Transcription [from tc_p109r]
<title id=”p109r_a1”>Esbaucher en cire</title>
<ab id=”p109r_b1”>Quand la cire est trop dure on y mesle de la tourmentine ou<lb/>
un peu de beurre qui sont pl rend la cire plus amiable Et est<lb/>
plus propre que le suif que les Italiens y mectent a cause quil<lb/>
fault souvent mectre les houtils en la bouche qui sont meilleurs<lb/>
de buys ou dos de cerf</ab>
Translation [from tl_p109r]
<title id=”p109r_a1”>Working in rough with wax</title>
<ab id=”p109r_b1”>When the wax is too hard, one mixes in some turpentine or a bit of butter, which renders the wax malleable, and cleaner than tallow, which the Italians mix in, because oftentimes, it is necessary to put the tools into the mouth, [tools] which are better when made from box wood or antler.</ab>
AnnotationFall2014_CataldoVisco_109r
Wax and Tallow: A Material Investigation
“The light is God, the wax is man, Christ is both.”1
C. Musso (1579)
“It is as precious as it is ambiguous in its duality, for wax—poised between a solid and liquid state—fluctuates between presence and absence, strength and weakness, will and obedience, virtue and vice, memory and oblivion, death and resurrection.”2
G.A. Guerzoni (2012)
Wax and tallow are mentioned throughout BnF Ms.. Fr 640, but a few recipes focus on changing the qualities of the material itself, particularly to alter its hardness or softness. On folio 109r, the author recounts a recipe for “working rough in wax.” He writes: “When the wax is too hard, one mixes in some turpentine or a bit of butter, which renders the wax malleable, and leaner than tallow, which the Italians mix in…” Given the frequency of wax3 and tallow4 in the manuscript, how can we understand the material properties of each substance, and how do they work together? How do the suggested additives perform comparatively? How do these mixtures relate more broadly to themes of material transformation in BnF Ms Fr 640 and other early modern sources?
In the early modern period, wax was a commonly purchased commodity that had a variety of uses in workshops, apothecaries, and ecclesiastical spaces, as well as, of course, in the household.5 It could also be used as a device of imitation or trickery, as wax could easily imitate other materials.6 Tallow, or rendered animal fat, was less expensive, and could be sourced more easily. It shared many of the material properties and uses of wax, although was considered to be a material of lower quality.7 Both wax and tallow were used regularly by the early modern craftsman: both could be used to carve and model patterns for sculptures,8 or could be used in other processes like copper etching, bronze casting, and gilding.9 Both materials were used in candles for illumination – though the expense of wax made it more likely to be used to illuminate sacred spaces. Wax was also a key ingredient for many medicinal remedies, creams, ointments, and cosmetics.10 These materials, which could readily change from one state to another, from solid to liquid, evoke the trope of transformation and mimic the material properties of metals that could be melted down and reconstituted into new objects. For wax, the duality of the material also had a spiritual dimension, both in alchemical and devotional11 practices.
Wax and tallow share many properties and material characteristics. Both substances ideally undergo a purification process before they can be utilized by a craftsperson. In the early modern period, wax was purified and bleached in earthenware pots, boiled in a mixture of “fresh seawater, alum, and saltpetre several times, until no traces of impurities remain[ed].”12 Tallow also undergoes a purification process before being used. Early modern sources on rendering tallow are scarce, perhaps because this process was considered common knowledge and thus unimportant to record, like recipes for baking bread.13 Modern recipes that describe tallow rendering techniques, however, are plentiful14 and easily available on the internet.15 We rendered our beef fat and pork fat in a modern slow cooker, but this could have also been done over many hours in an oven or on a stove. It is essential in the rendering process to apply heat to the fat for many hours without burning it, then strain the rendered fat through cheesecloth to remove the impurities. This straining process could be repeated multiple times to achieve an ever more purified and perhaps firmer substance.
