulpoudre ma medaille avecq du charbon pulverise avec une lime” (I sprinkled my medal with charcoal pulverized with a file).

18 We were using a very dry pine wood box mold, and by placing it too close to the heating element of the toaster oven, the dry wood caught fire and was promptly extinguished.

19 We were later informed that proper technique would have been to remove the models immediately before leaving the molds to dry. This could have negatively affected the final quality of our casts. Unfortunately, this fact was not specified anywhere in our recipes, or in the manuscript, and had not been made clear to us in our workshop setting. A new attempt at this procedure removing the models right away could possibly yield different results.

20 Again, retrying this experiment removing the models right away might yield stronger impressions. It would also make sense to retry the experiment casting the same object in sands of different compositions, to be able to compare more directly.

21 Cannan,”If Marble Will Not Serve,” 26

22 For a thorough overview of the production and dissemination of these objects, see Paul Williamson, ed. Object of Devotion: Medieval English Alabaster Sculpture from the Victoria & Albert Museum (Alexandria, VA: Art Services International, 2010), the most recent and thorough treatment of this corpus of objects.

23 Aleksandra Lipinska notes a similar reverence for material in alabaster sculptures of the Low Countries and Germany. See Aleksandra Lipinska, “Alabastrum, id est, corpus hominis. Alabaster in the Low Countries Sculpture, a Cultural History,” Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 63 (2013): 86.

24 Sophie Jugie, The Mourners: Tomb Sculptures from the Court of Burgundy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 36.

25 Sculptor Claus de Werve died in 1439 before completing the tomb of Duke John the Fearless due to inability to find a suitable source of alabaster. See Jugie, The Mourners, 46.

26 In the recipe on fol. 89v that also addresses alabaster sand, he specifies that upon drying, the mold will be “hard as stone,” (il vient dur comme pierre) which makes the cast easier to remove from the mold.

27 St. Augustine, Tractate: “Alabastrum unguenti, corpus est fidelis animae; fractum vero alabastrum, carnale est desiderium quod frangitur ad caput, ex quo omne corpus Ecclesiae compaginatum est.” Cited in Lipinska, “Alabastrum,” note 63, 109.

28 St. Jerome, Commentary on Matthew: “Mulier, id est, futura Ecclesia: alabastrum, id est, corpus hominis: per unguentum, ostendit fidem confessionis.” Cited in Lipinska, “Alabastrum,” note 62, 109.

29 Lipinska, “Alabastrum,” 99.

30 Ibid. 99.

31 Jugie, The Mourners, 119.

32 Lipinska, “Alabastrum,” 101.

33 Aristotle describes marble as a sort of permanently frozen water, condensed from the earth’s exhalation of vapors and frozen deep underground. Marble retained close associations to ice and water through the middle ages. See Fabio Barry, “Walking on Water: Cosmic Floors in Antiquity and the Middle Ages,” The Art Bulletin 89.4 (2007), 627-656.

34 Pliny the Elder, Natural History Book XXXVI, trans. D.E. Eichholz (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962), accessed May 15, 2015: http://www.loebclassics.com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/LCL419/1962/volume.xml, 49.

35 Isidore of Seville, Etymologies, trans. Stephen A. Barney (New York: Cambridge University Press), 321.

36 Lipinska, “Alabastrum,” 102.

37 As he refers to them on folio 106v.

38 Theophrastus, On Stones, trans. Earle R. Caley and John F.C. Richards (Columbus: Ohio State University, 1956), 59.

39 Ibid. 59.

40 Ibid. 60.

41 For example, on fol. 85v: “I made another cast with frying pan material alone, in the same sand, but not as reheated. It did not come out well.”

42 See fol. 84v, where he lays out the initial process for making sand from lead white bound with egg whites, then begins a new text block with “Since that moment, I have realized that even though this sand is excellent…it is fat and it makes bubbles.”

BnF Ms. Fr. 640, fol. 98r: Varnish for lutes

Primary Author: Caroline Marris

French transcription:

<title id=”p098r_a1″>Vernis pour les luts</title>

<ab id=”p098r_b1″>Ils prenent un peu de tormentine & huile de tormentine ou daspic & de<lb/>

lambre pulverise & passe fort subtillem{ent} & font co{mm}e celuy de mastic & y<lb/>

adjoustent pour le colorer un peu de sang de dragon pour le faire<lb/>

rougeastre Et aultres de la terra merita pour iaulne </ab>

English translation:

<title id=”p098r_a1″>Varnish for lutes</title>

<ab id=”p098r_b1″>They take a little turpentine and some turpentine oil, or spike lavender [oil], and some

amber pulverized and very finely sieved & proceed as with that of mastic, & they add some dragon’s blood to

color it and turn it red. And others some terra merita[633] to turn it yellow.</ab>

Twenty-first-century stringed instruments, often built using modern industrial techniques and not in an artisan’s workshop, are prized for their brilliance of tone and volume. In the early modern period, however, instruments were not only quieter and employed different strings and performance technique, but were invariably made in workshops by skilled craftsmen. The recipe for a “varnish for lutes” in the BnF Ms. Fr. 640 book of secrets is an interesting inclusion in a manuscript otherwise mostly preoccupied with the arts of metallurgy, painting, and medicine (though not, it should be noted, unique in this sense – the manuscript incorporates several stranger and more varied instructions for, among other things, the capturing of nightingales on fol. 105v or varnishing painted boxes and painting taffeta banners on fol. 67r). That the varnish initially described in the recipe above is for a red varnish is even more intriguing, as it is not a common color for instruments, and is involved with strong cultural connotations and technical secrets.¹ In the late twentieth century, for example, the 1998 film The Red Violin began in the seventeenth century with the eponymous instrument being painted with a varnish turned red by the blood of the artisan’s, an act which carries its sins forward several hundred years. In technical terms, modern luthiers insist that the composition of a varnish can totally change the sound of an instrument – the German master Sourène Arakélian, for instance, wrote in 1981 that “The student violin of today, factory-made, with dry hard varnish, can only give out strident and sour sounds…The function of the varnish is not only to preserve the instrument against humidity and manual perspiration, but also to improve its tone”.² Though Arakélian says the influence of varnish alone has been exaggerated and that its qualities work in tandem with those of the wood of the instrument itself to produce tone, color is still an important aesthetic decision to be made by the luthier, ending with those “which suit his taste.” Intriguingly, a violin left unvarnished is described by Arakélian as “white,” which color apparently has its own aural qualities.³

Our goals for this annotation were to better understand the context and skills necessary to the making or decorating of a musical instrument in our period, and also to open a discussion on the nature and experience of color in early modern artisanal practice. While our experiment protocols and use of certain ingredients clarified the former, the latter is still a topic very much up for debate.

Setting the Scene: Varnishes and the History of Musical Instruments

A European or Near-Eastern lute is a plucked stringed instrument with a deep, rounded back and wide neck. Its origins are classical, and archival sources indicate that it was established in Europe (Spain) no later than the ninth century, with the first known written music for the instrument appearing around 1500 (Fig. 1 – lute by Sixtus Rauchwolff, 1596).⁴ It shares features with several other instruments which have survived to the current day (albeit often in highly-specialized performance environments) including the oud, the theorbo, the archlute, the kobza, and so on. A fantastic variety of sizes, shapes, and string numbers is obvious in any collection of pre-‘high classical’ (pre-Mozartian or pre-early nineteenth-century) instruments; it is possible to find lutes of the period of 1600-1800 with anywhere from 6 to 12 strings in a variety of tunings.⁵ The lute was also a common subject of contemporary paintings, often as a vanitas object, or engravings to do with the instrument-maker’s craft. Titian, for example, included a lute-player in a painting of Venus dated 1565-70 (Fig. 2 – Titian, ‘Venus and the Lute Player’) ; and Albrecht Dürer engraved a ‘draughtsman’ at work on constructing a perspective drawing of a lute (Fig. 3 – Dürer, ‘The Draughtsman of the Lute’). Determining the social status of instrument-makers and musicians in the 16th century is often difficult beyond the biographical details of certain master composers, most of whom were artists working in a similar system of support to painters, being attached to courts or nobles (this system would persist for at least a hundred and fifty years after the probable date of our manuscript – J.S. Bach, for instance, b.1685-d.1750, spent most of his life in the service of individual or civic patrons). It is, however, possible to find evidence of the look and habits of lower- to middle-class jobbing musicians for hire in early modern engravings, especially in Germany (see Fig. 4 – Meckenem, ‘Harpist and Lute Player’ ; and Fig. 5 – Aldegrever, ‘Two Musicians Playing the Violin and the Lute’).

There are dozens of mentions of various ‘varnishes’ in BnF Ms. Fr. 640. The vast majority of these are varnishes meant for the surface of paintings, as in several listed on fol. 4, fol. 31, fol. 57, fol. 60, and so on.⁶ They can also be applied to objects other than paintings, such as “boxes covered with painted paper” (fol. 67), engraved iron (fol. 4), and sword hilts (fol. 96). They seem to function as both protection, in the case of their completely covering and ‘finishing’ an object, and as a conscious aesthetic choice on the part of the artisan. Varnishes are likewise common material in other contemporary sources, but neither Biringuccio nor Cennini, two of our other main comparative artisanal writings, mention the treatment or art of decorating musical instruments; Hugh Plat’s Jewell House (1594) instructs only how to make an “Oil or varnish made to dry speedily”. Likewise, general historical works on the development of musical instruments in the period, though often concerned with the physical form of stringed instruments including the viola da gamba family, the lyra da braccia, the violin, and the crwth, have traditionally left out the question of how a varnish might play into the production of music, either aesthetically or scientifically.⁷

More recently, however, there have appeared works which attempt to replicate the same process of historical reconstruction as we are engaged in with the Making and Knowing Project. Experiments have been written up and published, for example, on the stripping and examination of “the earliest surviving set of English string instruments” by a craftsman named William Baker.⁸ A reconstruction of a lute from scratch using contemporary illustrations and instructions likewise has much to say about the preparation and carving of wood, but unfortunately little to say about varnishes other than that egg wash might have been used to give a “blond” finish to an instrument.⁹ Elsewhere, there are brief mentions of the history of “cheap” varnishes being preferable to expensive ones in the making of violins in early eighteenth-century Italy, resulting in the conclusion that certain imported varnishes may have “damp[ened] out the upper harmonies” or that it was the use of a particular type of varnish which might have produced that ever-famous ‘Stradivarius’ sound.¹⁰ Despite these mentions, it is far more common to see varnishes for paintings described in art historical literature. These do, however, carry a common theme: that a varnish’s composition can fundamentally alter the aesthetic of a work of art, and, if one is to extend that power to musical instruments, an instrument’s sound as well.¹¹

Our Recipe, fol. 98r

Many of the manuscript’s varnish recipes – including those meant for painting canvases or nearly any other object apart from lutes – have overlapping or complementary ingredients and techniques, such as heating the base liquid, and the use of mastic, amber, turpentine, or aspic oil. It was fairly easy to determine the base ingredients of our own recipe: turpentine oil or spike lavender oil, ground amber, and dragon’s blood resin (which could be obtained from a number of different plant genuses including Croton, Dracaena, Daemonorops, Calamus rotang or Pterocarpus). ‘Terra merita’ was more difficult to pin down, but appeared to be equated by modern art suppliers with turmeric powder. Our final initial step for our ingredients was to determine what type of wood we wanted to paint our varnishes onto. We searched the online collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and were able to pull up a list of 96 lutes held by the Museum which were a) of European origin and b) were built between 1600 and 1800; even a cursory examination of their details showed us that by far the most common wood out of which they were made was spruce.¹² We therefore obtained spruce ‘patching boards’ from a site catering to guitar luthiers to work with.

