<p style='text-align: justify;'>Cambridge, Trinity College, MS O.2.22 (hereafter MS O.2.22) is a small alchemical manuscript of 46 leaves written mostly by a single scribe in England in the 16th century. It contains a mix of alchemical treatises, and short alchemical notes and recipes written in Latin and Middle English in the allegorical prose typical of the late-medieval and early-modern texts in the genre.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Despite its small format, MS O.2.22 is a rather difficult book to navigate as the leaves have been misbound and the original order of the texts is now significantly disrupted. However, it is fortunate that the manuscript contains partial sequences of folio numbers and leaf signatures, which, in combination with close reading of the texts, allow for the original order of the leaves to be reconstructed. The original order of the leaves is as follows: ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(9);return false;'>1-8</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(37);return false;'>15-16</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(25);return false;'>9-10</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(93);return false;'>43-46</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(29);return false;'>11-14</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(41);return false;'>17-26</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(69);return false;'>31-34</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(61);return false;'>27-30</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(77);return false;'>35-42</a>. </p><p style='text-align: justify;'>This has been reconstructed through two methods, beyond simply reading the text in the volume. First, the original order of the leaves can be partly determined through the use of the incomplete foliation sequence in early-modern ink in the upper outer corner of approximately half of the rectos in the volume, see e.g., the present f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(25);return false;'>9r</a> which has the ink designation '11'. Second, details about the original order of the leaves can be further developed through examination of the the leaf signatures in ink in the lower outer corners of the rectos on the present ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(45);return false;'>19-34</a> which run 'A-H', 'N-Q', 'I-M', which indicate that the present ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(61);return false;'>27-30</a>, which have the designations 'N-Q', are misplaced and originally followed the present f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(75);return false;'>34r</a>, which has the leaf signature 'M'. Although the contents of the book are still a little haphazard due to its nature as an alchemical notebook, reconstruction of the original order of the leaves makes the texts significantly more coherent and allows readers to see the original themes and textual and linguistic trends as they occured to the original scribe of the manuscript. </p><p style='text-align: justify;'>It is not clear when the disruption to the original arrangement occurred, but it was possibly when the volume received its <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(1);return false;'>present binding</a> (the typical 'Gale donation' binding), which probably occured in the early 18th century. Indeed, it is possible that prior to the addition of the present binding, the text-leaves may have been unbound, or protected by an informal wrapper, since both the original first recto (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(9);return false;'>1r</a>) and the original final verso (now f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(92);return false;'>42v</a>) are significantly more grimy, stained and torn than the intervening leaves. </p><p style='text-align: justify;'></p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Dr Sarah Gilbert<br /> Project Cataloguer for the Curious Cures in Cambridge Libraries Project<br /> Cambridge University Library</p>
