The Secretes of Alexis of Piemount
Alexis of Piemont1558
Source: Alexis of Piemont. The Secretes of the Reuerende Maister Alexis of Piemount. Translated by William Ward. London: John Kingstone for Nicolas Inglande, 1558.
Transcribed from: the Text Creation Partnership’s keyboarded edition (EEBO-TCP A16068). Every page links to its image in the Internet Archive’s scan of the 1558 edition.
Copyright: In the public domain: the book was printed in 1558. The TCP transcription is released under CC0 1.0.
The first part of the most popular book of secrets of the sixteenth century, in William Ward's first English translation: six books of remedies, perfumes, confections, cosmetics, colours and dyes, and the working of metals and counterfeit stones, gathered, so the aged Alexis claims, over a lifetime of travel and kept secret until remorse moved him to publish them.
Contents
The Epistle to the Earl of Bedford
William Ward's title page and his dedication to Francis Russell, Earl of Bedford. God put secret virtues in herbs and other created things as signs of his favour; against Christians who scorn medicine because a man appointed to die cannot be saved, Ward defends physic as the most necessary learning, and presents the book, printed in French by Christopher Plantin of Antwerp, under Bedford's protection.
The preface in its first English printing. The aged Alexis explains why he is publishing remedies he once guarded jealously: a poor artisan in Milan died of the stone after Alexis refused to give his cure to the surgeon, and in remorse he resolves to give all his tested secrets to the world.
Medicine: a liquor to preserve youth and hold back old age, potable gold, oils of St John's wort and of scorpions, and remedies for wounds, poisons, worms, the falling sickness, the stone, pleurisy, sciatica, the king's evil and, at length, the plague.
Perfumery: sweet waters; oils of orange, jasmine, nutmeg, benzoin and storax; scented powders for chests and coffers; musked soaps, pomanders and hippocras; perfumes for chambers, lamps and gloves; and powders to clean the teeth.
Confectionery: how to purify honey and sugar, candy oranges, citrons, peaches, walnuts, gourds and cherries, make quince paste, and mould a sugar paste into fruits and other dainties for the table.
Cosmetics: waters to whiten and colour the face and take away spots and sunburn, rouges, dyes to make the hair golden or black, ointments to make hair fall off, and powders and conserves to whiten the teeth and fasten the gums.
Colours and dyes: azure, lake and rosette; dyeing bone, wood, skins, leather and bristles; gilding parchment, the edges of books and iron; letters of gold and silver without gold or silver; inks for writing and printing; and varnish.
Metals and stones: subliming quicksilver, making cinnabar, borax and aqua fortis; casting medals in moulds of six kinds of earth; gilding iron, copper and silver; counterfeiting diamonds, rubies and emeralds; and calcining silver and talc.