Cinnamon is a commonly known light brown spice made from the inner bark of a number of species of cinnamon trees, of the genus Cinnamomum. It has a delicate aroma and a sweet flavor.
Cinnamon oil comes in two forms: bark oil and leaf oil. Bark oil is often used for culinary purposes, whereas leaf oil is used as an essential oil because it has a high eugenol content with a clove-like aroma.
Fol. 1v - "For loosening the belly"
Prunes of Saint Antonin, & if you like you want put among them leaves of mallow & gilliflower, adding in sugar &, if one wants, a little cinnamon for the stomach.
Or else marshmallow root in a chicken broth. The fresh kind is more mollifying.
Beating syrup of sweet jujubes with water & taking it in the morning loosens the belly.
Fol. 47r - "For teeth"
Sal ammoniac i ℥, rock salt 1 ℥, alum half an ℥. Make water with the retort, and as soon as you touch the tooth, the tartar & blackness will go away. It is true that it has a bad odor, but you can mix it with rose honey & a little cinnamon or clove oil.
Fol. 48r - "Excellent mustard"
Dry bread in an oven, then lard it with cloves & cinnamon & thus put it to soak in good wine. Then, pass everything through a tammy cloth, being well pestled, & incorporate it with your mustard seed.
“Cinnamon.” World Encyclopedia. Philips, 2014. https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199546091.001.0001/acref-9780199546091-e-2461?rskey=LJSd9D&result=2.
Alan Davidson. “Cinnamon.” In The Oxford Companion to Food (2 ed.), edited by Jaine, Tom. Oxford University Press, 2013. https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199546091.001.0001/acref-9780199546091-e-2461?rskey=LJSd9D&result=2.
Image: “Cinnamomum verum J.Presl.” fo32xiv-033r, Plantarum Malabaricarum icones BPL 126 D - part 1, Leiden University Libraries, http://hdl.handle.net/1887.1/item:937812.
Elia Zhang, Columbia University
Fol. 6r – “For laying down and seating burnished gold and giving red or green or blue”
... And if you want to lay in rouge clair & glaze with it, grind Venice laque platte on marble with walnut or linseed oil. Once ground, mix turpentine or spike lavender varnish & apply on the gold with the paintbrush. Brazilwood & laque ronde die...Fol. 33v recommends using Brazilwood to imitate blood
Fol. 33v – "For making blood or wine issue from someone’s forehead or from a wall"
Take a funnel or funnel of fer blanc which is double-walled in the body but not in the spout. Make a small hole at the top edge & another, slightly bigger, on the inner wall that will be a little above the spout, just as you can see in the adjacent example. Then when you want to use it, put in wine or liquid rosette of Brazilwood or black cherry juice, and blocking the hole of the spout with your little finger, make sure that the funnel is well filled in order that the wine can enter there between the double walls through the hole at the side, & if it does not enter well, making it seem as if you are tasting the wine, suck & draw in a little air, drinking where the little hole is…This recipe on fol. 43v contains no wine, but transmutes red “wine” into white
Fol. 43v – “Varied and transmuted wine”
Grate brazilwood very finely, put it to soak one or two hours in clear water, then take this tinted water & add to it some clear water & you will make wine as claret colored as you like. If you please, put a drop of lemon or orange juice in it & it will immediately turn white. It can be drunk without danger.
Fol. 38v – “Scarlets”
Because one aulne costs seven or eight lb to dye, they use cloths worth seven or eight francs an aulne. But whoever wants something beautiful should buy white cloth worth fifteen francs an aulne & have it dyed with pure scarlet pastel woad & a little cochineal. Black cloth is thin so that the dyeing is inexpensive.
“Cochineal” The Conservation and Art Materials Encyclopedia (CAMEO), ed. Michele Derrick. http://cameo.mfa.org/wiki/Cochineal.
Elena Phipps, Cochineal Red: The Art History of a Color (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2010).
Jo Kirby, “Lake,” Grove Art Online. 2003; Accessed 17 Dec. 2021. https://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000048810.
