Rafał Hryszko

The article is a commentary on the Chapter 13 of Lumen apothecariorum, written in 1492 by Quirico de Augustis, a Piedmontese physician and apothecary, who lived at the turn of the 16th century. This chapter was published in Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego. Prace Historyczne, vol. 149 (2022), no. 2. At the beginning, the author analyses the content of this chapter, entitled De artificio zuchari (On sugar craft), and characterises the typology of 31 recipes for sweets. Next, he presents the ingredients of sweets manufactured on the basis of these recipes, methods recommended for sugar processing, and the tools used for this purpose. In the next section the author focuses on probable sources of Quirico de Augustis’ inspiration and the impact of his recipes for sweets on other collections of recipes in the 16th century. The final section is devoted to the discussion of the importance of this source in the studies on the early Renaissance Italian and European confectionery. The author emphasises the fact that the first person to specifically address the area of confectionery production and to collect the recipes for different types of sweets in a separate chapter was Quirico de Augustis (in his work entitled Lumen apothecariorum) and not Paulo Suardo (in his work entitled Thesaurus apothecariorum, published in Milan in 1496). Thanks to its numerous editions, translations and citations, Chapter 13 of Quirico de Augustis’ Lumen apothecariorum exerted a great impact on the European confectionery in modern times. The evidence of this impact can be noticed in the fact that all 31 recipes from the chapter De artificio zuchari were included in the Polish version Sekrety Aleksego Pedemontana (The Secrets of the Reverend Maister Alexis of Piedmont), published by Marcin Siennik in Cracow in 1568.

The author of the article discusses the issue of manufacturing and production of sweets in Poland at the end of the 14th century. This little-known matter was presented against the background of the changes that occurred in confectionery consumption in Western Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries. The article discusses the ingredients of confectionery products in Poland at the end of the 14th century with a special emphasis on types of sugar and various spices as well as kinds of sweets, divided into the confectes (hard products such as drops and filled candy) and the electuaria (soft products that resembled present-day preserves). The issues of the ways of supplying sugar and transferring the confection manufacturing knowledge in the late medieval Poland were considered separately. The author also focused his attention on confectioners (including Andrzej, the royal apothecary master, on top of the list) and the methods they used for sweets production. The article also tries to answer the questions of who the sweets consumers in Poland were, and on what occasions the sweets were consumed.

For a better understanding of old confectionery it is necessary to turn to pharmaceutical sources. The book by the Piedmontese physician and apothecary Quirico de Augustis entitled Lumen apothecariorum, published in Turin in 1492, is one example of this kind of work. It was printed many times at the turn of the 16th century, and in later centuries it became one of the basic sources of apothecaries’knowledge in the area of manufacturing both medicines and sweets. The Polish translation includes the 13th chapter taken from the aforementioned work, titled “De artificio zuchari.” The 24 recipes include instructions for preparing different types of candies, candied fruit, jam, marzipan, and jelly. The author also listed seven detailed instructions on how to colour sugar to various hues and how to mould sugar mass into specific shapes resembling people, animals, and objects.