Rozemarijn Landsman, 9/11/2014, Bread Molding Reconstruction Assignment
**Girolamo Ruscelli, //The secretes of the reuerende Maister Alexis of Piemount ...// (1580)**
Six books - last book containing recipes related to casting
'(y)earth' = material used for molding? Some layer between mold and metal?
various recipes for these earths. No bread or the ingredients thereof mentioned.

pp. 109r-109v: "The manner or order that a man ought to keepe, when he will caste or founde mettalles, or any other thyng.
First you shall laye the mettall, or other worke that you will caste in a dishe of strong Vinegar, salt, and burned strawe: then rubbe it well with your hande, untill it bee cleane: like wise with a rubber or brush. (...) Then take one of the said fine yearthes, well sifted through a fine Sarce, and when you haue well braied it, put it in a platter or greate dish, to the intent that in handlyng it, there go mothyng out, and thou shall moiste it little and little with the water called Magistra , mixyng it well with your handes, and rubbing it so long betwene your handes, that wringyng it, for it maie not weate your hande in pressyng it, nor cleaue unto your hande like paiste, but that it onely holde together a little more or lesse then drie flower or meale, and beeying so wrong in your hand, it maie breake in peeces when you touch it with your finger. (...)"

**Hugh Plat, //The Jewell House of Art and Nature ...// (1594)**
1st book:
50 an excellent cement for broken glasses
92 A cheape morter to be used in buildings

4th book 'art of molding, or casting of any liue bird, or little beast, hearbe, or flower, or of any patterne of mettall, wax, &c. into golde, silver, plaister, &c.'
-- use of Plaster of Paris
(pp. 58-59) "24. Some will molde greate, and curious patternes / in the crumme of fine manchet wel tempered into a past, and pressed hard uppon the patterne, and some commend flower, and the fat of bacon dissolued, and strayned."
Other materials used to cast in: glue, brimstone (then wax-alebaster-metal), artificial wax, powders (of Flaunders)

Vannoccio Biringucci, De la Pirotechnia (transl. ed. 1959)
Book 6: The art of casting in general and particular (pp. 212-278)
pp. 218-220 "On the Requisite Quality of Clay for Making Moulds for Casting in Bronze.
There are many kinds and varieties of earth [terra] that are used for the loam compositions for making the moulds for casting bronze, brass, or other metals. Since this is a very necessary thing, you must try to have the best kind and one that resists the fire well. It must be disposed to receive the metals well, must make a neat casting, and must not shrink or break with cracks on drying or baking. (...)
All earths are either sandy or tufaceous, either argillaceous and lean or pasty with unctuous viscosity. (...) the good ones must be those that are neither (...)." Go to mines, Speaks of colors as perhaps a measure of quality, Etc.

Book 8: The small art of casting (pp. 323-334)
p. 324 "Powders are also made of crushed brick, tripoli, vine ashes, tiles, and glazed drainpipes, or burned emery, calcined tin, straw, and of burned paper and horse dung as well as of young ram's-horn ashes and many other things."