Image: Illustrations of cochineal collection in José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez, Memoria sobre la naturaleza, cultivo, y beneficio de la grana…, (Essay on the Nature, Cultivation, and Benefits of the Cochineal Insect), 1777. Colored pigment on vellum. Newberry Library, Edward E. Ayer Manuscript Collection, VAULT Ayer MS 1031.
Helena Seo, Columbia University
On fol. 148r, the author-practitioner identifies terra merita as “turmeric root” (racine de cucurme).
Fol. 148r - “Beautiful color for latten”
Having cleaned it well, as is said, & scratch-brushed it well, make it boil in water & turmeric root or terra merita, and it will become very beautiful.
Terra merita, which is used as a colorant in making a yellow varnish, appears in two recipes (fols. 29v and 57r) that describe the process of making “color of gold without gold on silver” through the application of a golden colored varnish over silver leaf.
Fol. 29v – “Color of gold without gold on silver”
Color your applied silver leaf with terre emerita, and once dry, give a coat of spike lavender oil varnish and of sandarac. And it will be more beautiful than tinsel.
On fol. 29v, in order to obtain a color more beautiful than fine gold, the author-practitioner instructs us to color silver leaf with some terre emerita and, once it is dry, to apply a coat of varnish of spike lavender oil and sandarac.
Fol. 57r – “Painter”
White varnish of turpentine or of spike lavender oil and turpentine is colored with pulverized terra emerita, making it boil together. It gives a gold color on silver and more beautiful if it is burnished. It is dry in a quarter of an hour. Aloe would make brighter color still, but it takes long to dry & the other is dry in a quarter of an hour, in winter as well as summer.
On fol. 57r, in a continuation of an entry entitled “Painter” begun on fol. 56v, the author-practitioner instructs to take terra emerita—this time powdered—and boil it together with varnish, either of spike lavender oil or turpentine.
Emilie Foyer, “Color of Gold without Gold on Silver,” in Secrets of Craft and Nature in Renaissance France. A Digital Critical Edition and English Translation of BnF Ms. Fr. 640, ed. Making and Knowing Project, Pamela H. Smith, Naomi Rosenkranz, Tianna Helena Uchacz, Tillmann Taape, Clément Godbarge, Sophie Pitman, Jenny Boulboullé, Joel Klein, Donna Bilak, Marc Smith, and Terry Catapano (New York: Making and Knowing Project, 2020), https://edition640.makingandknowing.org/#/essays/ann_032_fa_15. DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.7916/jz70-zv73.
Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, “Turmeric and Cardamom,” in A History of Food. Translated by Anthea Bell (Chichester, U.K.; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 450.
Opara Elizabeth I and Magali Chohan, “Turmeric (Curcuma longa, Curcuma domestica),” in Culinary Herbs and Spices: A Global Guide (Royal Society of Chemistry, 2021), 549-576.
P.N. Ravindran, “Turmeric – The Golden Spice of Life,” in Turmeric: The Genus Curcuma, ed. P. N. Ravindran, K. Nirmal Babu, and Kandaswamy Sivaraman (Boca Raton (FL): CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, 2007), 1-14.
Sahdeo Prasad and Bharat B Aggarwal, “Turmeric, the Golden Spice: From Traditional Medicine to Modern Medicine," in Herbal Medicine: Biomolecular and Clinical Aspects. 2nd edition, ed. Iris F. F. Benzie, Sissi Wachtel-Galor (Boca Raton (FL): CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, 2011), 263-288.
Image: Curcuma; Turmeric. Plate 396 from the German edition of Elizabeth Blackwell’s “A Curious Herbal” ("Herbarium Blackwellianum…", 1737-39) published by Christoph Jacob Trew (Nuremberg, 1773). Copper engraving with hand coloring. Missouri Botanical Garden, Peter H. Raven Library.
