I recently took part in a workshop run by the Early Modern Dress and Textiles Research Network where we took published recipes from the Renaissance for perfumes and cosmetics and attempted to reconstruct them. This was very successful in demonstrating the relative ease with which many of the basic processes described could have been undertaken with limited equipment and facilities. It also made it clear that the difficulties lay less in the recipes themselves than in the sheer cost of the ingredients required and in quality control (substances such as musk and ambergris were frequently adulterated).
We also discussed the role of perfumes and cosmetics at court and here's an extract from my presentation on that topic. "Courts were one of the most prominent sites of practical alchemy, medical distilling and experimental practice. Take Florence for example. The Medici were at the forefront of such research and medical secrets—and anti-poison antidotes and Medici cures (with accompanying recipes) produced in the ducal Fonderia were part of the currency of diplomacy and were frequently exchanged as gifts with relatives, friends, agents, ambassadors, cardinals and rulers all over Europe. This was an operation on an industrial scale and the Medici even printed batches of hundreds of recipes and instructions for use for their trademark cures. Perfumes & cosmetics entered into this ‘economy of exchange’ –and the Medici correspondence contains numerous requests for ingredients and exchange of recipes, notably for gloves and scented waters to and from elite women (engaged in devising their own recipes & blends). Also, to supply court needs, Grand Duke Ferdinando salaried a full-time perfumer (Marco) in the Fonderia (1588) alongside expert distillers.
Those in pursuit of patronage frequently offered trade secrets to courts. One fascinating example concerning perfumes relates to Mantua. In April 1571, the Spanish doctor Giovanni (Juan) Pacheco wrote directly to Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga asking to present at court, one Gerolamo Liotto, an engraver. Liotto he had met in Venice, employing him in the printing of his latest book and he had discovered Liotto possessed several valuable secrets. The first and most important, already revealed to the Holy Roman Emperor in Vienna, Liotto had inherited from his father. This was a technique to unspike an artillery piece in no time. The other secrets he offered were to extract aromatic oils from cinnamon, cloves and flowers, ‘without any liquor’ and to produce musk oil. The request was eventually granted. This case is an important reminder that when it came to trade secrets (as noted by Deborah Harkness in Elizabethan London) "there was no necessary connection between how one made a living and what one knew".
