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{{Imported from Wikipedia|Liber Ignium}}
The '''''Liber Ignium ad Comburendos Hostes''''' (translated as '''''On the Use of Fire to Conflagrate the Enemy''''', or '''''Book of Fires for the Burning of Enemies''''', and abbreviated as '''''Book of Fires''''') is a medieval collection of recipes for [[incendiary weapons]], including [[Greek fire]] and [[gunpowder]], written in [[language::Latin]] and allegedly written by a certain '''Marcus Graecus''' ("Mark the Greek")—a person whose existence is debated by scholars. The work has been subjected to numerous academic analyses, resulting in contradictory conclusions vis-a-vis origin and influence on its contemporaries.<ref name="Part5860">Partington, James Riddick. A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998, pp. 58-60</ref><ref name="NeedhamLu1987">{{cite book|author1=Joseph Needham|author2=Gwei-Djen Lu|author3=Ling Wang|title=Science and civilisation in China|year=1987|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-30358-3|pages=39–41}}</ref>

One of the most influential studies of the ''Liber Ignium'' was conducted by Marcellin Berthelot which is cited in 20th century works on the topic.<ref name="Part5860"/><ref name="NeedhamLu1987"/>

== Contents ==

The ''Liber Ignium'' is a collection of 35 recipes without any internal classification, as it was typical of "secret recipe" list of the era.<ref name="Part5860"/> Of these, 14 are related to warfare, 11 with lamps and lights, 6 with the prevention and treatment of burns, and 4 with the preparation of chemicals, chiefly saltpetre (potassium nitrate). Some recipes were found to be worthless.<ref name="NeedhamLu1987"/>

Recipe no. 14 contains advice for the harvesting and processing of saltpeter. In Berthelot's interpretation, it says: "saltpeter is a mineral of the earth, and is found as an efflorescence on stones. This earth is dissolved in boiling water, then purified and passed through a filter. It is boiled for a day and a night and solidified, so that transparent plates of the salt are found at the bottom of the vessel."<ref name="NeedhamLu1987"/> Furthermore, there are four recipes (nos. 12, 13, 32, and 33) that describe mixtures resembling gunpowder.<ref name="NeedhamLu1987"/>

==Origins and influence on contemporaries==

The premillennial Byzantine Greek origin of the text has been rejected by scholars, who date it to the late 13th&nbsp;century.<ref>Partington, James Riddick. ''A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder'', The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998, p. 43</ref><ref name="Chase2003">{{cite book|author=Kenneth Warren Chase|title=Firearms: a global history to 1700|year=2003|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-82274-9|page=58}}</ref><ref name="DeVries1992">{{cite book|author=Kelly DeVries|title=Medieval military technology|year=1992|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=978-0-921149-74-3|page=143}}</ref><ref name="NeedhamLu1987"/><ref>Chisholm, Hugh (ed.) ''Gunpowder'', [[Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition|Encyclopædia Britannica]], 1910, p. 724</ref> Study of the text has suggested that it was originally translated from [[Arabic]], possibly by a person from Moorish Spain.<ref name="Jixing">Pan, Jixing. ''On the Origin of Rockets'', [[T'oung Pao]], Vol. 73, pg. 5–6</ref><ref>Partington, James Riddick. A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998, p. 42</ref><ref>Dana, Charles E., Notes on Cannon-Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, ''Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society'', Vol. 50, pg. 149</ref>

The influence the ''Liber Ignium'' had on [[Roger Bacon]] and [[Albertus Magnus]] has been debated. Early scholars like the 18th-century scientist Johann Beckmann thought that both men had read and quoted it, but others have claimed that all three were based on a common source.<ref name="Part5860"/> Iqtidar Alam Khan writes that while the ''Liber Ignium'' contents can be traced back to Arabic and Chinese texts, the work of Bacon appears to represent a parallel tradition, especially because the decoded formulas of Bacon contain considerably less nitrate.<ref name="Buchanan2006">{{cite book|editor=Brenda J. Buchanan|title=Gunpowder, explosives and the state: a technological history|year=2006|publisher=Ashgate Publishing|isbn=978-0-7546-5259-5|pages=51–52|author=Iqtidar Alam Khan|chapter=The Indian Response to Firearms, 1300-1750}}</ref>

== References ==

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