In establishing our experiment protocol, we found that a recipe on fol. 71v was most helpful in laying out a set of steps with which to tackle fol. 98r. This recipe stated:

Add 4 [drams] of sandarac and finely pulverized mastic to a half lb of lavender spike oil. First of all, boil your oil in a pot on a stove, and then add the aforesaid gums little by little, stirring continually with a small stick split and quartered at the end.

Combining this with our initial recipe, we determined that we should heat our base liquid and ground amber together. Another varnish recipe on fol. 73v provided us with a more concrete ratio of ingredients to test (“two ounces of aspic oil and one ounce of sandarac”), i.e. two parts liquid to one part amber. Some recipes mentioned merely that this liquid combination should be ‘heated,’ while others mentioned ‘boiling’ in translation (for example, ‘chaufer’ in fol. 4r_b1a, ‘Aspic oil varnish,’ vs. ‘bouille’ in fol. 4v_c1a, ‘For an excellent black varnish’). Given that our original recipe did not mention specific shades of color we decided to take our heated mixtures off the heat and stir in however much coloring agent (turmeric powder or powdered dragon’s blood resin) we felt gave the varnishes ‘enough’ color.¹³ Given that we had two liquid bases and two coloring agents to try, we ended up running our experiment four times:

1. Turpentine oil and turmeric powder → yellow
2. Spike lavender oil and turmeric powder → yellow
3. Turpentine oil and dragon’s blood → red
4. Spike lavender oil and dragon’s blood → red

Our first step was to grind our solid ingredients as fine as we could; while our dragon’s blood resin crumbled quickly and easily and did not need to be sieved to appear very fine, (Fig. 6 – grinding dragon’s blood resin) grinding our amber pieces was very hard work and never quite reached a truly fine state despite being sieved several times; there were always larger, coarser pieces visible in the final powdered form (Fig. 7 – grinding amber; and Fig. 8 – powdered and sieved amber). Our turmeric powder was a commercial foodstuff. We then heated a hot plate under a fume hood (to help deal with the strong smell of our oils) to what we thought would be a boiling temperature and started our first experiment with turpentine oil. We combined 3 ounces of turpentine oil with 1.5 ounces of ground amber and stirred it continuously with a handmade tool of iron wire, with the hot plate set on a setting of 4 out of 5. Almost immediately, the turpentine oil – which has a boiling point of ~307°F¹⁴ – began to smoke and boil. The amber also immediately started to solidify in a dark brown sludge in the turpentine, turning the whole a very unpleasant color. Within moments, the clearly too-high heat had boiled away the turpentine and left us with a crusty mess of foul-smelling amber dust. An acknowledged failure! (Fig. 9 – failed experiment: congealed oil-amber mixture)

For our following attempts, we decided to keep our hot plate on its ‘minimum’ setting and to monitor the temperature of our liquids with an infrared thermometer. Our second attempt with our first mixture rose rapidly to a temperature of about 125°F, at which point we poured in our 1.5 ounces of amber and began to stir it; its temperature eventually stabilized at between 140 and 150°F. Though we stirred the mixture for several minutes, the amber did not seem to be incorporating in any way into the oil, and did not change its sludgy brown-black color (Fig. 10 – second attempt at turpentine oil and amber mixture). We therefore decided to strain the mixture before calling it completed. After more than five minutes of no change, we took the varnish off of the heat and started to stir in our turmeric, stopping when we felt we had a healthy yellow color. We then strained the varnish through cheesecloth to remove most of the amber pieces, and stored it in a glass jar (Fig. 11 – strained ground amber).

The remaining three experiments proceeded almost exactly as above, with the only difference being the variations in color produced by similar amounts of coloring agent (our two red varnishes were stored in tin cans rather than in glass jars). Each was heated to approximately 150°F and stirred for several minutes; colored; and strained. Our results were as follows:

1. Turpentine oil and turmeric (5/8ths teaspoon): muddy, rich brown-yellow.(Fig. 12 – turpentine oil and turmeric varnish.)
2. Lavender spike oil and turmeric (4/8ths teaspoon): bright, nearly neon yellow.(Fig. 13 – lavender spike oil and turmeric varnish.)
3. Turpentine oil and dragon’s blood (6/8ths teaspoon): muddy, dark red.(Fig. 14 – turpentine oil and dragon’s blood varnish.)
4. Lavender spike oil and dragon’s blood (6/8ths teaspoon): brighter red; this was also the most liquid of all four, which was heated for the shortest amount of time and only barely broke 140°F – perhaps low heat, rather than boiling, was always the key?(Fig. 15 – lavender spike oil and dragon’s blood varnish.)

On the advice of luthier Gabriela Guadalajara, we looked through the manuscript for clues as to what might be used as a sealant for the instrument’s wood before the varnish was applied to it.¹⁵ Ms Fr 640 mentions ‘glue’ dozens of times, again frequently in reference to painting, but has very few actual recipes for it beyond that of fish glue on fol. 159r. We therefore looked for its synonyms and focused briefly on mastic, which is a resin obtained from the mastic tree (Pistacia lentiscus) commonly known as ‘arabic gum’ – not to be confused with ‘gum arabic’ or acacia gum (Sengalia senegal or Vachellia seyal).

Due to time and price concerns, however, we decided to proceed with sealing our sample piece of spruce wood with liquid gum arabic instead, which was already present in our lab and has application in the thickening of inks and paints.¹⁶ We also found in fol. 3v that the manuscript’s author-practitioner recommended that although with “Lavender varnish…it is necessary to lay one coat of the said glue…and allow to dry, then varnish,” in fact “Turpentine varnish does not need any glue since it is fat and viscous and does not penetrate the wood as the spike lavender and sandarac varnishes would”. We decided to proceed with testing all four varnishes on one piece of sealed spruce, followed by testing all four on a piece of unsealed spruce. (This would not be modern practice, as Guadalajara told us one would never now proceed with varnishing without sealing beforehand.)

Each piece of spruce was sanded briefly to take off a slightly rough top layer before one was painted with one layer of gum arabic and left to dry for half an hour (Fig. 16 – prepared spruce patching woods). After labeling, we then painted each of our four colors in straight lines on both spruce pieces. To our disappointment, it became clear immediately that although our ‘red’ varnishes looked quite red to our eyes where they lay in our jars, they were barely brown when used to paint, and indeed were practically invisible on the piece of sealed spruce. The yellow varnishes showed color much more obviously, but were still rather weak. By far the strongest color was that of the lavender spike oil & turmeric mix, which, as we had seen in its mixing, painted as near-neon on the wood. All four varnishes spread quickly and widely across both pieces of wood, despite only being painted in narrow strips. In fact, the varnishes spread even further on the sealed piece than the non-sealed piece; we suspect this may have been due to the fact that gum arabic is water-soluble, and the sealant may not have been completely dry (Fig. 17 – spruce woods after one coat of varnish).

Three coats of each varnish were painted, one on top of the other, to observe how the colors might change or accumulate with repeated strengthening coats (each given approximately 30 minutes to dry).¹⁷ Only the neon lavender & turmeric varnish showed strongly on the sealed spruce. On the unsealed spruce, the neon mixture was practically garish, but the turpentine & turmeric, turpentine & dragon’s blood, & lavender & dragon’s blood varnishes began to display more pleasing traits. Though not red, the two dragon’s blood varnishes eventually approximated a typical brown one might see on many stringed instruments today. Likewise, the turpentine & turmeric mixture created a far more palatable golden-yellow shade which would not look too out of place on a lute or oud. All four varnishes continued to spread rapidly across the wood despite being painted using very little liquid, but the author’s point about turpentine oil taking better to unsealed wood seemed well-taken, as it both displayed better color and spread less than the lavender spike oil varnishes on that untreated piece of spruce (Fig. 18 – unsealed spruce with three coats of varnishes; and Fig. 19 – sealed spruce with three coats of varnishes).

Questions and Suggestions:

There are a host of questions which this annotation could attempt to answer, but in the end it seems our work has touched upon them only in fits and starts. Our first major question was about the workshop context of building, decorating, and perhaps maintaining early modern stringed instruments. The overlap of materials between the multiple varnish recipes in the manuscript suggest that a painter, used to preparing and finishing canvases, would be equal to the task of varnishing an instrument with the same resources at hand, and vice versa for a luthier – at least when it came to our liquid materials. Ground amber and dragon’s blood resin may have proved a greater challenge to obtain, at greater expense, and indicate perhaps that a lute varnish was a substance to be prized and praised for its color alone, rather than for its protective capabilities or its potential to modify a lute’s sound. The procedure for making the varnishes, assuming we designed our protocols correctly, was also simple enough that, provided the materials were available, it could be made quickly and easily, and not require overly specialized knowledge that would be out of reach of a trained luthier or even a travelling musician.

When it comes to our second major inquiry about color, we have tried to answer the question of what steps must be taken to produce colors suited to the decoration of an instrument. Unfortunately, from there, all breaks down in subjectivity: what, after all, must we discern about a particular color to determine if it is aesthetically pleasing on the body of an instrument? If the experience of color is also a subjective experience – both physically and emotionally – how are we to decide what shades are appropriate for any given situation, or indeed whether we have even approximated the shade intended to be made as described by the author-practitioner? In the end, we definitely discovered that our liquid varnishes, though they may appear to be strongly-colored, immediately weakened in brilliance upon application. This may shed light on the processes involved in instrument-making and the distillation of color, but whether we can define anything we did as a success or a failure is completely open to debate.

• Continue to look into the possibilities for sealants and consider using hide glue, though it is not mentioned in conjunction with wood/instruments in the manuscript (or indeed at all, though a more careful search should be made; mentions of ‘colle forte’ in the manuscript in particular may refer not to a glue’s strength, but in fact to a particular type of glue).
• Consider including less ground amber to improve color, or experiment with making sure it is much more finely powdered and see whether that improves its incorporation into the heated liquid of choice.
• Use much more dragon’s blood to try to strengthen the ‘red’ varnishes!
• Continue investigating nature of ‘terra merita.’

