Sales catalogue: Maggs Bros

Date:
1930s
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/13/259
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sales catalogue: Maggs Bros. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    14TH CENTURY. [24] ARISTOTLE. Aristotle Secreta Secretorum—Ejusdem de Pomo Tractatus. Together with: GILLES OF ROME (Aegidius Romanus). De Regimine Principum cum Tabula Edita a Fratre Johanne de Drayton. Latin manuscript on 203 leaves of vellum; double columns. Some ornamental capitals in blue and red; headings to chapters in red. Folio. Original oak boards, covered with brown russia leather. [England, XIVth Century. | £150 A rare specimen, written by English scribes. The Tabula to the Aegidius by the London Augustinian Friar, John Drayton, is probably unique. No other work by this author is known, and the present manuscript is in all probability the identical one mentioned by Tanner as formerly in the possession of Sion Monastery. There is an autograph inscription’ on the fly-leaf: “ Liber Johannis Humfrey,” in a fifteenth- century hand. 1373 av. [3] PAULUS DE VENETIIS. Sumule naturalium. Latin Manuscript on Pharmacopoeia and natural philosophy, written in Gothic script, double columns, on paper, with decorative border in red and black. Folio. Morocco. 1373 A.D. £75 The above work contains interesting sections on :— 1. Astrology. 2. Grains and the mixing of ointments. 3. THE INFLUENCE OF THE STARS ON THE ORGANIC MOISTURE OF THE HUMAN BODY. 4. Receipt for special wine to be drunk during Lent. It is interesting to note that this work was first published at Ratisbon in 1476 (Hain No. 12516), over a hundred years after the manuscript had been penned according to the Colophon by Fr. Petrus de Sto. Amore (presumably a fellow Augustinian of Paul of Venice). That the philosophy which absorbed the attention of Aristotle was congenial to Paul, is shown by the fact that this manuscript, which comprises astrology and discourses on the more philo- sophical aspect of physics, was written some years before his commentaries on Aristotle earned for him the contemporary sobriquet of “the most brilliant prince of philosophers.” GREEK Manuscript oF THE First Marerta MeEpica. cA. 1450 A.D. [4] DIOSCORIDES (Pedacius). Materia Medica. Greek manuscript of 15th Cent. on 234 Il. of paper. Initials in red and black. 4to, old limp vellum, with flap. £75 Wants dl. 123, 124, 228, and is not quite complete at_end, otherwise a well-written and well- preserved paanuccripiren tite nee ie “‘Pedacius Dioscorides, THE ORIGINATOR OF THE MATERIA MEDICA, was a Greek army surgeon in the service of Nero (54-68 A.D.) and utilized his opportunities of travel in the study of plants. His work is the authoritative source on the materia medica of Antiquity, of which he describes about 600 plants and plant-principles, over a hundred more than Theophrastus. As Theophrastus was the first scientific botanist, so DioscormpEs WAS THE FIRST TO WRITE ON MEDICAL BOTANY AS AN ~ APPLIED SCIENCE. His first book deals with aromatic, oily, gummy, or resinous plant products; the second with animal products of dietetic and medicinal value and with cereals and garden herbs; the third and fourth, with the other medicinal plants. His classification was qualitative, as in a materia medica, rather than botanical, but, like Theophrastus, he recognized natural families of plants before Linnaeus, Adanson, and Jussieu. His descriptions were followed, “word by word,” for sixteen centuries, and his book, says Greene, has been more attentively studied by [2]