it on what you are working, with a scuilie, so that it spreads. Press everywhere
on it with a sponge, as you work with the paper pulp without glue.
[48] To make cork board for making reliif. Take good writing paper, which is
smooth and with a little glue. Place them between washcloths. Always fo ld
the cloths in fo ur quarters, placing the paper in between. Put it in boiling
water, making sure that it does not become brownish or stained by lye. Then
take it out and let it dry on the grid. When it is a bit dry, you can work
with it. It is best to work with water, so warm that you can just stand to have
your hand in it.
[49] To make letters, big or small, in gold. Take the milky juice of a fig tree
and put as much as you think you need in a dish. Next take good black ink,
which is rich in gum, and put so much of it in that the juice looks black.
Write with it. When the letters are written, you huff on it and immediately
lay the gold on it. Burnish with the tooth, and then rub the letters with
cottonwool and where you have huffed on the ground, the gold will stick
and the rest will be taken off (32).
[50] Another way. Take Armenian bole and grind it with clear water very fine
on the porphyry stone. Let it dry on the stone. Then grind it again with
water and let it again dry on the stone. Then grind it again with the aforesaid
milky juice. When ground, {20r} gather what you have in a horn of glass,
or of glazed earthenware. Temper this so much that it flows from the pen.
[51] To make secret writings. Take well pounded and sieved galls and put it to
soak in water. Let it stand in the water until it settles to the bottom. Four
glasses of this powder go to one glass of water. Write with this water whatever
you want. Take, when you want to read it, vitriol and put it in water, with
which you wet these letters. The letters, which you will be able to read, will
now appear.
[52] To make the blue clothlet. Take a plant which is called turnsole whose
flowers and clustering berries you pick one-by-one. Then you put these in
a mortar, according to the quantity you want to make of it. Crush them and
take the juice out. Put this juice in a glazed bowl and then you take pieces
of cloth that are white and coarse. Then you immerse them in the bowl [with
the juice] and let them soak well in it.
Do this three times, and every time that you that you take it out of this bowl,
you let it dry well on a wooden bench. Before you reach this stage, you have
to find a remote quiet place in the ground, and urinate much in it, six days
befo re you come to make the said turnsole. Then, to place it above the
humidity of this urine, take straw and make a fabric over the urine, and place
the cloths on it. Let it stand fo r at least twenty days above the aforesaid urine
to make it darker and more beautiful.
The best turnsole is made in this way: First, take glair according to the quan
tity you want to make. Yo u may wish to use amounts small enough that the
said turns ole will be {20v} strongly colored. When you want to work with
it, take the glair and put it in a shell or in a small glazed jar. Then take the
turnsole and put some of it in, according to the right proportion and let it
stand [in the glair] fo r an hour. Then press it out with your finger and the
juice that comes out of the clothlet is the turnsole. Always prepare a little bit
at a time because that is better.Notes
- Constraints of space in the present volume made it impossible to publish a true
bilingual text edition (with a transcript of the original printed next to the trans
lation). A copy of my transcript, however, is available upon request. - Merrifield, M. P. 1849. Original Treatises, Dating from the XIIth to the XVIIlth
Centuries on the Arts of Painting in Oil, Miniature, Mosaic, and on Glass; of Gilding,
Dyeing, and the Preparation of Colours and Artificial Gems, Vol. II. London: John
Murray, 325-547. References to the so-called Bolognese manuscript (Segreti per
Wallert 45