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Theophilus
Spanish
Gold |
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Original: NFS
Paper, watercolor, and red ink
This is one of my first calligraphy
attempts, and the letters are only 1/16 inch high. I wrote them
with a goose quill back in the mid 1980's
This miniature painting is a chapter
from the ca 1100 AD arts treatise by the German monk Theophilus.
The recipe is for making an artificial gold in the method used
by the heathens in Spain, namely the Moors. I don't know what
he was thinking, but it is a HOOT! You have to feed roosters so
much that they get fat and lay eggs. Then the eggs are put in
a stone lined pit and hatched by toads. This produces Basilisks,
which are then burnt in a perforated urn, their ashes mixed with
some vinegar and the blood of a red-headed man, and the resulting
concoction spread onto copper plates. The plates are placed in
a fire and a golden crust develops.
Easy, eh? Poor little Basilisks.
We had one hatch back at my old house. One day my ex-wife woke
up and found a hen's egg in the planter in the bathroom. Over
the course of several days a ceramic toad was seen sitting on
the egg. One day she woke me up to tell me that the egg had hatched
and there were little chicken like foot prints all over the counter.
We looked, but we couldn't find him.
Sadly, the next day the footprints
got too close to the sink. A smudge showed that the little guy
must have slipped down the drain. I just hope he is doing well
down there in the sewers of Ann Arbor.