---

1 This statement is partly based on the author’s own experience as a string player, and on a sampling of early modern instruments housed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (see pg. 4), which mostly range in color from brightly golden-yellow to shades of rich, dark brown. NB that these observations are necessarily subjective (see final section of this annotation for more on color and subjectivity).

2 Sourène Arakélian, The Violin: Perceptions and Observations of a Luthier – My Varnish, Based on Myrrh trans. Marie Arakélian and Peter Armitage (Frankfurt am Main: Das Musikinstrument, 1981), 41.

3 Arakélian, The Violin, 42.

4 See Gary R. Boye, “A History of the Lute from Antiquity to the Renaissance by Douglas Alton Smith, Review,” Notes 59.4 (2003): 905-907.

5 See note 11 for collection sources.

6 Interestingly, Cennini, in his brief section on varnishes for paintings, writes that one should hold off on varnishing for as long as possible before applying it as it will ruin the color and “freshness” of a work of art if applied right away once made/the painting is ready. Clearly, however, this does not apply to the treatment of instruments, though the question of time and whether the wood would need time to adjust to its environment is a good one. Early instruments, and indeed modern instruments made in old styles, are frequently more apt to warp, crack, or otherwise react badly to their environments even when fully varnished and properly maintained. Cennino d’Andrea Cennini, The Craftsman’s Handbook: The Italian “Il Libro Dell’Arte” trans. Daniel V. Thompson Jr. (New York: Dover Publications, 1933), 98-99.

7 See, for example, Gerald R. Hayes’ Musical Instruments and their Music, 1500-1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930), which, though highly prescient in its recognition that it was necessary to re-acquire and re-cover early modern playing techniques, restricted his exploration of the development of these instruments to their repertoire and playing technique rather than their form.

8 Peter Trevelyan, A quartet of string instruments by William Baker of Oxford c. 1645-1685 (Oxford: Galpin Society, 1996).

9 Andrew Atkinson, “Building a Renaissance Lute using original methods,” The Lute Society, http://www.lutesociety.org/pages/building-lute-original-methods; accessed May 6^th, 2015.

10 Frank Della Torre, “The Rediscovery of a Lost Art and a Few Notes on the Theory of the Violin,” Science 27.693 (1908): 592-593.

11 See as just one example E. Rene de la Rie’s “The Influence of Varnishes on the Appearance of Paintings,” Studies in Conservation 31: 1 (1987): 1-13.

12 Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Online Collections,” http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search?&where=Europe&ft=lute&what=Lutes&when=A.D.+1600-1800&pg=1 A search of the V&A’s collections produces similar results when one searches for ‘lute’ and then narrows the objects to ‘musical instruments.’ http://collections.vam.ac.uk/

13 This brought up an intriguing question – one far too large to try to answer in this annotation – about how, exactly, the author-practitioner could possibly have described an exact shade of color as he experienced it to his reader or apprentice in such a way that a follower of his work could then exactly reproduce it. Since so much of the experiencing of color is subjective, can words alone ever do a particular shade justice?

14 MSDS for turpentine oil, Hazardous Material Information System, IntraWEB LLC.

15 Guadalajara is a New York-based luthier who builds her own instruments and maintains both modern and early stringed instruments. She studied violin-making in her native Mexico at the studio of Luthfi Becker as well as with the Tri-State’s premier luthier for gambas, William Monical, before his retirement. Very interestingly for us, she told us that the composition or creation of varnishes had never been a part of her own lengthy training, and in her experience the application of it was likewise something learned instinctively rather than having any hard/fast or teachable rules. http://www.gabrielasbaroque.com/

16 Unfortunately we only heard from Guadalajara after the experiment had been completed that water-soluble sealants are not recommended for instrumental work; she recommended ‘hide’ glue, which is made from animal bones and tissues. NB: mastic is also water-soluble, so even if we had indeed made the effort to procure and use it our results may have remained the same.

17 A recipe for red vermilion varnish on fol. 74v describes applying 2-3 coats, and another recipe on fol. 77v for ‘Other varnish’ recommends 3.

BnF Ms. Fr. 640, fol. 84v: “Sand” with ox foot bone and elm root

Co-Authors: Stephanie Pope and Caroline Marris

French transcription:

<title id=”p084v_a1″>Sable</title>

<ab id=”p084v_b1a”>Jay essaye los de pieds de boeuf fort brusle & pulverise & broye<lb/>

bien fort sur le porphire jusques a ce quil ne se sente<lb/>

point entre les doigts Il moule tout seul fort net Mays<lb/>

pourceque de soy mesme il est aride & maigre il veult estre<lb/>

fort mouille & humecte avecq vin bouilly avecq racine dorme</ab>

English translation:

<title id=”p084v_a1″>Sand</title>

<ab id=”p084v_b1a”>I tried the foot bones of an ox, quite burned, pulverized and very well crushed on porphyry, until it is fine enough to slip through your fingers without being felt. On its own, it makes a very clean mold. But because on its own it is very dry and lean, it demands to be well wet and humidified, with a thick broth with elm root.</ab>

BnF Ms. Fr. 640 features various recipes for sandcasting, typically involving the combination of a dry element and a wet binding agent, the latter of which is often referred to as ‘magistry’. While nearly all sandcasting recipes feature this basic combination, the substances that can fulfil the role of ‘dry’ or ‘wet’ elements are diverse. For instance, ‘magistry’ can refer to anything from egg whites (on fol. 68r, the author states that “for big [sandcasting] works it is necessary to wet the sands with egg white or magistra”) to salt water (on fol. 84v, under the heading ‘Eau Magistra’), to wine, as is the case in this recipe.

Ox foot bone ash makes up the dry component of the sand in the recipe on fol. 84v, with which this annotation is concerned. This substance is referenced at various other points in the manuscript as an ideal medium for sandcasting: for instance, on fol. 67v, in a recipe entitled “Ox foot bones for sand” (“Os de pied de beuf pour sable”), the author informs us that “[b]eing well burned two times & pulverized, they mold very cleanly as sand and do not need to be recooked, but just heated with the flame of straw”. Ox bones also feature in a recipe for sand on fol. 89r, which involves pulverizing them, moistening them with a sheet of paper “made wet…from the moisture of the night”, and then combining it with rock salt.

The wet component of the recipe on fol. 84v is a “thick broth with elm root”. Elm root is almost solely alluded to throughout the manuscript in connection with making a binder for sandcasting: in fact, the only reference to elm roots that is not connected with this practice is on fol.71r, in the author-practitioner’s discussion of the colours of various woods for inlay work. The author writes:

Root of elm has beautiful […] grey and black. It is the same for maple-tree, but you should choose the grain very carefully…

What is initially unclear in this recipe is how exactly one should go about making a broth from elm roots. The author seems to assume it is an unproblematic procedure, one that his readers would probably be familiar with already. However, other recipes calling for elm roots in the manuscript clarify the procedure. On fol. 69r, the author states that “lean” (“maigres”) sand (more on the concept of ‘lean’ and ‘fatty’ sands later) can be moistened by the addition of “wine boiled with elm tree roots or something similar”. Another recipe for “Magistry”, on fol. 87v, states that “Founders harvest the roots of a young elm when it is sappy, and boil it in wine, or better yet vinegar”. It thus seemed reasonable that the broth to which the recipe on fol. 84v is referring would be produced by boiling elm roots in wine. However, we were still unsure at this stage as to the value of boiling elm roots in wine to make a binder, particularly as other recipes in the manuscript call for wine alone (“good pure wine”, for example, on fol. 69r) as a moistening agent. What qualities might the elm root impart to the wine? Given that the author specifically mentions that founders make the elm root broth when the roots are “sappy”, does this mean that the liquid produced by boiling the two together is particularly viscous? Why would viscosity even be that useful in producing an effective sand in which to cast? These were some of the many questions we had when we began our recreation of this recipe. In a much more abstract sense, we were aware as we debated the structure of our experiments that we were deeply enmeshed in questions of scientific and practical authority. To that end, we also wanted to ask: what about our experiments would be based on the authority of the author-practitioner, on our instructors and the prior knowledge of our peers, and our own experience? What could our work tell us about the nature of authority and experimentation in an early modern laboratory or workshop?

Elm Root and Wine Decoction

The first step in creating the elm root broth was sourcing our elm roots, which proved a particular challenge to our desire for authenticity in our replication of the manuscript’s recipes. Firstly, the harvesting of the elm roots for this recipe is seasonally contingent. In a recipe for “Magistry” on fol. 87v of the manuscript, the author states that “Founders harvest the roots of a young elm when it is sappy, and boil it in wine, or better yet vinegar”. Sap flow occurs during spring, as a result of changes in root pressure stimulated by temperature variations. Luckily, as we were conducting these experiments in April, we were perfectly positioned to collect fresh elm roots to use in our broth.

Initially, the elm we settled on for our recipe was Ulmus americana, which Prof. Smith located in the New York Botanical Garden and arranged for the harvesting of; however, as its binomial name suggests, this species is native to eastern North America, and therefore would not have been the type of elm to which the author-practitioner is referring in our manuscript. However, Deanna F. Curtis, Curator of Woody Plants at the New York Botanical Garden, suggested via email that an elm hybrid cultivar known as ‘Pioneer’ (binomial Ulmus x hollandica), might be more suitable for our purposes: as the Pioneer clone is formed by the crossing of two European species, Ulmus glabra (or Wych Elm) and Ulmus minor (the Smooth-leaved Elm), it probably more closely approximated the elms from which our craftsman would have sourced his roots than did the Ulmus americana. We decided, therefore, that in the interests of authenticity it would be better to use the Pioneer hybrid for our experimentation.

We were also provided with some elm roots that had been harvested from Wave Hill, and were from a modern species of European elm. Visually, these roots contrasted hugely with those of the Pioneer elm: while the Wave Hill roots were thick and sturdy, almost resembling branches, the roots of the Pioneer hybrid were very fine and delicate (Fig. 1 – cut ‘Pioneer’ elm roots).

The first roots we experimented with boiling were the Wave Hill roots sourced by Wayne Morris, Assistant Director of Horticulture at Tree Man. Cutting them down into a suitable size was actually a relatively intimidating process: the roots were much larger than we expected! Using a handsaw, I cut three of the root pieces into fairly large segments, each around 3-4 inches in length. (In retrospect, I think that we might have achieved more notable results if we had cut them into smaller pieces, increasing the surface area to volume ratio of the roots and thereby increasing the likelihood of sap being exposed to and interacting with the wine). Although we had initially been skeptical about how ‘sappy’ the roots were (this is, after all, the defining quality designated by the manuscript), when we began to handle them they started to feel more and more malleable, and our fingers were certainly picking up a sticky residue from the cutting process.

