Rare sixth edition of the Dutch translation of an immensely popular book of secrets, compiled by Alexis of Piedmont. It is generally supposed that Piedmont is the pseudonym of the Italian humanist Girolamo Ruscelli (1500-1566), since Ruscelli mentions in a later work that he and other humanists had founded an "Academy of Secrets" that had published the Secreti. "Books of secrets and experiments had been prominent in medieval manuscripts and were to flare forth again in the second half of the [16th] century in the Secreti of Alessio of Piedmont, of which Ferguson listed 56 edition between its first appearance in 1557 [in Venice] and the end of the century" (Thorndike). It gives numerous "secrets", ranging from how to dye leather, to how to cure sick horses, clean paintings and whiten teeth. Besides these more convenient secrets, there are some occult passages, informing the reader how to dream wildly or how "to write letters on someone's skin that can never be removed". "No treatise better illustrates the popular or household practice of applied chemistry, of the arts, and of medicine..." (Ferguson).
With a bookseller's ticket on paste-down. Somewhat browned, with a waterstain in lower right corner throughout, not affecting text, and some occasional spots and ink blots. A good copy. J. Ferguson, "The secrets of Alexis: a sixteenth century collection of medical and technical receipts" in: Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine XXIV (1930), pp. 225-246; STCN (2 copies); Thorndike V, p. 147 & VI, pp. 215-216; WorldCat (3 additional copies).