Account of a copy of the first edition of the 'Speculum Majus' of Vincent de Beauvais, 1473 : supplement to 'Notes on books of secrets,' part II / by John Ferguson.

  • Ferguson, John, 1838-1916.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Account of a copy of the first edition of the 'Speculum Majus' of Vincent de Beauvais, 1473 : supplement to 'Notes on books of secrets,' part II / by John Ferguson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    venustus ” applies more accurately to Mentellin’s “ round ” type than to the semi-gothic of the other editions. Maittaire’s copy, he therefore concludes, was of the 62-line edition. I should never think of denying the possibility of a 62-line copy of the S. Naturale, but I should like some more conclusive evidence. Maittaire probably never troubled himself about the not very striking difference between the semi-gothic and the round characters, and the phrase satis venustus seems to me more applicable to the type of the 66-line edition than to Mentellin’s. Moreover, Maittaire calls the character gothic, and part of Desbarreaux- Bernard’s argument against the 66 or 67-line edition being by Mentellin is that Mentellin’s characters are not even semi-gothic but round, and he criticises Van Praet on this very point. Moreover, not one single 62-line copy of the S. Naturale is quoted by any authority, Maittaire included, and the whole passage appears to me to have had its meaning warped for Desbarreaux- Bernard—by his pre-conceived notion of three distinct and entire editions, of which one only is by Mentellin. In the meantime the only conclusion that seems to agree with the facts is that, whether the 66 and 67-line editions were printed by Mentellin or not,1 only the S. Historiale and Morale in the 62-line form can be definitely ascribed to him. If copies of the other portions in the same form should ever be discovered, then Desbarreaux-Bertrand shall have proved this part of his thesis also, but until the actual copies or stronger proofs of their existence are produced, this part of his conclusions can be regarded only as a hypothesis. It is just possible that Mentellin for some reason did not find it necessary to reprint the S. Naturale and Dodrinale at all, but confined himself to the S. Historiale, and added the S. Morale, which had not appeared before. It is a curious confirmation of the view that the common copies (if such a thing can be spoken about) are those not only which have been described in the present paper, but which are best known to every bibliographer—viz., S. Naturale, 66 lines; S. Dodrmale, 67 lines; S. Historiale, 62 lines; S. Morale, 62 lines. Those which occur more rarely 1 That the 67-line one was not, is probably proved by the occurrence of the curious capital R, which is not met with in any acknowledged work by Mentellin. It occurs also in the 67-line edition of the Catholicon, of which very rare work there is a copy in the Hunterian Library.