De abditis rerum sublimium arcanis libri sex

Joannis Bodini De abditis rerum sublimium arcanis libri sex, quos ex probato MS. vir egregius De Senicour transcripsit anno circiter 1730 Parisiis. The full title of the work was 'Heptaplomeres sive colloquium de abditis, etc.' This work remained in MS. until 1857 when it was published in full by Ludwig Noack of Giessen. It is in the form of a conversation between seven learned men, a Jew (Salomon), a Mohammedan (Octavius), a Lutheran (Fridericus), a Zwinglian (Curtius), a Roman Catholic (Coronaeus), an Epicurean (Senanus) and a Theist (Toralba), and seems to advocate a philosophy of naturalism; it is written in an unusually tolerant spirit, considering the time. On the first leaf is inscribed 'Cet ouvrage a été acheté à la mort de M. De Senicourt la somme de 120 francs, par M. Antoine Nuñes Ribeiro Sanches [1679-1783], Médecin d'Anne, Ivan, et d'Élisabeth Petrovna Impératrice de Russie'. Produced in Paris.

1730

1 volume 197 ll. folio. 32 x 21 cm. Original half-calf binding over wooden boards, both broken.

Purchased 1935.

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).

Library label 'From the Library of Robert [Reynolds] Steele [1860-1944] Wandsworth Common', above which is a note in pencil 'Bought on a bookstall for [price struck out] Robt. R. Steele 1886'.