RUPESCISSA, Johannes de (c. 1300-c. 1365)

De consideratione quintae essenti[a]e rerum omnium, opus sanè egregium. Arnaldi de Villanova Epistola de sanguine humano distillato. Raymundi Lullii Ars operativa: & alia quaedam ... Nunc primum in lucem data. Accessit michaelis Savonarolae Libellus optimus de aqua Vitae, nunc valde correctior quam ante annos 27. editus. Item Hieronymi Cardani Libellus de Aethere, seu Qunta essentia Vini

Basle: no publisher's name or date, ascribed to Heinrich Petri and Peter Perna by VD16, [1561?].
8vo: a--y8 (blank y7 present, blank y8 lacking), 175 of 176 leaves, pp. 341 [9], (errata on y6r, y6v--y7v blank). Roman letter with Italic headings and errata. Woodcut initials. Leaf size and condition: 153 x 90mm. Hole in b8 repaired with loss of several letters and the leaf remargined; washed and pressed, paper slightly discoloured. Binding: Nineteenth-century polished calf, gilt spine, top edge gilt. Upper joint cracked but sound. Provenance and annotation: Traces of early annotation on a few leaves and final blank, largely washed out and illegible; nineteenth-century engraved armorial bookplate with initials A. L. S. and quotation 'Beatus homo quem tu erudieris domini'. Walter Pagel (1896--1983); B. E. J. Pagel (1930--2007). References: VD16 J691; Adams R944; Wellcome 5646; Rogent and Duràn 100.
First edition of the original text, edited by Gugliolmo Grataroli whose dedication to the emperor Ferdinand is dated 1561: a much altered version had been printed in 1514 and 1518 (see Lull, De secretis naturae, no. 66 above).
§ The first systematic application of chemistry to medicine. Rupescissa's 'fifth essence' is spirit of wine. He describes several processes for distilling wine and gives descriptions of its therapeutic powers. Rupescissa declared 'that a fifth essence is not only obtainable from wine, but from all other things as well, and thus generalizing the fifth essence as a chemical species, he was propounding a doctrine which was to assume the first rank in the chemistry of the sixteenth century' (Multhauf pp. 364--5). It was Rupescissa, both physician and alchemist, who seems to have been the first to take the major step of 'the wholesale transfer of the paraphernalia of alchemy into medicine' (Multhauf, p. 367). In the field of alchemy 'This work possessed a marked individuality both in expression and arrangement, distinguishing it from other medieval alchemical treatises, and it created a correspondingly profound and wide impression.' (Thorndike pp. 355--6). In his DSB article on Paracelsus, Pagel notes that it is not easy to decide to what extent Paracelsus had been anticipated by the Lullists, and by Rupescissa, especially in regard to the preparation of potable metals and quinta essentia (DSB 10:308a). Apparently born in Catalonia, Rupescissa studied philosophy at Toulouse before entering the Fransiscan order at Auriac in Aquitaine. He was imprisoned several times for his prophecies of the coming of the antichrist and the future of church and state. Rupescissa's text is followed by works attributed to Arnaldus de Villanova and Raymond Lull, but not the tract by Cardanus eroneously advertised on the titlepage. The Lullian works include Ars operativa medica (Peirera I.6, first printed in 1523). Literature: Thorndike gives a long account of Rupescissa and his works and the surviving MSS (III, pp. 347--369, 725--740, see especially pp. 355--565 for an analysis of the content of De consideratione quintae essentiae); Robert P. Multhauf, 'John of Rupescissa and the Origin of Medical Chemisty', Isis 45 (1954) 359--367.

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