2020 Essays

Avoiding 'Fleas' and Green Skies: Varnishes in Ms. Fr. 640

Bol, Marjolijn

Ms. Fr. 640 contains more diverse and detailed instructions for the making of varnishes than any other sixteenth-century text. The varnish recipes in Ms. Fr. 640 are wide-ranging, from the protection of metals from corrosion, to the rain proofing of ephemeral festive decorations, to an ingredient in printer’s ink, to the imitation of other materials such as coral and gold, to the perhaps best known use of historical varnishes today, as coatings for easel paintings. This essay shows why the remarks and recipes in Ms. Fr. 640 about varnishes are of inestimable value in chronicling a previously unrecognized shift in the ingredients, preparation, uses, and aims of varnishes from the middle ages through the seventeenth century.