Both wax and tallow can be found in different qualities and types. In the manuscript, the author refers to “white wax” in many recipes.16 In his article on “The Use and Abuse of Beeswax,” Guerzoni writes that in order to assess the quality of wax, “one must carefully examine the color. The finest is yellow: the lighter it is, the better, and the darker, the worse.”17 Scent could also play a role in determining the quality of the wax, as a “rotten or mouldy” scent could indicate that tallow had been added to the wax in order to make the expensive material go further.18 While tallow was much easier and cheaper to procure than beeswax, the fat of different animals could be used, and each of these fats possessed different material properties. Lamb tallow is also mentioned in the manuscript, and Biringuccio notes goat tallow as an ingredient in a wax mixture.19 Once cooled, the tallows became soft solids. In our experiments, we rendered both beef and pork tallow, experimenting with multiple renderings. We rendered both beef and pork fat, cooking each for five hours. The pork tallow had a much smoother texture20 than the beef tallow; the consistency of the once-rendered beef tallow was reminiscent of mashed potatoes, while the consistency of the once-rendered pork was similar to thick yogurt. Then we rendered the fats again, cooking each for an additional 5 hours. The twice-rendered pork fat was even creamier in texture, but the twice-rendered beef fat had a particulate consistency that could be compared to hard rice pudding. [fig. 1]
On fol.109r of BnF Ms Fr 640, turpentine and butter are listed as softening agents for wax, though it is not clear how much should be added to achieve the desired texture. This led us to conclude that tallow is also a softening agent, though one that, it seems, the author would prefer not to use.21 In our experiments with wax, a 1:1 mixture of wax and beef tallow yielded a mixture that was soft and released easily from the molds, but was prone to breaking and cracking after it hardened. We therefore opted for mixtures that contained smaller amounts of the softening agent than of wax. We made mixtures of wax and turpentine, wax and butter, wax and beef tallow, and finally, wax and pork tallow. [fig. 2] Adding two teaspoons of Venice Turpentine to a quarter cup of wax produced a gummy, sticky result that could be carved easily with a stylus. The butter, however, when mixed with the wax, was difficult to carve; the carving tool got stuck in the material, making it difficult to control.22 Despite the misgivings of the manuscript author, the tallow mixtures worked particularly well for carving. As mentioned above, a 1:1 mixture was too soft and fragile, but mixtures that included “a little” tallow (in our experiments, two or four teaspoons of tallow to a half cup of wax) resulted in a wax that was more malleable than both the pine rosin and butter mixtures.23 The best mixtures were wax and pork tallow. Carving tools cut cleanly through the material, making it easy to manipulate and carve, while the overall structure remained solid enough to endure manual manipulation. [fig. 3]
The author of BnF Ms Fr 640 also writes about how wax can be hardened in fol.120r, in a recipe titled “Impress medals made from wax.” Here, he states that “You can mold your relief with wax mixed with a bit of resin to make it harder and firmer…” and he goes on to describe a process of striking medals.24 A resin and wax mixture is also mentioned on fol.160v in the recipe for “Moulding a foot or a hand.”25 Rosin and resin are mentioned in several instances in the manuscript, including the making of imitation coral, purpurine, adhering lead to glass, and using resin candles for smoking molds.26 In this recipe, the French word rousine is used; while other recipes use the more common résine or la gemme, or gum. In modern usage, rosin, resin, and gum have some interchangeable meanings; the material we used to try the wax-resin mixture was sold as “pine gum rosin,” which is a refined form of resin. In our experiment, we were concerned about mixing the two substances due to the higher melting temperature of the pine gum rosin. Would the wax burn or smoke if poured into melted rosin? We melted the wax first and then dropped in pieces of the rosin. The rosin, like an ice cube in cool water, slowly dissolved and became more gelatinous. The resulting mixture once hardened was resistant to the impression of the stylus and thus more difficult to carve indeed more difficult to carve.
