azure

Ingredients

azure, quickesiluer, sulphur ^brymston^

Preparation Steps

Original Recipe Text

For to make all men in a howse to havee too heddes / Take a quantyte of azure and as moche of quickesiluer and as moche of sulphur ^brymston^ and put these iij together in a brynnyng lampe and euery man shall seme þat he hathe too heddes (p. 266).

Evidence

"Take a quantyte of azure and as moche of quickesiluer and as moche of sulphur ^brymston^ and put these iij together in a brynnyng lampe and euery man shall seme þat he hathe too heddes"

Remarks

Found in MS Ashmole 1389, a 'scruffy early Tudor collection of recipes' (p. 264). This recipe is identified as a 'marvellous' or 'playful' instruction that uses the blue pigment azure in combination with quicksilver and sulphur. The ingredients are placed in a burning lamp to create a visual illusion within a domestic space ('a howse'), making observers appear to have two heads (p. 266). The text characterizes such entries as 'carnivalesque' and 'metamorphic', blurring the line between medical practicality and entertainment (p. 263-265).