VAKHTANG VI’S “COLORED GLASSES” AND EUROPEAN BAROQUE GLASS IMITATIONS OF GEMSTONES: SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE AND CULTURAL TRANSFER ACCORDING TO AN 18TH-CENTURY GEORGIAN MANUSCRIPT

Abstract

The article examines the recipes for “colored glasses” (§§ 216–232) presented in Vakhtang VI’s chemical treatise Book of Mixing Oils and Chemistry Making (18th century). Based on terminological, textual, and comparative-historical analysis, it is demonstrated that these recipes are connected with the European technological tradition of producing glass imitations of gemstones.

The aim of the study is to place Vakhtang VI’s text within the context of Baroque-era glass technology, to determine its relationship to European sources, and to clarify whether the text represents direct borrowing, adaptation, or compilation. For this purpose, the text is compared with Giovan Battista della Porta’s Magia Naturalis (1558), Antonio Neri’s L’Arte Vetraria (1612), and Johannes Kunckel’s Ars Vitraria Experimentalis (1679).

The study includes an analysis of terminology, systems of weights, and the compositional structure of the recipes. Significant parallels have been identified between Vakhtang VI’s text and Antonio Neri’s glass recipes, particularly in relation to lead-silicate glasses, the use of pigments, and the organisation of the recipes. At the same time, it has been established that the text does not reflect the full picture of the development of European glass technology: it does not include certain important innovations, including high-lead glass (flint glass), technologies for producing “strass”, and the specific features of Bohemian glass production.

The study demonstrates that Vakhtang VI’s text represents an important example of the selective adaptation and cultural transfer of Baroque-era scientific and technological knowledge within the Georgian intellectual sphere.

Keywords: Vakhtang VI; glass imitations of gemstones; colored glass; glass technology; knowledge transfer; Baroque era; Georgian manuscripts.