The only surviving Medieval codex of Galician-Portuguese secular poetry ; tracing history through luxury pink colors

The authors would like to thank José Alberto Ribeiro, director of Palácio Nacional da Ajuda, and Cristina Pinto Basto, coordinator librarian, for their generous support and rewarding collaboration. We also wish to acknowledge the Laboratory of Biopolymers—Centro de Investigación en Alimentación y Desarrollo, A.C (C.I.A.D., A.C.), Hermosillo, Sonora, México, for providing the samples of mesquite gum used in this work. This research was funded by the Portuguese Science Foundation (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Ministério da Educação e da Ciência, FCT/MCTES) and co-financed by the ERDF under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007265). Project “Try it and you will see that is true”. Recipes and knowledge from Medieval society to the 21th century”, PID2019-108736GB-I00, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación. R. J. Díaz Hidalgo, posdoctoral UCO 2020, La producción documental y libraría al Ándalus siglos XIII XV, Plan Propio de Investigación de la Universidad de Córdoba; Publisher Copyright: © 2023, The Author(s). ; The Ajuda Songbook is an exceptional illuminated manuscript being the only surviving codex of Galician-Portuguese secular poetry; it was produced in the end of the thirteenth century, beginning of the fourteenth century. The diversity of colors accentuated by the presence of lapis lazuli blue and brazilwood pink, demonstrates the desire to produce a sumptuous manuscript. Pink is, in this context, a luxury color and its identification attests to one of the earliest known occurrences of brazilwood in artworks. Scientific analysis showed, for the light pinks, a different formulation from that found in fifteenth-century books of hours and from all historical reconstructions of these colors prepared to date. This knowledge was used to further expand a database previously built in our laboratory and applied to the characterization of pink shades in the Ajuda Songbook. Thirteen brazilwood recipes were selected from seven Medieval treatises and reference materials were prepared based on such ...