After we felt we probably had a sufficient amount of roots at our disposal, we measured out 500ml of our chosen wine (a cheap Cabernet Sauvignon – the manuscript, after all, says that vinegar is an even “better” medium than wine in which to boil the elm roots.) into a metal pan, added 250g of elm roots, and placed the pan, uncovered, on a hotplate to boil (Fig. 2 – elm roots ready to be boiled in wine). No quantities are noted in the manuscript, in the various places where elm-root-and-wine broth is suggested as a wet binder; we extrapolated, therefore, that this might be the type of recipe for which judgement by eye is an adequate means of measurement. In particular, we were interested to see how the decoction would end up in terms of consistency, as last semester an experiment was done to produce the same binder but using slippery elm inner bark powder rather than fresh elm roots. The experimenters reported that boiling one cup of wine with two teaspoons of elm bark powder resulted in a very viscous liquid with a mucilaginous texture similar to that of albumen.¹ However, we did not have a similar experience when boiling the fresh elm roots. The wine reduced to a fifth (around 100ml) in the space of about 20-30 minutes of boiling, on the highest setting of the hot plate. Although the mixture certainly seemed more viscous, it was hard to tell if this was a quality imparted by the elm roots per se, or if this was simply the result of the wine’s reduction – and while the mixture could feasibly be described as viscous, it was certainly not of jelly-like texture. Nevertheless, we strained the wine broth through a sieve into a jug, and then stored the mixture in a glass container in the lab fridge (although, given that the recipe for elm roots boiled in wine on fol. 87v states that founders “prepare a years’ worth of it and store it in a cask”, it would probably have done just as well sat inside a fume hood, or on a shelf in the lab).

Ironically, boiling the Pioneer elm roots was an even less successful endeavour. After washing the roots thoroughly, we cut them into small pieces and placed them in a pan with the same amount of wine as used before (500ml) – and, again, the boiling process lasted for around 20-30 minutes. However, the mixture that resulted from this experiment did not have even the viscosity of the first broth. Perhaps this was due to the nature of these small, new elm roots: when handling them, we found them to be quite brittle and twig-like, and certainly not anywhere near as sappy in texture as the Wave Hill roots. We considered that perhaps a longer boiling time was required to allow the heat to break down the elm roots, but boiling the Pioneer roots in two more trials, once for two hours, and once for 6-½ hours², seemed to produce no increased viscosity in the resultant liquid.

Our lack of success with the Pioneer elm roots led us to consider a larger question about the difference in taxonomic ordering between the early modern period and the present day. To wit, we were interested in the qualities that were selected for in present-day tree hybridization. While our author-practitioner seems to foreground properties or “virtues” of trees and plants (in this case, the sappiness of the elm roots) as their most important aspects, we suspected that morphological traits such as leaf size and shape might underpin the process of modern-day hybridization. In this case, the Pioneer elm roots, while a hybrid of the European Ulmus glabra and Ulmus minor, might have been produced in the aim of recreating morphology rather than properties. Prof. Smith contacted the garden historian and curator at Bartram’s Garden in Philadelphia Joel T. Fry with this question, to which he gave a particularly fulsome and illuminating response. While sixteenth-century herbalists, artists, and craftspeople were interested in plants that “produced useful chemicals or compounds”, Fry stated that “[m]odern, intentional hybridization of trees is mostly for some limited number of benefits. Something like dwarf size, a certain color, no fruit, no thorns, fast growth, or ease of propagation by cuttings. In the case of the ‘Pioneer’ elm it looks like fast growth, and perhaps some resistance to Dutch elm disease were what they were looking for. Certainly, gooey sap from the roots would be one of the last things they were looking for”.³ Given that tree hybridization now seeks to produce specimens that are fast-growing and profitable, according to Fry, it seems very likely that a property like root sappiness could have been lost in the process.

We decided that to create our sand, we would use the broth produced from boiling the Wave Hill roots in our first experiment, and the broth produced from boiling the Pioneer hybrid for 20-30 minutes. As these two experiments had been conducted under identical conditions, using the same equipment and the same wine, we thought this would minimise the potential of interference from external factors, whilst still allowing us to compare the ‘authentic’ elm product with the ‘less authentic’.

Preparing the Sand

For the dry component of our sand, we had two options: a commercial ash and a non-commercial ash produced by calcining bovine foot bones in the lab kiln last semester. We decided that we would produce an ‘authentic’ sand (made by combining the non-commercial ash with the Pioneer elm root broth) and an ‘inauthentic’ sand (a mixture of the commercial ash and the Wave Hill root decoction); so as to compare a sand that would be as close as possible to that used by our author-practitioner, with a sand that made use of modern amenities and short-cuts (i.e., the commercial ash) and non-contemporary materials (the elm species that would not have been present in early modern Europe).

The two experiments we performed — one which we perceived as true as possible to the materials with which our author-practitioner would have practised his craft, and one which we saw as cleaving slightly less closely to historical context — can be situated in the distinction that Hasok Chang makes (developing on the work of Dietmar Hőttecke) between ‘historical’ replication of experiments, and ‘physical’ replication. Historical replication, Chang explains, seeks to match as closely as possible the instruments and substances that would have been employed in past recipes; physical replication, by contrast, utilises “any convenient instruments and procedures that will help one create the phenomena of interest, and faithfulness to the details of the experiment is of secondary interest”.⁴ The “philosophical challenge” of the latter, Chang asserts, is “not in the verification of the exactness of repetition, but in the characterization of the phenomena to be replicated”.⁵ Chang’s division of experimentation of this sort into two distinct categories, neither of which is superior or inferior to the other, was useful, in that it helped us to look beyond a restrictive binary of ‘authentic’ and ‘inauthentic’ experimentation, and instead see both of our experiments as seeking to replicate the activities of the author-practitioner in different, non-hierarchical aspects.

Although the process of sandcasting is detailed in various other areas in the manuscript, the particular recipe for ox foot bone and elm root broth sand does not specify any particular method for combining the wet and dry elements, nor does it give any sense of the texture that the ideal sand for casting will possess. We therefore relied on two things in the mixing of our sand: textual sources, including not only the manuscript but other contemporary works detailing artisanal practices; and our past experience in sandcasting. In fact, we had previously worked on creating a sand from pine ash and wine from fol. 93r, the process of which was very similar to what we expected to do with this recipe; we therefore had a good sense of what procedure we needed to follow, and a set of ingredient measurements on which we could base our new experiment.⁶

One of the first questions we had was, just how wet did the sand need to be? What kind of texture should the sand possess? Contemporary technical literature assisted us in understanding the desired consistency of the sand. In the eighth book of Vannoccio Biringuccio’s metallurgical treatise Pirotechnia (1540), in a chapter entitled ‘Various methods of Making Powders in Which to Cast Bronzes in the Small Art of Casting’, Biringuccio stipulates that sand for this type of casting should ‘stick together’ if you squeeze it in the palm.

A loam is made from these and mixed by beating with wool-cloth cuttings, spent washed ashes, and horse dung. This is made into cakes and dried. These are then put to bake in a furnace or in some other way and, in fact, one baked very well. Then it is pounded and sifted with a fine sieve, as it is ground in a potter’s color mill, or by hand on a porphyry with water, to the fineness that the craftsman desires, or as fine as he can make it. When it has been ground it is again drained free from water and dried out with fire. Then as much magistery of salt is taken as will moisten it. It is dried and pounded again and passed through a sieve. When it has been made as desired in this way it is moistened again before use with water, urine, or vinegar just enough so that it holds together when it is squeezed in the fist. Then, when it has been brought to this point, it is moulded as you will hear.⁷

To determine the texture of our ash without any added moisture, we tried squeezing it in our fists according to Biringuccio’s method. Although both the ashes actually did stick together a little (indeed, much more than we had expected), it was clear that neither would function as a sand without the addition of the elm root binder.

In our previous experiments with sandcasting in pine ash and wine, we found that very little wet binder was needed to moisten the dry part of the sand: in fact, we only used 20ml of wine to one cup of ash. Since the bone ash and elm root broth recipe was so similar to the one we had performed earlier in the semester, we decided to begin this experiment using the same ratio of ingredients. We decided to make up the ‘inauthentic’ sand first, comprised of the commercial ash and the elm root broth derived from boiling the Wave Hill roots. As there was only half a cup of commercial ash available to us, we measured out 10ml of the elm root broth, which we would add little by little into the ash.

We began mixing the two ingredients by hand in a plastic mixing bowl, adding the wine periodically in very tiny volumes (a few milliliters per addition) and working it into the ash as if we were kneading a very dry dough. Very quickly it became apparent that the mixture was coming together: however, we decided that after adding the 10ml of wine we had measured out, a little more was needed to fully bind the sand. We therefore portioned out another 10ml of the broth, and after working this into the ash we felt that we had a sand with a good enough texture in which to mould – the sand was moist enough to stick together when squeezed in the fist, but it didn’t feel wet in any way (Fig. 3 – clumping commercial bone ash). The addition of the red elm root broth to the white commercial ash produced sand of a beautiful to shell-pink colour, as our illustration shows. This figure also demonstrates how the mixture clumped to our satisfaction according to our lab’s “squeeze test,” which we were taught to use with all types of sandcasting.

Our more authentic ingredients, however, did not combine in the same way. One cup of non-commercial ash required the addition of 70ml of wine in order to produce a suitable sand for casting, over three times the amount of liquid binder required for the commercial ash (and indeed three times as much as required for the pine ash in our previous sandcasting work). As we were working the sand, we found that it felt much coarser that the commercial ash; in fact, it felt similar to beach sand. This was presumably because the calcination process had not been fully completed, and some impurities remained in the ash. But why would we need to add so much more wine than our previous sand had required?

The answer to this may lie in the distinction between ‘lean’ and ‘fatty’ sands that the manuscript articulates. In this binary, ‘lean’ is typically referred to sands that are dry and crumbly, while ‘fatty’ designates sands that clump together easily (for example, on fol. 84v, the same page on which the recipe for ox hoof and elm root sand appears, the author claims that “[a] fat sand…sticks together neatly”).⁸ Most relevant, though, is the passage on fol. 69r, which states the following:

Lean sand needs to be more moistened than others, that’s to say with magistra or good pure wine or wine boiled with elm tree roots or something similar. But very fine sands, like burned linen which is fat and soft of its own accord, want to be applied dry.

Adopting the author-practitioner’s terminology, we can characterize the very fine commercial ash as ‘fat and soft’, and the non-commercial ash as ‘lean’, and therefore in need of more moistening than a ‘fatty’ sand.

