Pour Faire Des Pommes, Ou Balottes Contre La Peste

This recipe comes from a 1564 printing of 'Les Secrets du Seigneur Alexis Piemontois', a towering work of Renaissance home pharmacy and household knowledge often attributed to Girolamo Ruscelli. Printed in Antwerp by the noted printer Christophe Plantin, this collection shared practical advice for life, health, and survival, drawing from both traditional and experimental sources. In a time when the threat of plague loomed large, aromatic pomanders—these 'pommes contre la peste'—were carried as fashionable amulets believed to protect the wearer from miasmas or contaminated air, which people thought spread the deadly disease. The recipe blends exotic spices, gums, precious resins, and flowers, both for their supposed medicinal properties and their ability to mask foul odors.

Early practitioners used a heavy mortar and pestle, sometimes warmed in a fire or with hot water, to soften and blend the sticky, aromatic gums and resins. A brass or stone mortar helped generate both heat and force. Powders were ground with a pestle and sieved for fineness. Liquids such as storax liquida or rose water were gently poured in, drop by drop, to bring the ingredients together. Once mixed, the paste was shaped by hand—sometimes in molds, sometimes freeform—into rounded pomanders or small balls, to be worn on the body or placed in rooms for air purification.