Ruscelli, Girolamo (1518-1566)
The Secretes of the Reverend Maister Alexis of Piemont: Containyng Excellente Remedies against Diverse Diseases, Woundes, and other Accidentes.
London: Imprinted by Jhon Kyngston for Jhon Wight, 1580.
Quarto, three parts in one volume, separate title page, pagination and collation for each; woodcut printer's devices to each title, Wight's large woodcut device printed on last leaf of each part and title of part three featuring a full-length portrait of the printer holding a book, and the motto, "Welcome the Wight that bringeth such light," in the surrounding oval frame; Ruscelli's text translated from the French into English by William Ward (1534-1609); ex libris John Stuart, 3rd Earl Bute (1713-1792), with his engraved armorial bookplate pasted to verso of title page; bound in full 18th century speckled calf, worn, 7 1/2 x 5 1/2 in.
[Bound with] Ruscelli's A Verye Excellent and Profitable Booke Conteying Sixe Hundred Foure Score and Odde Experienced Medicines, London: John Wight, 1578.
STC 298, ESTC 100106; [and] STC 310, ESTC S100104.
In addition to medical treatments of wounds and diseases, Ruscelli's work includes an almost encyclopedic compendium of practical preparations. His Secretes include, "the manner to make distillations, parfumes, confitures, diynges, colours, fusions, and meltynges." This popular and practical work went through many editions in English in the 16th century. A note on the title page stipulates that the present edition has been, "newlie corrected and amended, and also somewhat enlarged in certaine places, whiche wanted in the firste edition."
