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Chelsea Rae SilvaWomen, declares the sixteenth-centuryphysician Donatus Antonius de Altomare, “think nothing more unseemly… then whenthey laugh, to show their foule rusty &#38; spotted teeth.” In order to remedythis issue, his text promises to “first shew how we may make [teeth] that areblacke as white as the shining pearles, &#38; then how we may cover with fleshthem that are weake &#38; naked in their gums &#38; how we may make them strong”(London, British Library MS Harley 4349, f. 258v). As Seth LeJacq noted on thisblog backin 2013, the use of remedies would have beenpreferable for late medieval readers wishing to avoid painful surgical procedureslike the one pictured below. A dentist with silver forceps and a string of large teeth, extracting the tooth of a seated man (from London, British Library, MS Royal 6 E VI, f. 503v). Image credit: Wikimedia Commons.Altomare’s pronouncement, and theremedies that follow, attest to the indistinct boundary between cosmetic andmedical arts, and between literary and medical discourse. Ifirst encountered Altomare’s manuscript collection in the British Library lastsummer and have been fascinated by its contents for the better part of a year. Muchof that fascination stems from Altomare’s use of literary techniques likeallusion, personification, and narrative in his discussion of medical andcosmetic care. The cosmetic recipes are grouped together and,unlike the other recipes in the manuscript, read as a continuous passage ratherthan a sequence of distinct texts. Altomare apparently anticipated thepossibility of a reader who might crack open this portion of his medicalcollection to read—linearly,continuously—rather than to learn piecemeal. Perhaps the most interesting ofthese recipes are two deceptively simple ones for dentifricia, or tooth-paste or -powder:“Also of the pumis stone the best &#38; most profitable dentifricia weare prepared as Pliny saith. And the teeth rubbed with the poulder of yvory the teeth were made like yvory as Ovid.” (f. 259)The efficacy of powdered pumice stone isindeed attested to by Pliny’s Historia naturalis,as Altomare’s note promises (on recent explorations of classical skincare, see thisRecipes Projects post). But the second sentence, which appears to mirror thefirst in its citation of an established authority, is in fact doing somethingvery different. Ovid is better-known for his storytelling than his medicalexpertise, though his Medicamina facieifemineae (also called The Art ofBeauty) does include a number of cosmetic recipes. All are for facialcleansers or masks, however, and none make use of ivory or claim to remedydental issues. Instead, I believe, that two-word reference—“as Ovid,” writtenin a later hand than Altomare’s own—alludes to the story of Pygmalion. Ovid’s version of Pygmalion properly begins with the Propoetides, women who became the first sex workers after denying Venus’s divinity. “Losing all sense of shame,” the story goes, “they lost the power to blush, as the blood hardened in their cheeks, and only a small change turned them into hard flints.” A skilled sculptor living in Amanthus, Pygmalion is disgusted by the Propoetides and, by extension, all mortal women. Rather than seek out a partner or a wife, he instead carves a beautifully lifelike statue out of ivory. The statue is so realistic that even Pygmalion himself is half-convinced that it’s a flesh-and-blood woman, and the craftsman falls in love with her. After he prays to Venus, the sculpture is transformed into a living being, and the two are married soonafter.Pygmalion working on his sculpture (from Jean de Meun’s Roman de la Rose; MS NLW 5016D f. 130r). Image credit: Wikimedia Commons.What I’m most interested in is just how thattransformation is effected. Returning home from Venus’s temple, Pygmalion repeatedlykisses and strokes the statue’s body, and the ivory begins to soften like waxunder his fingers. He continues to kiss and touch her, “reaffirm[ing] thefulfilment of his wishes, with his hand, again, and again,” until thetransformation is complete. In other words, it is the repetitive press and rubof flesh against the statue’s ivory which changes it into flesh itself.That’s a surprisingly rich allusion to find ina recipe for tooth powder, but as recentdiscoveries have shown, we can learn a lot from medievalteeth. The touch of Pygmalion’s hand transforms ivory into flesh; so too, the dentifricia recipe suggests, might theapplication of ivory to teeth transform those teeth into ivory themselves. Thattwo-word note, “as Ovid,” may allude to the events of the Pygmalion story,popular throughout the medieval West because of its presence in texts like Jeunde Meun’s Roman de la Rose. But itmay also work as a promise of efficacy, suggesting to the reader that her teethwill be as beautiful as the ivory maiden’s skin. The latter possibility makes thistwo-word addition an interesting twist on the regimens falsely attributed tovarious noble ladies, like the dietaryof Queen Isabella, in circulation at the time. Thistooth-whitening recipe suggest that the power of celebrity to sell things likeskin care regimens might have extended to literary and mythological charactersas well.  