Piscis, Johannes de ( -1433)

Accumulationes receptarum sub brevi compendio. Written in bold lettres bâtardes, 27 lines to a page. Fine illuminated letter F on fol. 1 in blue and gold, with marginal decorations in red and blue. Other initials in alternate red and blue, and blue and red: paragraph marks blue and red alternately, foliation in red.

Fol. i (red) Incipiunt accumulationes Receptarum sub breui / compendio. A magistro Johanne pisis compilatarum. // FEbris fit sepe propter / debilitatem virtutis non potentis / digerere... Fol. clxiii (End) Vsus antidoti emagogi de mane cum vino / conseruat sanitatem in frigida complexione.

This MS. appears to be one of the works mentioned in his entry on 'Jean Piscis' by Wickersheimer in his 'Dictionnaire biographique des médecins en France au moyen âge', p. 464. On the verso of the second fly-leaf is a note on the author in Latin, here named 'Joannes de Pisis', by the same hand.

c. 1425

1 volume 31 x 22 cm. On vellum, 18th cent. calf gilt binding.

The papers are available subject to the usual conditions of access to Archives and Manuscripts material, after the completion of a Reader's Undertaking.

Purchased 1909.

He is called 'Johannes de Piscis' by Sudhoff (Archiv. XVII, pp. 51-53). He was Chancellor of the University of Montpellier from 1394 to his death in 1433, and this MS. may have been written during his lifetime.

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.

Armorial book-plate inside the upper cover inscribed 'E bibliotheca D. Abbatis Fauvel'. On this is written '72 l. en 1744'. On the verso of the first fly-leaf 'Ex Bibliotheca Caroli Ludovici Francisci Andry [1741-1829], Magistri in Medicina, antiqui Professoris / saluberrimae Facultatis in Universitate Alma Parisiensi, e regia Societate Medica Parisiensi / anno 1783. Ex dono Clarissimi [Guillaume] Debure [1734-1820], Bibliopolae Parisiensis simul et Bibliophili'. Later the MS. became part of the famous manuscript collection formed by Jean Baptiste Joseph Barrois [1784-1853], which was purchased en bloc in 1855 by Bertram, 4th Earl of Ashburnham [1797-1878]. The collection was again sold en bloc by the 5th Earl, at Sotheby's 10-14 June 1901, in which this MS. was Lot 308.