Molding and Casting

Once our sands were clumping properly, we set about the process of molding. We used small mason jar lids as our ‘box’ molds, since we had so little of each type of our bone ash. Our first attempt was to mold a simple shape (a key) in the commercial ash; though it pressed well, it was very difficult to get the key back out of the surface without completely disturbing it. We therefore switched to two different objects which were rounded and much deeper than the key: a round, knobbled earring, and a medallion with the raised impression of a bird. The bird was pressed into the commercial ash and the earring into the lab-produced ash, and each was easy to remove from their respective molds (Fig 4. – medallion molded in commercial bone ash mixture ; and Fig. 5 – earring molded in lab ash mixture).

Our metal was then heated in a crucible; it was a 50%-50% alloy of lead and tin which is commonly used in our lab.⁹ We tested the heat of the metal with a piece of paper, choosing to skim and pour the alloy when the paper turned a deep brown upon being immersed in the paper.¹⁰ We poured the alloy, then let it sit to cool for approximately fifteen minutes. We did not use a separator on either mold.¹¹

We were frankly astonished by the clarity of both casts when we broke them (very easily, clearly no release agent required) out of the molds. Both had picked up a great amount of detail, and the commercial ash in particular had produced an exceptionally smooth surface on our cast bird medallion. The cast of the earring had noticeable stippling in it which we assumed was a product of the relative coarseness of the lab ash sand; that being said, even the detail of that coarseness was fine and rendered in tiny, perfect detail (Fig. 6 – medallion cast in lead-tin alloy, commercial ash mixture ; and Fig. 7 – earring cast in lead-tin alloy, lab ash mixture). Anecdotally, both types of ash seemed to produce a finer cast than the calcined alabaster experiments going on in the lab at the same time, which had also made a cast of the bird medallion.

The Question of ‘Authority’

One of our key questions in performing these experiments was to think through the implications of using prior knowledge, and indeed prior materials, both in the context of our lab and that of the creation of scientific and artisanal knowledge. We took advantage of a wealth of different sources of authority:

1. Our lab-produced bovine foot bone ash was produced last semester by a previous generation of Making and Knowing Project students. (Their process is detailed in their annotation, “Ox Bone and Rock Salt,” fol. 89r.) The final distilled product of their work provided us with a certain materialization of knowledge which we could rely on as a material, which was the result of much previous experimentation.
2. Our knowledge of how to mold shapes in sand came in large part from our own previous experience with sandcasting earlier in the semester with pine ash and wine, which in turn was in part built on the previous cohort’s experiments with similar processes based on descriptions in BnF Ms Fr 640. In preparing our molds we were bringing to bear our own physical experience, the textual and verbal instructions of our peers and teachers as well as, of course, the author-practitioner, and indeed the collected materials of the lab (our pressed medallions, the oft-used lid molds, etc).
3. Our metal alloy was one suggested by our resident master craftsman, Andrew Lacey, and was enthusiastically taken up by all of our student groups on multiple occasions. The question of whether this alloy was appropriate for all of our manuscript’s metal-related recipes – some of which mention specific metals to pour and others of which do not – recently came up in a lab session, and again the weight of authority, lab habits, accumulated experience, and the fact that the lab had accumulated a good supply of 50/50 lead-tin alloy ingots won out in those cases where the prescribed alloy was in doubt (including in our own experiment).
4. Our elm roots were provided by expert staff from the New York Botanical Gardens who were able to pinpoint the likely genetic makeup of a period-appropriate species of tree, harvest the roots, and preserve them in order to transport them to us. If this conversation had not been initiated by Prof. Smith, it is highly unlikely that we would have been able to determine a precise genetic lineage, or indeed a lineage of ‘properties,’ which could have determined with any certainty what type of modern elm species would have been most similar to an elm in sixteenth-century France, and therefore would have provided the ‘correct’ roots to use.¹²

The nature of authority in the propagation of ‘science’ and ‘knowledge’ as big-name categories of inquiry is a topic of interest among historians of science and technology, albeit in various forms – either overt, or implied. In abstract senses, the privilege of authority in knowledge production has also been equated exactly with the establishment of “procedures of science”¹³ and a concomitant decline in the authority of religious or sacred knowledge as it, too, might pertain to practical knowledge – a distinction which, given the multiplicity of religious references which aid in the production of objects in our manuscript and others (see our annotation on powder for hourglasses for mention of the pater noster and methods of timekeeping, for example) – seems easily undermined.

There is no doubt that the form and interpersonal hierarchy of the workshop, however, in both its early modern and modern forms, plays a role in establishing the source of authority, power, or skilled/expert practice in the master craftsman. In workshops as described from the illustrations of Biringuccio’s Pirotechnia to Erin O’Connor’s article on glassblowing in New York City, both craft/scientific knowledge and the accumulated capital of artistic production (the workshop itself, its tools, its instruments, its machines, its accessibility) lie in the hands of the master craftsman. Cennino Cennini, in his Il libro dell’Arte, establishes his own merit as an artisan on his painstakingly detailed artistic heritage:

“I, Cennino, the son of Andrea Cennini of Colle di Val d’Elsa, -[I was trained in this profession for twelve years by my master, Agnolo di Taddeo of Florence; he learned this profession from Taddeo, his father; and his father was christened under Giotto, and was his follower for four-and-twenty years; and that Giotto changed the profession of painting from Greek back into Latin, and brought it up to date; and he had more finished craftsmanship than anyone has had since]…”¹⁴

It is not difficult to see a new type of the formalized master-apprentice artisanal relationships of the sixteenth century at work in our modern laboratory, both in terms of materials and embodied knowledge (for Taddeo and Giotto, see Prof. Smith and Mr. Lacey). In many respects, then, our experiment could be considered to be largely the work of others. We wish here to (for the moment) mainly plant the idea that the gratitude, certainty, and sudden clarity provided by all of these sources of authority rendered our experiments relatively much simpler compared to what they might have had to be had we been starting from scratch. This also, however, may eventually lead us to some concrete conclusions both about the nature of the scientific/artisanal workspace,

---

1 See the Fall 2014 annotation on sands and binders by Julianna van Visco and Emogene Schilling.

2 Trial conducted by Pamela Smith on May 3, 2015 with 250 ml poor quality red wine and 945 ml unfiltered, live apple cider vinegar boiled for 6-½ hours with a good handful of elm roots.

3 Joel T. Fry, email correspondence, 5/10/2015. Fry also informed us that several other trees/plants besides the elm were also valued for their ‘gooey’ roots: types of hibiscus were cultivated (and had been, for quite some time) for their mucilaginous root extracts, and the marshmallow (Althea officinalis) was grown in Europe and its roots boiled to make a goo.

4 Hasok Chang, “How Historical Experiments Can Improve Scientific Knowledge and Science Education: The Cases of Boiling Water and Electrochemistry”, Science and Education, 20, 3 (2011): 317-341 (320).

5 Chang, “How Historical Experiments Can Improve Scientific Knowledge and Science Education”, 320.

6 The recipe for tree ash as a sandcasting medium is as follows: ”La cendre blanche de tout boys qui se tient encores au boys<lb/> qui brusle et nest point tombee au bo foyer moule fort net” (“The white ash of all kinds of wood, which still sticks to the wood while burning, and which has not fallen into the hearth, molds very clean”). We used ash from pine wood roasted in a wood stove from California, and the ash was collected from the bottom of the stove after having fallen from the wood. The sand called for in the various casting recipes in the Ms. Fr. 640 is described as fine and pulverised, and on the same fol. is another ‘sable’ recipe which involves the use of soot, suggesting that the tree ash needs to be of a very fine, talcum-powder-like texture. We found that the ash required very little liquid binder to render it suitable to mould an object in (only 20ml of wine), but the cast object did not exhibit a particularly high level of detail. See our field notes on the experiment: http://making-and-knowing.wikischolars.columbia.edu/Wax+carving+and+plaster+moulding+field+notes and http://making-and-knowing.wikischolars.columbia.edu/Marris+-+Wax+Molding+and+Sandcasting.

7 Vannoccio Biringuccio, The Pirotechnia of Vannoccio Biringuccio, trans. and eds. Cyril Stanley Smith and Martha Teach Gnudi (New York: Dover Publications, 1990), 324.

8 French translation: “Un sable gras…se rend si uny faict soufler”.

9 This became common after initial casting in cuttlefish bones, according to fol. 53r as an alloy to use in lead cuttlefish bone casting. “According to some it is mixed, half tin and half lead and, in order to heat it, a little arsenic is mixed in. It is cast well in small sizes in a cuttlefish bone, provided it is good.”

10 This test is described in fol. 145r, where the author-practitioner describes how to dip paper into molten tin or lead in order to test that it is not heated to too high a temperature. “Do not cast tin or lead too hot, because it would burn the bone & become lumpy. And to know when it is the right temperature, dip a little piece of paper in it. If it turns black without catching fire, it is the right temperature. But if it burns & makes a fire, it is too hot.”

11 Our recipe did not mention the use of a separator, but such ingredients are common in other instructions for casting throughout the manuscript. One example is in cuttlefish bone casting, where it is recommended (on fol. 91r) that one uses charcoal dust.

12 A lively discussion is currently ongoing between scholars of the Making and Knowing Project and botanical experts as to the difference between 16th-century and modern understandings of taxonomy and the properties of the plant materials which are mentioned as ingredients in the author-practitioner’s manuscript. A major difficulty which has come up in this conversation is the gulf between modern practices of determining a plant’s taxonomy by its genetic features versus the categorization of visible or chemical properties determined by pre-genetic scientists and artisans. We thank Prof. Smith and Joel T. Fry, Curator of the John Bartram Garden in Philadelphia, for starting this discussion.

13 Will Wright, Wild Knowledge: Science, Language, and Social Life in a Fragile Environment (University of Minnesota Press, 1992), 23-24; emphasis added.

