Livre de plantes

A herbal, with short descriptions in Latin, and 192 water-colour drawings of plants, many pasted in. Title within an historiated water-colour panel. Lettered on the spine 'Livres de plantes'. Each of the nine classes into which the plants have been divided has a separate ornamental t.p. On fol. 159, referring to the plant 'Eryngium', the unnamed author writes 'et ego insulis florentem vidi augusto mense anno 1687'. In many cases the French, Italian, and German names of the plants are given from the evidence of the script, the compiler was probably a German.

c. 1685

1 volume 206 ff. (last bl.). folio. 31 x 201/2 cm. Contemporary gilt-stamped calf binding. Ff. 36, 41, 45, 61, 91, 94, 118, 138, 164, 172, 184, 189 are wanting, but the foliation seems to be irregular, and there are some unfoliated leaves: many of the numbers have been lost by cropping when the MS. was bound.

Purchased 1910.

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).