The softness and hardness of wax and its ability to take on different states and appearances was an oft-remarked subject for early modern craft writers. Cellini, for example, notes how the seasons affected the conditions of wax, and the temperature of the workshop could determine how the material responded to the craftsman’s hand and tools.27 On fol. 151r, the author-practitioner of BnF Ms. Fr. 640 recommends mixing coal with white wax to make it strong,28 and Hugh Platt also mentions this mixture (“Note also that you must first cast all your curious patternes in yellow wax tempered with the fine powder of smale cole”).29 Platt also mentions red ochre as an additive to color the wax, which makes the pattern more visible.30 Biringuccio mentions adding Grecian pitch or “ship’s tar” to wax,31 while both Biringuccio and Cellini write about the benefits of mixing white lead with wax for softening it.32 Indeed, the remarkable ability of both wax and tallow to easily transform and combine with other substances made them useful as well as symbolically important in the early modern workshop, and in early modern culture more generally, which evinced a fascination with material transformation.
Emogene CataldoJulianna Van Visco
List of illustrations
Figure 1: Once-rendered pork tallow is smooth and creamy when it has solidified. When combined in small amounts to pure beeswax, it creates a soft, malleable carving material.
Figure 2: Chart showing the mixtures of beeswax and additives, hardness-to-softness, and comments about the consistencies of the mixtures.
Figure 3: Diagram of consistency of beeswax mixtures.
Bibliography
Beretta, Marco. “Usi scientifici della cera nell’antichità,” in Quaderni Storici, 2009 XLIV 1, 15-34.
Biringuccio, Vannoccio. The Pirotechnia of Vannoccio Biringuccio. The Classic Sixteenth-Century Treatise on Metals and Metallurgy, trans. and ed. by Cyril Stanley Smith and Martha Teach Gnudi (New York: Dover Publications, 1990).
Cellini, Benvenuto. The Treatises of Benvenuto Cellini On Goldsmithing and Scultpure, trans. C.R. Ashbee, (New York: Dover Publications, 1967).
Guerzoni, Guido Antonio. “Use and Abuse of Beeswax in the Early Modern Age. Two Apologues and a taste,” in A. Daninos, ed., Waxing Eloquent: Italian Portraits in Wax (Milano: Officina Libraria, 2012): 43-59.
“Prices (Posthumus) [database].” in Rudolph M. Bell and Martha Howell, eds., “Medieval and Early Modern Data Bank.” (Rutgers University: Oct. 19, 1998). Accessed 19 December 2014. <http://www2.scc.rutgers.edu/memdb/index.html>.
Plat, Hugh. The jewel house of art and nature: containing divers rare and profitable inventions, together with sundry new experiments in in [sic] the art of husbandry, with divers chymical conclusions concerning the art of distillation, and the rare practises and uses thereof. (London: Printed by Elizabeth Alsop, 1653). The Making Of The Modern World. Web. 19 Dec. 2014.
1 “Il lume è Iddio, la cera è l’huomo, Christo è l’uno & l’altro.” C. Musso, Il quarto libro delle prediche del reverndissimo mons. Cornelio Musso, vescovo di Bitonto. (Venice: Giovanni e Gio, 1579), p. 138. Quoted in Guerzoni, “Use and Abuse,” p. 49.
2 Guido Antonio Guerzoni, “Use and Abuse of Beeswax in the Early Modern Age. Two Apologues and a taste,” in A. Daninos, ed., Waxing Eloquent: Italian Portraits in Wax (Milano: Officina Libraria, 2012), 49.
