2020 Essays

Gemstones and Imitation

Kremnitzer, Kathryn; Shah, Siddhartha V.; Smith, Pamela H.

Recipes for the making of gemstones appear in many texts and manuscripts from at least the seventh century BCE onward. Procedures to make gemstones typically involve the application of color to a transparent material, cracking a crystal to allow color to penetrate it, or the making of colored glass. While there are several entries in Ms. Fr. 640 for imitating and/or making use of precious and semi-precious stones, the nine recipes for pierrerie (gemstones) from fol. 100r to fol. 101v form a remarkably cohesive unit that appears to show the author-practitioner at work, gathering information from others, experimenting himself, and hypothesizing about how to overcome his failure. This essay compares his methods to other contemporary texts and considers whether these nine recipes provide clues to the author-practitioner’s identity.