Helena Seo, Columbia University
Until the nineteenth century, sandarac has also been described as “juniper resin” in science publications and dictionaries. Although sandarac has played an important role in medicine since the Middle Ages (and through the nineteenth century) in Europe, its most well-known use has long been for varnish.
]]>The exact botanical origin of sandarac still remains unclear. However, it is most likely that sandarac was obtained from Tetraclinis articulata, small conifers of the family Cupressaceae that grow in northwestern Africa. In the early modern period, the English, Swedish, and Hambourgeois mainly traded sandarac from Morocco, particularly the Mogador (Essaouira) port.
Until the nineteenth century, sandarac has also been described as “juniper resin” in science publications and dictionaries. Although sandarac has played an important role in medicine since the Middle Ages (and through the nineteenth century) in Europe, its most well-known use has long been for varnish.
In Ms. Fr. 640, sandarac appears as "sandrax" in a recipe for producing a varnish of spike lavender oil.
Fol. 4r - “Varnish of spike lavender oil”
One needs to heat lavender spike oil & as it begins to simmer, put in powdered sandarac gum so that it soon melts. And over a charcoal fire stir continuously until the sandarac is well melted, which you will know by taking a little of the said varnish on a plate, and if it is fatty when you handle it with a finger, it is ready. And for one lb of lavender spike oil, you will put five ounces of pulverized sandarac, although some only put in four ounces, but this is neither so good nor so fatty. This one is promptly dry.
Fol. 79v - “For making varnish”
Take some mastic, sang darac, gum arabic & spike lavender oil, as much of one as the other, & make them melt all together, & before coating it, lay a coat of glue quite clear, & let it dry.
Clara Azemard, Matthieu Ménager, and Cathy Vieillescazes, “On the Tracks of Sandarac, Review and Chemical Analysis,” Environmental Science and Pollution Research 24 (2017): 27746-27754.
L. Masschelein-Kleiner, “Sandarac,” in Ancient Binding Media, Varnishes and Adhesives, trans. Janet Bridgland, Sue Walston, and A.E. Werner, 70 (Rome: ICCROM, 1985).
“Sandarac,” The Conservation and Art Materials Encyclopedia (CAMEO), ed. Michele Derrick. http://cameo.mfa.org/wiki/Sandarac.
Image: Coloured plate of Callitris quadrivalis from Köhler's Medizinal-Pflanzen, vol. 1 (Gera-Untermhaus: Fr. Eugen Köhler, 1887). Missouri Botanical Garden, Peter H. Raven Library.
Helena Seo, Columbia University
Fol. 74r. - “For making varnish”
Take one pound of linseed oil, and then you will put it in a earthen pot, mixed with a crust of bread and three onions, and put it on top of a charcoal fire, and you will cook it on a little fire, so that it boils for the space of five hours. You will take half an ounce of flour glue, & you will make it boil just as before and stir with a spoon. And then, after, you will put in two ounces of well-pestled sandarac & will do as above. And then after, you will take mastic & arabic, two ounces each, which will both be well ground, and you will put everything together, & will make it boil while stirring continuously, for the space of five hours. And then you will put rock alum, two ounces, & then you will make it boil. And if you add two ounces of arabic to it, if you see that they are not cooked enough, have it cook more on a low fire until it is cooked enough…
Fol. 74v - “For making yellow varnish”
Take some gum arabic & soak it with water, then take some well beaten saffron, & temper the said gum, and make it quite clear, then make your ground layer on that which you want to varnish, & let it dry, & when it is dry give another ground layer of the same, & let it dry as before until it is dry enough. Then take varnish from an apothecary, dash by blows, one quite far from the other. Then wash your hands quite well & with your palm spread your varnish.
Fol. 79v - “Making varnish”
Take some mastic, sandarac, gum arabic & spike lavender oil, as much of one as the other, & make them melt all together, & before coating it, lay a coat of glue quite clear, & let it dry.
Alan Davidson, "Gum Arabic," in The Oxford Companion to Food, ed. Tom Jaine (Oxford University Press, 2014). https://www-oxfordreference-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/10.1093/acref/9780199677337.001.0001/acref-9780199677337-e-1112.
