Hillyer Art Library recently added Splendor Solis, a magnificent late-16th-century German treatise on alchemy, to its extensive collection of manuscript facsimiles. 

The original hundred-page manuscript is in the collection of the British Museum. 

The facsimile, published in 2011 by M. Moliero, reproduces the work in its entirety and includes its 22 iconographically complex full-page paintings.

The most famous of these show Glaskolben (glass flasks) at the center of the images surrounded by scenes of late-medieval German town life, with mythological subjects in the upper tier of the images.

The facsimile is accompanied by a volume offering a full translation of the text, a history of the manuscript, and an analysis of each of the paintings.

The call number is SC Art Locked Stacks ND 3399 .T75 2010.

Contact

Barbara Polowy
Hillyer Art Library
bpolowy@smith.edu

Page spread from Splendor Solis, showing the  Glaskolben (glass flask) at the center surrounded by scenes of  late-medieval German town life, with mythological subjects in the upper tier of the images.