Dutch and Latin "secrets" of copyists and illuminators.

4to (21 x 15,5 cm), [180] ff., paper, Dutch and Latin, expertly written in black and red ink by various hands (top edge of final ff. frayed, occasional traces of use).

Contemp. limp vellum, flat spine (def. and stained, endpapers lifted or gone). In good condition.

Extraordinary and exciting collection - probably the most extensive of its kind - of recipes for writing and illumination of manuscripts, written at the very end of the Golden Age of manuscript illumination - dated in a tiny hand at bottom of f. [100]r "Absolutum 28 Junij a(n)no 1570". Various series of recipes for the fabrication of ink, colours and vellum, first in Dutch and then in adapted Latin versions, with headings like "Om te schriuen sonder inck", "Om gout te maken [...] en daer met te wercken metten pinceel off te schryven mette penne", "Hoemen claer francyn [= parchment] maken sal", "Hoemen gronde vander veruen leggen sall", "Om inck te maken", "Ad scribendum cum auro vel argento", "Modus faciendi incaustum", "Modus terendi Rubricam valde bonus quem habent fr(atr)es in Dauentria in domo domini Florentij" [f. [48]r - a reference to practices in the Deventer Heer Florenshuis of the Modern Devotion), “De instrumentis scribendi” (f. [82]v) and "Golt in die boerden vande(n) boecken" (f. [97]v - on border gilding). Among these technical recipes are occasionally inserted some medical recipes as "Tant sweer", "Luse doen vergaen", "Tegen dronckenschap" (against drunkenness).
Elaborate calligraphic initial on f. [3]r partly cut loose. Fragments of a medieval Latin religious manuscript used as support of the binding structure at the lower hinge.
Prov. "Mathias Hermani spauwensis me utitur a° 1570" (top f. [1]r). - "Joannes Esselen ex Colen 1788" (at beginning and end).