Ourches, Louis Charles d' (1662-1728)

Bigarures. Author's holograph MS. Illustrated by numerous pen-drawn diagrams and figures, water-colour designs, sketches and symbolic pictures. The MS. is an extraordinary compilation of tracts on painting, drawing, design, horology, emblems, history-especially as regards Lorraine, etc. There are also notes on cryptography, anagrams etc.: some in Latin. Interspersed among these, are fables and pieces in verse, with many prayers and pious ejaculations-the author being apparently a victim to religious mania, and the work is one of great eccentricity throughout. Pp. 300-310 contain a genealogy of the D'Ourches family, and there are other entries on the same topic.

1705-1714

1 volume 1 l. + 942 pp. folio. 311/2 × 20 cm. Original calf binding; worn, back-strip damaged. The first two leaves and the last six are frayed at the margins: the last leaf is pasted down on to the cover.

Purchased 1909.

Database description transcribed from S.A.J. Moorat, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts on Medicine and Science in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library (London: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1962-1973).

A very faded and indistinct note inside the upper cover states that this MS. was given to the (unnamed) owner by the Will of the author who died in 1728.