14 Cennino Cennini, Il libro dell’Arte, trans. Daniel V. Thompson Jr. (New York: Dover, 1933), 2.

BnF Ms. Fr. 640, fol. 10r: “Powder for hourglasses”

Primary Author: Stephanie Pope

Transcription:

<title id=”p010r_a5″>Pouldre dhorloges de sable</title>

<ab id=”p010r_b5″>Elle se faict fort subtille & sans estre subgecte a la rouille & par sa pesanteur<lb\>

coulante prenante du plomb i lb. et le faire fondre et lescumer et<lb\>

purifier de sa crasse puys verse dedans quattre ℥ de sel commun<lb\>

pulverise subtilement et prends bien garde quil ny aye ni pierre<lb\>

ne terre Et incontinent que tu lauras verse mesle tousjours<lb\>

tres bien avecq un fer jusques a ce que le plomb et le sel soict bien<lb\>

incorpore et leve le incontinent du feu tousjours meslant Et sil te<lb\>

semble trop grossier broye le sur le mabre et le passe par un tamis fin<lb\>

puys lave le tant de fois que leau sembl soict claire jecta{n}t ceste petite<lb\>

pouldre qui nagera renovant ta{n}t de fois leau quelle demeure toute unie</ab>

Translation:

<title id=”p010r_a5″>Powder for hourglasses</title>

<ab id=”p010r_b5″>It must be made very fine and not subject to rust and with enough weight to flow. Taking i lb. [217] of lead, melt it and skim and purify it from its filth, then pour into it four ℥ of finely ground common salt, and take care that there are no stones or earth. And immediately after pouring it, stir continuously very well with an iron [tool] until the lead and salt are quite incorporated, and take it immediately off the fire, stirring continuously. And if it seems too coarse, grind it on a marble slab and pass it through a fine sieve then wash it as many as times as necessary until the water runs clear, throwing out the fine powder that will float on it, renewing the water as many times as necessary until it is completely cleared.</ab>

The hourglass is a piece of technology whose symbolic valences have now superseded its practical use-value: its status as a visual icon – in vanitas paintings, for example, as a reminder of man’s mortality – is far more prevalent than its function in a pragmatic context. This, however, was not always the case, as the recipe for hourglass sand in BnF Ms. Fr. 640 makes plain. To think about the construction of one of the hourglass’s key components necessarily entailed approaching the device from a material as well as a symbolic perspective. What might this recipe be doing in the working manuscript of a sixteenth-century French practitioner? As it transpired, the recipe for “powder for hourglasses” gave us hugely valuable insights into the flexibility of ingredients in early modern recipes, the material referents of certain metaphors in early modern religious literature, and the experimental quality of the domestic setting in this period.

The recipe within the context of Ms. Fr. 640

This recipe, which appears within the first few pages of Ms. Fr. 640, is in many senses sui generis within the manuscript. Its uniqueness is manifest firstly in the fact that there are no other references to timekeeping devices in the manuscript, pertaining to their production or otherwise: the hourglass, then, is the only horological technology that the author-practitioner includes in his treatise. The recipe’s grouping within the manuscript also testifies to its idiosyncratic status on a more local level. On the page on which it appears, folio 10r, it is preceded by four other recipes (for “Imitation jasper,” “Stil de grain yellow,” “Roses,” and “Purple colour”); however, none of these bear any resemblance to the “powder for hourglasses” recipe, either in content or in style. Indeed, while the first four recipes on folio 10r are broadly concerned with decorative production and practices (painting, specifically, in the case of the commentary on the pigment “Stil de grain yellow” and the “Purple colour”), the recipe entitled “Powder for hourglasses” seems to be concerned with the production of an object that is much more functional than aesthetic in nature. This functionality is also demonstrated in the style, specificity, and syntax of the latter recipe: while the preceding recipes are generally quite non-specific, in both their discursivity and their evocation of implicit knowledge supposedly possessed by the reader (the author-practitioner deploys the phrases “as you know” and “you know how” in the recipes for imitation jasper and moulding roses, respectively), “powder for hourglasses” begins with the forceful modal “you must…”, includes temporal markers such as “immediately” and “continuously”, and specifies the requisite quantities of ingredients.

For Francisco Alonso-Almeida, it is the increasing move towards “more elaborate and specific language to make recipes as informative and accurate as possible,” which the formula for “powder for hourglasses” evinces, that marks a definitive shift from the linguistic construction of medieval recipes, which are “more characterised by the presence of vague expressions and omissions (quantities, application, storage, dosage) requiring interpretation by the user”.¹ Although one should be wary of the definitive period demarcations Almeida draws in this statement (and, of course, it should be borne in mind that Almeida’s argument pertains specifically to English, primarily culinary recipes between 1600 and 1800), it does helpfully suggest that we might view “Powder for hourglasses” in light of a nascent interest in providing more specific, technical instructions in recipes.

Ingredients and tools

The recipe for “Powder for hourglasses” requires very few ingredients – just two, in fact – and neither of them, it seems, would have been exotic or difficult to procure in sixteenth-century France (nor indeed are they today). The principal constituent of the hourglass sand is lead, one pound of which is called for by the recipe. The recipe gives no explicit or implicit rationale for the use of lead as the metallic component of the sand, but certain properties that might make it useful in this context are as follows:

• It possesses a low melting point (327.5C), which means that the temperatures required to replicate the recipe would be easily achievable.
• It is a malleable element, which means it deforms easily.
• Lead is a very common element, and, given that many other recipes in the manuscript call for this metal, it would presumably have been readily available in sixteenth-century France generally, and, more locally, in the workshop of our author-practitioner.

The second ingredient in the recipe is stipulated as “ground common salt”. The phrase “common salt” (“sel commun”) is used by the author-practitioner several times throughout the manuscript, and is likely a transliteration of the Latin term sal commune, which refers to sodium chloride. It is not clear if “common” salt possessed qualities that differed from, say, “rock salt”, which is also a component of various recipes in the manuscript.² The term is perhaps used to indicate that the salt called for by the recipes does not need to be of any particular sort; it is perhaps also used to distinguish salt (i.e., the compound sodium chloride) from other “salts”, such as sal ammoniac and sal petrae. Given the implications of the phrase used by the author-practitioner, we decided that the type of salt we used was probably not of too much consequence for the outcome of the recipe, so we used a “Sherpa Pink” natural Himalayan salt which was already present in the lab after its usage in the previous semester’s experiments (Fig. 1 – a packet of pink Himalayan salt). Himalayan salt is extracted from a mine in the Punjab Region of Pakistan, and consists of 95-96% sodium chloride; its pink colour derives from the presence of iron oxides.

The recipe, finally, calls for the use of an iron tool to stir the molten lead mixture (iron presumably being an ideal material because its melting point is much higher than that of lead) and a marble slab on which to grind the lead-salt mixture if it is too “coarse”. We approximated the iron tool with a spool of tightly-wound iron wire (Fig. 2 – our ad hoc ‘iron tool’). Although a marble slab was available in the lab, we decided to use one made of granite instead, as it is a more resilient material and thus probably a more suitable surface on which to grind lead.

Preparing the salt

The first step we took towards recreating the recipe was grinding the salt into a finer powder using a pestle and mortar (Fig. 3 – ground salt in mortar). The recipe is preoccupied throughout with emphasising the necessity of producing a particularly fine powder, so we were concerned to render the salt as ‘impalpable’ as possible (in fact, it seems true of most recipes involving ‘powders’ in the manuscript that the finer their consistency, the better). We also thought that the powder must be of a certain minimum fineness to flow well in an hourglass, although of course ascertaining said fineness of our sand with any degree of accuracy would be difficult. During the grinding process, we found that salt could indeed be reduced to a consistency that felt velvety rather than granular, although this required working the salt against the wall of the mortar for a fairly sustained period of time.

The recipe states that four ounces of salt is required to combine with the molten lead; for our first iteration of the recipe, therefore, we used half a cup of salt, which equates to roughly four ounces. However, after performing the recipe, we found that very little salt indeed needed to be combined with the lead – perhaps only an eighth or so of the amount we had prepared. Clearly, although the symbol in the manuscript (℥) refers to an ounce, the author-practitioner is unlikely to have meant to indicate that measurement. With a little investigation, we found that the symbol for the ounce is very similar to that of the dram (ʒ), a unit of measurement within both the avoirdupois weight system and the apothecaries’ system (Fig. 4 – the possible erroneous symbol in the manuscript).

The avoirdupois system is thought to originate in either France or Florence, and is based on a pound of 16 ounces; a dram in this system is equal to 1.77 metric grams. The apothecaries’ system, on the other hand, divides the pound in 12 ounces, and was typically reserved for indicating weights and measurements in medicinal or scientific recipes; in this system, the dram’s mass is greater – 3.89 grams. We thought, given the similarity of the symbols for the ounce and the dram, that the symbol indicating an ounce might have been a lapsus calami on the part of the author. Therefore, if the manuscript’s author was referring to the dram rather than an ounce, the recipe calls for either 7.08g of salt (the avoirdupois dram) or 15.56g (the apothecaries’ dram) — both of which are significantly less than 4 ounces! When we ran the experiment for a second time, we found that we used about 25g of salt in combination with a pound of lead. Although this measurement does not correlate exactly with the avoirdupois dram or the apothecaries’ dram, it does suggest that the latter is being referenced by the author-practitioner of the manuscript.

Recreating the recipe

After grinding the salt into what we considered to be a suitably fine powder, we began the recipe proper by melting down our pound of lead (which, incidentally, we found to be a surprisingly small amount, due to the metal’s density). This was done by placing the lead in a crucible couched in a sand bath in one of the fume hoods, and heating first the lead directly, and then the crucible with a blowtorch (Fig. 5 – heating lead in crucible). Given lead’s relatively low melting point, the metal became molten within a matter of minutes. As the recipe stipulates that one should “skim” the molten lead and remove any “filth” from it, we removed the dross using a small piece of paper and a spoon (this, we found, was somewhat akin to skimming off the film of milk or cream that can form on coffee left to sit).

Although the recipe implies that the molten lead should continue to be heated whilst the salt is added, in our first experiment we stopped heating the crucible briefly in order to pour in the salt. We then recommenced heating the crucible, all the while stirring the salt into the molten lead with our iron implement. The second time we ran the experiment, we kept heating the crucible throughout the addition of the salt. This discrepancy, however, did not seem to have any discernible effect on the final product.

A few minutes after the addition of the first measure of salt, the mixture clearly began to ‘incorporate’: it became more resistant to our stirring actions, and what looked like powdery, grey grains were beginning to form on the surface of the crucible. At this stage, we poured the mixture onto a stainless steel dish in the fume hood (Fig. 6 – lead-salt mixture on stainless steel dish). We found that some of the lead had not incorporated with the salt, but had instead solidified at the bottom of the crucible; we therefore decided to repeat the previous steps of the recipe again, melting the lead remaining in the crucible and combining with more salt in order to yield as much ‘powder’ as possible. After the second addition of salt, the remainder of the lead incorporated, and we poured it onto the dish along with the first batch of lead-salt mixture.

Before we began to work the mixture on the granite lab, as stipulated in the recipe, we decided to sieve it, in order to separate the largest pieces from the very fine powder, the former of which we would work on reducing into smaller pieces first. Removing the pieces of lead-salt incorporate that did not pass through the fine sieve we used, we set these onto the granite slab, also placed inside the fume hood, and began to grind them with a pestle (the instrument one should use for this process is not specified in the manuscript, so we decided to make use of the pestle we had previously been using to grind our “common salt” – perhaps the author-practitioner assumed his readers would use any suitable implement at hand, in which case a pestle would certainly be appropriate and readily available for sixteenth-century artisans).

At this stage, however, we discovered that the larger pieces of material that we were trying to grind down into powder seemed very resistant to our efforts. In fact, it seemed that this material might not even be a combination of lead and salt, but simply solid pellets of lead. After a few minutes of work, it seemed that we were not going to get anywhere trying to grind down pure lead, so we decided to just keep the powder that had passed through the sieve.

