gems, early lapidaries, Renaissance

“The Miraculous Virtues of Precious Stones for the Health of Human Life” by Scipione Vasolo: A Renaissance treatise on gems as a means to maintain good health without medical intervention. An unpublished miscellaneous manuscript in the Corsinian Library (Corsinianus 901) contains 14 leaves written in a late 16th-century cursive hand, comprising a treatise on precious stones (“gems”) attributed to the authorship of Scipione Vasolo, a little-known late Renaissance writer. This section of the handwritten codex is here edited for the first time, while the following section—dealing with 69 decorative stones (“marbles”) and illustrated with 58 watercolors—is omitted, as it is only an abridged copy of Agostino del Riccio’s Istoria delle pietre (1597), probably compiled in the 17th–18th century. The treatise by Vasolo, dated March 20, 1577, describes the properties attributed to 28 gems to keep people in good health and good spirits, claiming their use to be far more effective than medical treatments, which he asserts often bring men to the brink of death. This short text heavily depends on a series of medieval traditions assembled by Albert the Great, which mix Greco-Roman information on stones—mainly from Pliny the Elder as summarized by Solinus and Isidore—with longstanding beliefs about their medical and magical effects. These traditions trace back to the Alexandrian Greek text attributed to Evax, made available to Latin-speaking medieval Europe through Marbode’s poem on stones and later influenced by Arab sources (e.g., Avicenna). Little original material can be credited to Vasolo beyond his strong opposition to physician-prepared medicines and his unwavering belief in the therapeutic powers of stones. Thus, his brief treatise is more a literary artifact than a scientific work. As such, it should be considered part of the lithotherapy (or crystal healing) tradition—a pseudo-scientific field—rather than a contribution to gemmology in the scientific sense, which ultimately fed into modern mineralogy.