Saint Albertus Magnus (d. 1280)

Liber mineralium. Books I and II only and one page of Book III. (There are five Books comprising the published original).

Written in a small neat humanistic hand, 28 lines to a page.

Fol. 1 (Beginning of Book I) BEATI ALBERTI MAGNI GERMANICI PHILOSOPHI /CELEBERRIMI MINERALIVM LIBER INCIPIT ET/PRIMO DE LAPIDIBVS LIBER PRIMVS FOELICITER [D]E COMMIXTIONE et coagulatione similiter autem et conge/latione et liquefactione ... to fol. 39 (End of Book II) ... sed quedam portio/nes de libro excepte deuenerunt.

Fol. 39v (Beginning of Book III) TEMPVS autem est nunc [consequenter] de metallorum naturis inquirere post la/pidum inuestigationem... line 28 ... in communi querentes quicumque de natura metallorum uidebuntur esse inquirenda Libro complebimus. Only one page of text from book three is in this manuscript.

c.1475

1 volume 2 ll. + 39 ll. folio. 30 x 20 1/2 cm. 18th cent. limp vellum covers. Verso of last leaf slightly rubbed, some headings and text badly faded.

Purchased 1934.

This work was first printed at Padua in 1476. On the second fly-leaf is a note in pencil 'Alberti Magni MS. 1474', but no date can be found in this manuscript as it exists at present. On the first fly-leaf is a signature 'Barba' by an early 17th cent. hand, which may possibly be that of Alvaro Alonso Barba, the metallurgist and author of 'Arte de los metales', Madrid, 1640.

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).

This material has been digitised and can be freely accessed online through Wellcome Collection catalogue.