The next step in the process, washing the powder in water and “throwing out” the powder that settles on the surface of the liquid, was one about which we were initially very sceptical: the consistency of the lead-salt mixture that we already had seemed liked it would be perfect for hourglass sand. It was velvety and, while not totally impalpable, sifted easily through our (gloved) hands without sticking to them. We were also unsure about what would happen to our mixture if we washed it in water: if we had just combined molten lead with salt, and the reaction that had occurred was purely physical rather than chemical, wouldn’t passing the mixture through water simply dissolve the salt?

We were so incredulous about the efficacy of this ‘washing’ action that we decided to only use half of the powder we had produced from the lead-salt incorporation; therefore, if the action did not work (as we strongly suspected), we would still have some of the fruit of our labours left with which to work! Judging by eye, we decanted around half of the velvety lead-salt powder into a white plastic bowl, and simply poured in lukewarm water from the tap. The effect was immediate: the water turned a very deep grey, while our powder remained at the bottom, now a sludge-like consistency (Fig. 7 – the first washing of the lead-salt powder). It now became apparent how this process worked, which had been very unclear up until this point: we had been very confused about what the powder would do when placed in water, but as it settled at the bottom of the bowl we realised it would actually be a relatively simple task to keep refilling and emptying out the water in the bowl without actually disturbing the powder at the bottom. We were reminded at this juncture of Ken Albala’s adjuration against scepticism when recreating historical recipes, and the importance of avoiding the temptation to amend processes and actions to what seems more logical to our modern-day perspectives. “[To] learn about historical…procedures”, as Albala writes, “we must trust what is on the page”.³

The lack of reaction between the water and the lead-salt mixture might also explain why the substance was used as hourglass sand. Willem Morzer Bruyns and Stuart Talbot, subscribers to an Oxford-based mailing list (RETE) dedicated to the history of scientific instruments, both pointed out via email correspondence that “it was essential that, whatever materials were used in sand glasses, they had to be non-hygroscopic”.⁴ Hygroscopy refers to a substance’s ability to attract and hold water molecules from its surrounding environment, through either adsorption or absorption; sugar is an example of a hygroscopic substance, as is salt (NaCl). This was important due to the fact that glass-blowers could not blow hourglasses in one piece until the middle of the eighteenth century: up until that point, the two bulbs would be blown separately and then held together by sealing wax and a knot that could potentially allow moisture to enter the bulbs and interact with the substance inside, thus comprising the hourglass’s accuracy.

We repeated the washing process six times, until the water was running as close to clear as we thought likely to achieve. Finally, we strained the last batch of water into a bowl with cheesecloth stretched over the top of it, and put our lead-salt mixture that did not pass through the cheesecloth into a small bowl and left it in a fume hood to dry. Examining the composition of our newly-washed powder, what had before felt smooth and velvety in texture now looked like miniscule lead spheres, and felt much more granular to the touch. The texture of our washed powder actually tallies with recent research in the mechanics of hourglass sand flow, which has suggested that the best material for sand is ‘ballotini’, which are “tiny [glass] beads of subspherical shape”.⁵ They are around 40-160 microns in diameter, and because of their round edges they flow smoothly through hourglasses.⁶ Although our lead-salt mixture was not composed of grains that small, they were roughly spherical in shape, which might suggest why this mixture produces an effective hourglass sand (Fig. 8 – the texture of our sand).

Contemporary recipes for hourglass powder

Having recounted our experience with reproducing the “Powder for hourglasses” recipe from Ms. Fr. 640, we now turn towards the historical questions posed by the recipe itself, which we noted at the outset of this annotation. We begin with a brief history of the hourglass.

A.J. Turner avers that “[t]he origin of the sand-glass…is historically a mystery”.⁷ Although the device has its precedent in the ancient Egyptian water clock known as the clepsydra, the hourglass as we know it seems to be a medieval invention, and has “a surprisingly brief history”.⁸ The earliest ‘reference’ to its existence is iconographical and symbolic in import: it appears in a series of frescoes dating to 1338 in the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, entitled The Allegory of Good and Bad Government, and it is held by the female figure of Temperance, one of the six virtues of good government (Fig. 9 – Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s The Allegory of Good and Bad Government). Clearly, even in the earliest stages of its life, the hourglass possessed some kind of artistic or emblematic resonance, a resonance that would extend into the Renaissance, during which it became ubiquitous as a memento mori in vanitas paintings of the period (Fig. 10 – Peeter Sion the Elder’s Vanitas Still-life). In some artworks, the hourglass is even portrayed as one of the accoutrements of an embodied Death: for instance, in Albrecht Dürer’s copper engraving Ritter, Tod, und Teufel (Knight, Death, and the Devil; 1513), the grisly Death figure clutches an hourglass in a skeletal hand, a reminder of the brevity of the Knight’s life (Fig. 11 – Albrecht Dürer’s Ritter, Tod, und Teufel).

We also detected the presence of the hourglass in an artistic representation of a different sort: the Trachtenbuch (“clothing book”) of Matthäus Schwarz (1497-1574), a German accountant who worked for the famous Augsburg merchant Jakob Fugger. The Trachtenbuch is Schwarz’s record of the clothing he wore between the years 1520 and 1560, a lavish series of more than 100 watercolours depicting Schwarz in various different garments. In one of these images, Schwarz is depicted wearing an hourglass attached on his yellow hose to his calf (Fig. 12 – from the Trachtenbuch, Fig. 12a – detail of hourglass attached to hose), which the accompanying text identifies as measuring eight minutes (“mit einem uhr am schenkel von acht minuten”), although no indication is given as to why the hourglass should be required to measure this interval of time (Fig. 12b – detail of text). In this image, the hourglass seems to function analogously to the way it does in its role as a vanitas object, gesturing towards the larger mundus transit trope but also to the ephemerality of the fashions that Schwarz is recording (indeed, the “fickleness of fashion and the vanity of sumptuous apparel” was well-trodden ground in early modern sermons).⁹ Both the hourglass and fashion, then, seem to act as a reminder that glory is fleeting – all things pass in time. However, it is also worth noting that Schwarz himself appeared to be generally fascinated by marking the passage of time in art, and, more specifically, artistic likenesses of himself: he was painted on his 29th birthday by Hans Maler zu Schwaz with an hourglass around his neck (Fig. 13 – Hans Maler’s portrait of Schwarz), and a later portrait from 1542, painted by Christoph Amberger, includes Schwarz’s horoscope (next to the glass of wine) and records Schwarz’s exact age (45 years, 30 days, and 2 ¾ hours) and the time of the painting, 4:15pm on 22 March 1542 (Fig. 14 – Amberger’s portrait of Schwarz). Perhaps in Schwarz’s case, the hourglass does not so much function as a memento mori but more as part of a celebration of the power of art “to fix in both time and space something that ephemeral and changeable”.¹⁰

The first extant textual reference to hourglasses, however, is in a ship inventory: hourglasses were used for measuring time during marine journeys, as the movement of the sand between the two glass ampoules would not be affected by the movement of the ship (unlike a water clock). A. J. Turner, though, has suggested that accounts of the hourglass originating primarily in a maritime navigational context hem the invention into a niche that does not properly represent its diverse early usage: identifying the first nine allusions to the hourglass or ‘sandglass’, Turner reveals that these objects also fulfilled diverse other functions: they were desired as wedding presents, for instance, and played a role in civic life; indeed, one Swiss town council order avers that “the tolling of the town bell for the quarter and half hours should be regulated by a sand glass”.¹¹

Although there is some confusion over the earliest functions of the hourglass, it is apparent that at some point the production of hourglass sand became part of a repertoire of standard household recipes. This is evident from a recipe in Le Menagier de Paris, or “The Goodman of Paris,” a text written in the last decade of the fourteenth century (c. 1393) by a wealthy Parisian burgher for the instruction of his wife in various marital matters. Under the miscellaneous heading “Other small things that be needful,” along with recipes for various preserves and rosewater, and immediately preceded by a “cure” for toothache and followed by “Poisons for slaying a stag or a boar,” features the subsequent recipe:

TO MAKE SAND FOR HOURGLASSES. Take the grease which comes from the sawdust of marble when those great tombs of black marble be sawn, then boil it well in wine like a piece of meat and skim it, and then set it to dry in the sun; and boil, skim and dry nine times; and thus it will be good.¹²

Although the ingredients in this recipe differ from those in Ms. Fr. 640, the processes and their ends seem analogous to our recipe: heating and skimming are both required, and the fact that the three principal steps of the recipe (boiling, skimming, and drying) need to be conducted a total of nine times suggests that a very fine powder should be the end product, just as in our manuscript’s recipe.

It is less easy to establish why the production of hourglass sand became something akin to a domestic chore. Perhaps its presence among household recipes was partly due to the ready availability of the necessary ingredients (variant seventeenth-century recipes state that pulverised eggshells, another non-hygroscopic substance, can also be used to make sand of this sort, which would certainly have been easily accessible, and an efficient use of domestic waste). More than this, indeed, the various recipes for hourglass sand — lead and salt, eggshells, “grease” from marble — suggest that it could be produced from any materials that the experimenter had on hand. Thus lead and salt may be the principal ingredients of our author-practitioner’s recipe because these two substances would have been in ample supply in his workshop, and, while the marble grease that features in the Menagier de Paris’s recipe seems a little more exotic than lead or eggshells, we should bear in mind that great marble tombs were being constructed in Paris in the fourteenth century, and therefore this particular material probably played a more significant role in quotidian life than we might initially guess. The notion that hourglass sand might be produced by any scraps of material readily available ties in with Michelle DiMeo’s comments on the nature of early modern domestic practice as “ideally frugal” and “self-sufficient;”¹³ it also tallies with Elaine Leong’s study of medicine production in the early modern home of Elizabeth Freke, which, Leong notes, was primarily based on “common herbs and spices” and used “butter, eggs, and cream” (i.e., common household ingredients) in salves and balms.¹⁴ This might also explain the spike in popularity experienced by the hourglass in the fifteenth- and sixteenth centuries: if the ingredients for hourglass sand could simply be anything readily available, hourglass sand could (and would) be produced frequently; increased hourglass production would cause people to find more and more uses for it in their daily lives, and demand for its production would consequentially increase. G. Bernard Hughes also states that the cost of producing hourglasses was low, which might suggest why this recipe still features in a sixteenth-century French manuscript, despite the fact that clocks would be available at this time.¹⁵ Given the expense of purchasing a clock as opposed to creating an hourglass, perhaps one’s timepiece of choice partially reflects a kind of social stratification, in which clocks are the preserve of a relatively wealthy elite and hourglasses function as a less costly and therefore more democratic means of time measurement.