John S. Mills, “Gum,” Grove Art Online, 2003. https://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000035658.
Jonathan Stephenson, "Painting medium," Grove Art Online, 2003. https://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000064669.
L. Masschelein-Kleiner, "Gum arabic or acacia gum,” in Ancient Binding Media, Varnishes and Adhesives, trans. Janet Bridgland, Sue Walston, and A.E. Werner (Rome: ICCROM, 1985), 49.
Michael Clarke, "Gum Arabic," in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms (2 ed.) (Oxford University Press, 2010). https://www-oxfordreference-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/10.1093/acref/9780199569922.001.0001/acref-9780199569922-e-839.
Image: Colored plate of Acacia Senegal from Köhler's Medizinal-Pflanzen vol.1 by Walter Müller, 1887.
Helena Seo, Columbia University
Fol. 42r - “Wax for seal and imprint”
For the large wax seals, you need to have tepid water always ready & apre keep your wax in it. But before, it should have been kneaded between your hands to render it very uniform, for otherwise the water that would get in between would prevent it from becoming uniform. Next, you will press it into whatever you want and put three or four pieces of paper on, & with a stick you even & round like a pestle, you will roll it as if you wanted to polish it, and it will attach itself to the paper, which will help you lift it off the mold. Thus you will imprint better than if you were to cast it molten. You can carve the figures & gild them, silver them, & paint them with colors in varnish, & transfer them onto a base of glass painted with colors in turpentine & mastic. And if you want to apply these plates by incrustation, do it with gum ammoniac tempered with vinegar, and you will have good glue.
At left top margin of fol. 10r - “Counterfeit jasper”:
Fol. 10r - “Counterfeit jasper”
…You can encrust beds with it & on the joints you can throw the filings of talc or of pins on the fresh cement of the said joints. One needs to join them with gum ammoniac soaked in vinegar. To better counterfeit mottled jasper, apply wool with thick hairs dyed in diverse colors & intermingled. After you have layered all the colors, scrape oblique lines on them, then layer gold & silver leaf. If you layer on the horn colors of turpentine, give it a base of silver or of tin leaf. You can also file horn & mix it with strong glue, & layer it onto the joints of the piece of horn, then even it with a joiner's plane.
Hamid-Reza Adhami, Lutz J, Kählig H, Zehl M, and Krenn L., “Compounds from gum ammoniacum with acetylcholinesterase inhibitory activity,” Scientia pharmaceutica vol. 81, 3 (Aug 2013) : 793-805.
Image: Gum ammoniacum (Dorema ammoniacum), ammûniyâqûn, fol. 152v by Mîrzâ Bâqir, 1889-1890. Spencer Collection, New York Public Library Digital Collections.
Helena Seo, Columbia University
While versatile tragacanth gum was used in a variety of ways in the early modern period, such as for skin care and making sugar paste, its use as a base for stucco is unique among sixteenth-century recipes in Ms. Fr. 640:
Fol. 29r - “Stucco for molding”
Take tragacanth gum and put it to soak until, having drunk its water, it is swollen & rendered like jelly. Then grind it quite hard on marble & next take rye flour, which is better than wheat because it is more humid and does not make the paste as brittle, and sprinkle your tragacanth gum with it, & continue to grind and mix in thus, little by little, the very finely sieved flour…
Alan Davidson, "Gum tragacanth," in The Oxford Companion to Food, ed. Tom Jaine (Oxford University Press, 2014). https://www-oxfordreference-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/10.1093/acref/9780199677337.001.0001/acref-9780199677337-e-1114.
John S. Mills, “Gum,” Grove Art Online, 2003. https://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000035658.
Jonathan Stephenson, "Painting medium," Grove Art Online, 2003. https://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000064669.
L. Masschelein-Kleiner, “Gum tragacanth,” in Ancient Binding Media, Varnishes and Adhesives, trans. Janet Bridgland, Sue Walston, and A.E. Werner (Rome: ICCROM, 1985), 50.