3 A complete list of recipes that mention the word wax (French: cire) include the following: fol. 12v, “Moulding stucco promptly”; fol. 26, “Mortar”; fol. 42r “Wax for seals and stamps” and “Casting in plaster”; fol. 44v, “Stucco”; fol. 50r, “Molding”; fol. 59v “To mend holes painting”; fol. 94r, “Burnisher”; fol. 103r, “Something excellent against burns”; fol. 104v, “For casting”; fol. 109r, “Working in rough with wax,” “Wax for molding,” and “Molding wax”; fol. 112v; fol. 116r “Molding as a core” and “Molding snakes”; fol. 117r “A way to mold flowers and herbs”; fol. 120r “Stamped medals made from wax”; fol. 121r “Keeping fruit over a year”; fol. 122v, “Molding hollow”; fol. 122r “Fixing diverse animals”; fol. 124v, “Casting gold” and “Casting small lizards”; fol. 125r “Molding fruits and animals in sugar”; fol. 125r, “Plaster” and “Plaster to cast with wax”; fol. 126v, “Plaster”; fol. 127r, “Plaster mold for wax”; fol. 129v “Advice about casting”; fol. 130v, “For molding thinly”; fol. 130r, “Drying animals in an oven”; fol. 131r, “Molded wax”; fol. 133r, “Hard wax to imprinting seals” and “Casting the feet of small lizards in gold and silver”; fol. 133v, “Thing that cannot be stripped from the mold” and “Animals entwined”; fol. 134v “Secret for soldering small works made of gold and silver”; fol. 135r “Casting” and “Vine leaf and small frog”; fol. 137v, “Wetting sand to mold flat medals”; fol. 138v, “Imitation diamonds put into the work”; fol. 139v, “Casting wax to mold an animal that one has not got”; fol. 140v “To cast in sulfur”; fol. 141v; fol. 143v; fol. 145v, “Moulding herbs and flowers”; fol. 147r; fol. 149v, “Molding vases in several pieces” and “Bats”; fol. 150v, “Moulding hollow”; fol. 150r, “Very strong wax”; fol. 151r; fol. 152v, “Reworking cast things”; fol. 153r, “Moulding hollow seals or other things”; fol. 153r “Moulding hollow seals or other things”; fol. 155r “Moulding a rose”; fol. 155v, “Rose”; fol. 156v, “Moulding a fly”, fol. 156r, “Quickly moulding hollow mould and relief”; fol. 157r, “The mode in which goldsmiths mold hollow molds” and “Flies”; fol. 159r, “Wax paintings”; fol. 160v, “Moulding a foot or a hand”; fol. 163v, “Crayfish”; fol. 165v, “Wings of fly”; fol. 165r, “Reworking snakes and lizards” and “Reworking”; fol. 166v, “Scented candle from Le Mans”; fol. 167v; fol. 169v “How to reduce a round form into a hollow one”; fol. 170r “How to clean closed moulds”.
4 A complete list of recipes that mention tallow (French: suif) include the following: fol. 6r, “To put and make hole some burnished gold and produce some red or green or blue”; fol. 13v, “Candles”; fol. 50r, “Molding”; fol. 69r; fol. 80v, “Casters of small tin work”; fol. 81, “Sand”; fol. 96r; fol. 109r, “Working in rough with wax,” fol. 118v; fol. 120v, “Making silver runny”; fol. 122v, “Molding hollow”; fol. 150v; fol. 154r, “Metal file dust”; fol. 156v, “Moulding a fly”.
5 For more on various uses of wax, see Marco Beretta, “Usi scientifici della cera nell’antichità,” in Quaderni Storici, 2009 XLIV 1, 15-34; Reinhard Büll, Das grosse Buch vom Wachs : Geschichte, Kultur, Technik . (München: Callwey 1977); Wax Craft: T.W. Cowan, et al., All About Beeswax. Its history, Production, Adulteration, and Commercial Value (London: 1908).
6 Guerzoni, “Use and Abuse of Beeswax,” 54-55.
7 For the economic considerations of wax and tallow, see Guido Antonio Guerzoni, “Use and Abuse,” 47. In 1619, 100 pounds of Native Wax cost 79 guilders; 100 pounds of Baltic Tallow, on the other hand, cost 22.5 guilders. Early modern Dutch price data for three different kinds of wax (Baltic Dry Wax, Native Wax, and Riga Wax) and five tallow products (Baltic Tallow, Waits Tallow, and three categories of Native Tallow) can be found in the Prices (Posthumus) database, Medieval and Early Modern Data Bank, <http://www2.scc.rutgers.edu/memdb/index.html>.