Certainly, at any rate, the hourglass gained increased prominence in the sphere of quotidian life during the fifteenth- and sixteenth centuries, and was used to measure intervals such as the length of sermons, cooking time, and breaks from labour.¹⁶ The hourglass was also employed in more specialist domains: it marked the length of lectures for the students at Oxford University, curtailed “the prolix orator’s flow of words” in law-courts and the House of Commons, and even helped medical practitioners in measuring pulses.¹⁷ They were also used in craftsmen’s shops in order to regulate working hours, which might suggest why our author-practitioner is interested in their production – he could have needed one as part of his working environment. R. T. Balmer attempts to rationalise the late development of the hourglass by suggesting that it “came into being as a result of some need within the value system of the society at the time, and that this need did not exist before. It is possible that the societal concept of time evolving from a nebulous continuum to a quantifiable organisable duration and was becoming an individually marketable item whose subdivision had commercial value”.¹⁸

The fact that the hourglass was used to measure the length of sermons can perhaps help us to understand more comprehensively why most references to the hourglass in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English texts are found in religious literature. A search for the term ‘hourglass’ in the years 1500-1750 on Early English Books Online returns 113 hits in 87 records, and the majority of the references to the hourglass are in printed sermons, emphasising its symbolic function as a reminder of man’s mortality: for instance, in a sermon of 1641 by Jeremiah Burroughs, the author states that “All men in worldly honours are like an houreglasse; now this end is uppermost, by and by this end is done…”¹⁹ It is also often coupled with the candle, an emblem of the fragility of life: in the Puritan church leader Richard Baxter’s A Christian directory (1673), Baxter admonishes his reader to “Remember that as soon as you begin to live, you are hasting toward the end of your lives: Even as a Candle as soon as it beginneth to burn, and the Hourglass as soon as it is turned, is wasting, and hasting to its end”;²⁰ this pairing is also found in Thomas Bentley’s The Fift Lamp of Virginitie (1582), in which a prayer “to be vsed by old women” features the line “the houre glas is almost run, my candle is almost burned out, and thine everlasting iudgement draweth on”.²¹ The obvious explanation for the hourglass’s recurrence in sermons is thus its symbolic cachet; however, it is perhaps feasible that the hourglass was so often referred to because it combined the auditory impact of the sermon with the immediate visual environment of churchgoers. The textual fabric of sermons might, therefore, have been influenced by the material features of the location in which they were delivered.

Finally, it is interesting to consider that, as A. J. Turner notes, “ordinary [or, domestically-produced] sandglasses were not accurate”.²² Although domestic hourglass sand production clearly became widespread in early modern Europe, as the recipe in Ms. Fr. 640 evinces, it resulted in a product on which one could not rely too heavily for accurate temporal measurements. Can this tell us anything about the conception of time in early modern Europe?

While we are, of course, used to thinking of time, on a practical level, as a universal reference point, the lack of time standardisation across areas of the same country in sixteenth-century Europe meant that time was much more heterogeneous than we now consider it to be. Indeed, even the hour was not necessarily a fixed unit of time: the practice of seasonal, or unequal hours, divided the time between sunrise and sunset into twelve hours, which of course meant that the length of the hour increased in summer and decreased in winter. This non-universal understanding of time seems to be reflected in the manuscript by the use of anthropocentric forms of temporal and spatial measurement. For instance, the author-practitioner is fond of measuring objects in terms of handspan (see, for instance, the discussion of furnace sizes on fol.16r), an individually-variable form of measurement. Even more intriguingly, he also refers twice to the recitation of the paternoster as a measurement of time duration: on fol.103r, in a recipe entitled “Something excellent against burns”, the author states that an oil-wax must be stirred for “the time you need to recite 9 pater noster”, and on fol.114r, a mold must be dipped in water to cool it for the time taken to recite one paternoster. The presence of a prayer as a form of time measurement not only provides another fascinating link between theology and horology, but suggests that time existed less as a universal standard for our author-practitioner, and more as something that was local to individuals and their measuring practices. The existence of domestic hourglass production, even given its inaccuracies, thus tallies with the fact that time in early modern Europe was non-standard rather than universal, variegated rather than homogeneous, and perhaps even less fiercely monitored than to which we are now accustomed.

Bibliography

Albala, Ken. “Cooking as research methodology: experiments in Renaissance cuisine”. In Renaissance Food from Rabelais to Shakespeare: Culinary Readings and Culinary Histories, edited by Joan Fitzpatrick. Farnham, Surrey; Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate, 2010.

Alonso-Almeida, Francisco. “Genre conventions in English recipes, 1600-1800”. In Reading and Writing Recipe Books, 1550-1800, edited by Michelle DiMeo and Sara Pennell. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013.

Balmer, R. T. “The Operation of Sand Clocks and Their Medieval Development”. Technology and Culture. 19 (1978): 615-632.

Baxter, Richard. A Christian Directory. London, 1673.

Bentley, Thomas. The Fift Lamp of Virginitie. London, 1582.

Burroughs, Jeremiah. Moses his self-denyall. London, 1641.

Carlyle, Thomas. The French Revolution: A History, vol. 1. New York: AMS Press, 1980.

DiMeo, Michelle and Sara Pennell. Introduction to Making and Writing Recipe Books, 1550-1800, edited by Michelle diMio and Sara Pennell, 1-24. Manchester University Press, 2013.

Goldgar, Anne. Tulipmania: Money, Honor, and Knowledge in the Dutch Golden Age. University of Chicago Press, 2008.

Guye, Samuel and Henri Michel. Time & Space: Measuring Instruments from the 15^th to the 19^th Century. Praeger Publishers: New York; Washington; London, 1971.

Hart, Thomas. The foundation and rise of many of the practices, customs, and formallities of the priests, lawyers, and people of England examined. London, 1659.

Hughes, G. Bernard. “Old English Sand-Glasses”. Country Life (1951).

Leong, Elaine. “Making Medicines in the Early Modern Household”. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 82 (2008): 145-168.

Mills, A. A., S. Day, S. Parkes. “Mechanics of the sandglass”. European Journals of Physics. 17 (1996): 97-109.

Morzer Bruyns, Willem. Email correspondence. 30/4/2015.

Power, Eileen, trans. and ed., The Goodman of Paris (Le Menagier de Paris): A Treatise on Moral and Domestic Economy by a Citizen of Paris (c. 1393). Routledge, 1928.

Rose, Mary Beth. “Women in Men’s Clothing: Apparel and Social Stability in The Roaring Girl”. In Renaissance Historicism: Selections from English Literary Renaissance, edited by Arthur F. Kinney and Dan S. Collins. University of Massachusetts Press, 1987.

Smeltzer, Ronald. Email correspondence. 30/4/2015.

Turner, A. J. Of Time and Measurement: Studies in the History of Horology and Fine Technology. Brookfield, VT: Variorum, 1993.

---

1 Francisco Alonso-Almeida, “Genre conventions in English recipes, 1600-1800,” in Reading and Writing Recipe Books, 1550-1800, eds. Michelle DiMeo and Sara Pennell  (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013), 72.

2 Two notable types of recipes in BnF Ms. Fr. 640 that call for common salt are 1) recipes that involve liquefying silver (“Making silver runny”, fol. 120v, and “to make argenta run”, fol. 123r) and 2) formulas for bleach (“bleaching casting silver”, fol. 128v, and “bleach”, fol. 148r).

3 Ken Albala, ‘Cooking as research methodology: experiments in Renaissance cuisine’, in Renaissance Food from Rabelais to Shakespeare: Culinary Readings and Culinary Histories, ed. Joan Fitzpatrick (Farnham, Surrey; Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate, 2010), 98.

4 Willem Morzer Bruyns, email correspondence, 30/4/2015.

5 A. A. Mills, S. Day, S. Parkes, “Mechanics of the sandglass,” European Journals of Physics, 17 (1996): 99.

6 Sand itself, ironically, tends not to be used in hourglass sand production because its grains are too angular, thus preventing smooth flow. Ronald Smeltzer, in email correspondence of 30/4/2015, suggests another reason why the use of sand is not widespread: “Perhaps an advantage of not using sand if a softer material was available is that since sand and glass are the same material (silica), the falling sand could slightly grind away the glass, thus changing the diameter of the fall zone over time”.

7 A. J. Turner, Of Time and Measurement: Studies in the History of Horology and Fine Technology (Brookfield, VT: Variorum, 1993), 162.

8 Mills, Day, Parkes, “Mechanics of the sandglass”, 98.

9 Mary Beth Rose, “Women in Men’s Clothing: Apparel and Social Stability in The Roaring Girl”, in Renaissance Historicism: Selections from English Literary Renaissance, eds. Arthur F. Kinney and Dan S. Collins (University of Massachusetts Press, 1987), 242.

10 Anne Goldgar, Tulipmania: Money, Honor, and Knowledge in the Dutch Golden Age (University of Chicago Press, 2008), 101.

11 Turner, Of Time and Measurement, 164.

12 Eileen Power, trans. and ed., The Goodman of Paris (Le Menagier de Paris): A Treatise on Moral and Domestic Economy by a Citizen of Paris (c. 1393) (Routledge, 1928), 304.

13 Michelle DiMeo and Sara Pennell, introduction to Making and Writing Recipe Books, 1550-1800 (Manchester University Press, 2013), eds. Michelle DiMeo and Sara Pennell, 11.

14 Elaine Leong, “Making Medicines in the Early Modern Household”, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 82 (2008): 158, 159.

15 G. Bernard Hughes, “Old English Sand-Glasses”, Country Life (1951).

16 Interestingly, some literature of the period suggests that measuring sermons by the hour is a Catholic practice – in Thomas Hart’s The foundation and rise of many of the practices, customs, and formallities of the priests, lawyers, and people of England examined (London, 1659), Hart asks his reader “does not [sic] the Papists say their Mass by the Hour-glass?” (p. 8). It is possible that Thomas Carlyle is referring to a similar practice when he asserts, at the beginning of The French Revolution, that “Priests’ Litanies [are] read or chanted at fixed money-rate per hour” – an hour that might perhaps have been measured by the hourglass (Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History, vol. 1 [New York: AMS Press, 1980], 2.

17 Samuel Guye and Henri Michel, Time & Space: Measuring Instruments from the 15^th to the 19^th Century (Praeger Publishers: New York; Washington; London, 1971), 266.

18 R. T. Balmer, “The Operation of Sand Clocks and Their Medieval Development”, Technology and Culture, 19 (1978): 616.

19 Jeremiah Burroughs, Moses his self-denyall (London, 1641), 63.

20 Richard Baxter, A Christian Directory (London, 1673), 552.

21 Thomas Bentley, The Fift Lamp of Virginitie (London, 1582), 192.

22 Turner, Of Time and Measurement, 169.