Nina Elizondo-Garza, “Stucco for Molding,” in Secrets of Craft and Nature in Renaissance France. A Digital Critical Edition and English Translation of BnF Ms. Fr. 640, ed. Making and Knowing Project, Pamela H. Smith, Naomi Rosenkranz, Tianna Helena Uchacz, Tillmann Taape, Clément Godbarge, Sophie Pitman, Jenny Boulboullé, Joel Klein, Donna Bilak, Marc Smith, and Terry Catapano (New York: Making and Knowing Project, 2020) https://edition640.makingandknowing.org/#/essays/ann_064_fa_17. DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.7916/1n6h-5f69.
Image: Tragacanth gum, from Relation d'un voyage du Levant by Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (Lyon : Chez Anisson et Posuel, 1717).
Helena Seo, Columbia University
Ambergris was so valuable that it served as a prestigious gift among European royals and was also sometimes mentioned in inventories of wills, along with gold and silver, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Ambergris was used as a scent fixer (as in the recipe of Ms. Fr. 640) in addition to uses in remedies, whose medicinal value was learned by Europeans from the Arabs.
]]>The origin of ambergris is still shrouded in mystery. Although it has appeared from time to time over many centuries on European shores, such as Portugal, Spain, France, and England, ambergris is not a commonly-found local substance in Europe. As an exotic animal material and a valuable commodity in high demand, ambergris was imported to Europe from distant lands, such as Asia, Africa, and the Americas via trade routes.
Ambergris was so valuable that it served as a prestigious gift among European royals and was also sometimes mentioned in inventories of wills, along with gold and silver, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Ambergris was used as a scent fixer (as in the recipe of Ms. Fr. 640) in addition to uses in remedies, whose medicinal value was learned by Europeans from the Arabs.
Fol. 163r – “Perfumer”
They readily put half of amber & half of musk & very little civet, because amber always overtakes the principal scent of musk.
To spare the amber, they readily put a little musk in the white layers, which gives a more forceful scent. But to remove or hide the blackness of the musk, they put in a bit of wheat starch from England, which is perfectly white.
To perfume with white amber in the Portuguese fashion, take a huchau of amber, well broken up. And having put in a small silver bowl a spoonful of flower oil, or lacking that, ben oil, that is to say, a silver spoon that one uses at the table, put in your ambergris & place all on a low fire, and it will melt quickly if your amber is good, & it will remain there without lumps. Once all melted, put in the size of a pine nut of civet, & make it melt, & mix it well together. Next, take your gloves, well-cleaned & well-dried, & dipping the tip of your finger very lightly on the edge of the oil, spread it on the glove, little by little & with patience, & rub the glove between your hands, & trace the fingers & the stitches, one after the other. And leave it to dry. Next, trace again as before until the amber is all laid down.
Alan Davidson, "Ambergris," in The Oxford Companion to Food, ed. Tom Jaine (Oxford University Press, 2014), https://www-oxfordreference-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/view/10.1093/acref/9780199677337.001.0001/acref-9780199677337-e-0050.
Cristina Brito, Vera L. Jordão, and Graham J. Pierce, “Ambergris as an Overlooked Historical Marine Resource: Its Biology and Role as a Global Economic Commodity,” Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 96, no. 3 (2016): 585–96.
Emily Osterloff, “What is ambergris?” Natural History Museum. https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/what-is-ambergris.html.
Karl H. Dannenfeldt, “Ambergris: The Search for Its Origin,” Isis 73, no. 3 (1982): 382–97.
Matthew Wills, "What is Ambergris and Where Does It Come From?" J Stor Daily (Dec. 9, 2015). https://daily.jstor.org/what-is-ambergris-and-where-does-it-come-from/.
Image: Miniature illustration of a sperm whale complementing a text discussing ambergris in medieval manuscript. Salerno, Italy.
Helena Seo, Columbia University