Beschreibung:

PHYSICIAN'S HANDBOOK: ASTROLOGICAL AND MEDICAL COMPENDIUM, with PILGRIM'S GUIDE FROM LONDON TO JERUSALEM AND ITINERARY OF THE HOLY LAND, and two rhymed treatises, Storie lune and JOHN LYDGATE: For helth of mans body , all texts in Middle English, illuminated manuscript on vellum [England c.1454 and slightly later] 209 x 140mm. 100 leaves, with intermittant pencil foliation in upper right corner skipping one leaf by f.31, apparently COMPLETE, Calendar, diagrams and tables in red and brown, text in 26 lines in brown, all in a cursive anglicana hand, tables etc variously ruled but each page frame-ruled: justification 168 x 102mm, rubrics in red, one-line initials of burnished gold or blue or brown ink flourished with red, texts and tables opening with two-line initials of burnished gold against grounds and infills of blue and dark pink with marginal sprays of red and blue foliage and golden flowerheads on hairline tendrils of brown ink, a marginal dragon drawn in red, line-fillers of burnished gold, MORE THAN FORTY-SIX PAGES OF ASTROLOGICAL AND CALENDAR TABLES AND DIAGRAMS, including two showing LUNAR ECLIPSES IN BURNISHED GOLD AND BLUE, five pages with TWENTY DIAGNOSTIC ILLUSTRATIONS OF SAMPLE FLASKS each framed in gold and with marginal flourishes, TWO FULL-PAGE MINIATURES OF VEIN MAN AND ZODIAC MAN the pilgrim's guide and health treatise in 27 lines with rubrics and one-line initials in red and two-line initials of blue with red flourishing (occasional marginal stains and smudging, slight cropping of some upper borders, smudging and scratching of eclipsed moons, corner missing from f.40, affecting lower frame of zodiac man, small loss from outer margin of f.61, repair to outer margin of f.33). 19th-century brown diced russia gilt (extremities slightly rubbed). A REMARKABLE AND MANUSCRIPT IN MIDDLE ENGLISH, INCLUDING HIGHLY DECORATIVE ILLUSTRATED MEDICAL TEXTS AND AN APPARENTLY UNKNOWN PILGIMAGE GUIDE PROVENANCE: 1. This manuscript is likely to have been made for a practising physician. The fact that it is written in Middle English, rather than Latin, suggests that it was made for the use of a non-university trained practitioner. In 1421 graduate physicians petitioned Parliament to exclude from medicine 'many unconnyng and unapproved in the foresayd science', but it proved impossible to prevent the unlettered surgeons, barber-surgeons, apothecaries and 'leeches' from undertaking the treatment of the sick: R.H. Robbins, 'Medical Manuscripts in Middle English', Speculum , 45 (1970), p.409ff. The fact that this manuscript is unusually richly decorated suggests that it was made for someone, whatever his training, who had already achieved considerable success. 2. Thomas Hill 10 June 1759: his ownership inscription at the head and foot of various axioms on astrology on the first parchment leaf. Amateur sketches of a young lady in 18th-century dress on the verso are likely to date from the time of Hill's ownership. 3. Library of the Dukes of Newcastle, Clumber, Worksop: Sotheby's, 15 February 1938, lot 1129 4. Alan Lubbock: his bookplate inside upper cover CONTENT: Calendar with explanatory introduction stating that it was begun in 1454 and 'compiled and drauyne aftyre the consate and the devyse of Richard ----- ------- of the city of Lincoln' (name only visible under ultra-violet) ff.5-17; Vein man f.18; circular diagrams of the planets and the Pythagorean Sphere with explanation ff.18v&19; tables and instructions for calculating the date of Easter ff.19v-22; multiplication tables f.22v; tables for calculating moveable feasts, the influence and passage of the zodiac, multiplication, eclipses of the moon, the governing of planets ff.23v-31; various texts on the hours of the day and night, the Abbot of St Albans declaration on the Queen's Calendar, the dignities of the planets and a circular diagram on the relationship between the zodiac and the planets 31v-36; Exposition on the signs of the zodiac including Zodiac man on f.40