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Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Practica (MS M.900).

Accession number
MS M.900
Object title
Practica (MS M.900).
Display Date
ca. 1450.
Created
South Germany, ca. 1450.
Binding
15th-century German red sheepskin over oak boards, blind-tooled in rectangular and diamond-shaped panels, rebacked with lighter- colored sheepskin, lettered on spine Meister Bartholomey Deutsch, metal bosses at centers and corners of covers, missing 1 on back cover; 1 metal and leather clasp.
Credit line
Purchase; Quaritch, with income from the Trust Fund of Lathrop Colgate Harper; July, 1960.
Description
135 leaves (1 column, 27-29 lines), bound : vellum, ill. ; 210 x 140 mm.
Provenance
Dr. E. Falk; Sotheby's sale (London, July 11, 1960, lot 129) to Quaritch; purchased from Quaritch with income from the Trust Fund of Lathrop Colgate Harper in July, 1960.
Notes
Ms. medical manual, written and illustrated in South Germany, ca. 1450.
Texts: 1) Bartholomaeus of Salerno, Practica (in Middle High German translation) supplemented by subsequent popular medical writings (fols. 1-59v; 69v-100); 2) Macer Floridus, De viribus herbarum (in Middle High German translation and with versified prologue: fols. 61-69 - abbreviated form; fols. 100v-118v - longer form, headed Virtutes herbarum); fols. 120-135 comprise an index. (Curt Bühler suggests the dialect is Middle Rhenish, and that the manuscript was written between Koblenz and Bonn, towards mid century)
Decoration: 2 full-page unframed miniatures (fol. 119, personification of Ars medicinalis; fol. 119v, portrait of Hippocrates), 2 historiated initials (fols 1, 120), 4 decorated initials.
M.900 has watermarks: "Lettre P gothique à quatre feuille", Briquet group 8588-8653, closest to 8599, Rhine valley mid-15th century; and "Lettre P gothique simple", closest to Briquet 8571, same place and time.
Script
cursive
Language
Middle High German
Century
Classification