8 Vannoccio Biringuccio, The Pirotechnia of Vannoccio Biringuccio. The Classic Sixteenth-Century Treatise on Metals and Metallurgy, trans. and ed. by Cyril Stanley Smith and Martha Teach Gnudi (New York: Dover Publications, 1990), 221.
9 For gilding and etching processes, see Benvenuto Cellini, The Treatises of Benvenuto Cellini On Goldsmithing and Scultpure, trans. C.R. Ashbee, (New York: Dover Publications, 1967), 100-101 and 105.
10 Guerzoni, “Use and Abuse of Beeswax,” 45.
11 For more on the materiality of sacramental objects in the Late Medieval Period see Caroline Walker Bynum, Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe, (New York: Zone Books, 2011), 145-154. For more on the materiality of wax in art see George Didi-Huberman, “Viscosities and Survivals. Art History Put to the Test by the Material,” Ephemeral bodies: Wax Sculpture and The Human Figure, ed. Roberta Panzanelli (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2008); and Oxford Journal of Art, Volume 36, Issue 1 March 2013) [Special Issue Theorizing Wax: On the Meaning of a Disappearing Medium].
12 Guerzoni, “Use and Abuse of Beeswax,” 46.
13 Bread is mentioned as a molding material in Bnf. Ms. Fr. 640, but a recipe is not provided. On folio 156r in the recipe “Quickly moulding hollow mould and relief,” the author instructs the reader to use a bread loaf, “prepared as you know [preparée co{mm}e tu sçais].”
14 Many back-to-basics blogs and affordable lifestyle websites feature content on the reintegration of traditional methods such as fat rendering into the modern home. For examples, see The Prairie Homestead (www.theprairiehomestead.com), The Browning Homestead (www.thebrowninghomestead), or The Paleo Leap (www.paleoleap.com).
15 Here, we use the word “render” to describe the purification process of applying heat to animal fat over a long period of time. This process is not described in Bnf. Ms. Fr. 640, and the French word “rendre” used in the manuscript carries a more distinctive meaning related to making and transformation.
16 For more recipes that mention “white wax,” see Bnf. Ms. Fr. 640, 59v “To mend holes [in] painting,” 131r “Molded Wax,” 133r “Hard wax to imprinting seals,” 139v “Casting wax to mold an animal that one has not got,” 151r “Moulding hollow,” 153r “Molding hollow seals or other things,” 155v “Rose,” 156v “Moulding a fly,” and 159r “Wax paintings.”
17 Guerzoni, “Use and Abuse of Beeswax,” 47.
18 Guerzoni, “Use and Abuse of Beeswax,” 47.
19 See Bnf. Ms. Fr. 640, 6r, and Biringuccio, Pyrotechnia, 330.
20 This property is rooted in the saturated fat content. Saturated fats present as more solid at room temperature.
21 The author does mention the mixing of wax and tallow on page 122v, “Molding hollow”: “But tallow alone is not good and that is why you have to mix wax and tallow together.”
22 We used all-natural, organic butter, but might have had a different result had we made our own butter or clarified the store-bought butter. See Cataldo and Visco Field Notes, 16 November 2014, “Wax and tallow and elm infusion.”
23 Biringuccio says to mix “a little” tallow into the wax. See Biringuccio, Pirotechnia, 330.
24 Rosin-wax mixtures are also mentioned in Hugh Plat, The Jewell House of Art and Nature, on p. 60.
25 Bnf. Ms. Fr. 640, 160v, “Moulding a foot or a hand.”
26 Bnf Ms Fr 640, 3r “Imitation coral,” 43r “Purpurine,” 49r “Lead Casting” and “Pewterers.”
27 Benvenuto Cellini, Treatises, 118.
28 Bnf Ms Fr 640, 151r, “Very strong wax.”
29 Plat, The Jewell House, 59.
30 Plat, The Jewell House, 59.
31 Biringuccio, Pyrotechnia, 330.
32 Cellini, Treatises, 100-101 and Biringuccio, Pyrotechnia, 330.