St John's College I.37 (James 330)

Treatises on experimental and observational science. Latin, 1623

According to Cowie, this is 'evidently the common-place book of a student at Rome, at the beginning of the 17th century'

'De Sphaera ... dictante per Horatio Grassi [SJ, d. 1654], 1623 / Scribente Edm: [cut away] Auditore' (fo. 1r).
'De Machinis Spiritalibus ... Per Horatii Grassi, anno 1623' (fo. 20r).
'Tractatus per Vincentiis Araneas / In Librum II Meteororum' (fo. 35r). 'Finis Meteoroni' 1623' at fo. 54v.
'De Fortitudine opusculum imperfectum ... Angeli Gallutii' (fo. 59r).
'Disputatio Brevis de Virtutibus in Co'i Quaestio Prima, Auctore P. Cochilio' (fo. 66r).
'Disputatio Unica De contractibus ... per R. P. Fr: Picolominium SIS' (fo. 83r). This is Fransisco Piccolomini, Professor at Padua from 1561 to 1601. Again, it seems as if the writer's name, or some other information, has been cut away from the top right corner of the first folio.

Manuscript extra information

138x102 mm. 187 fos (modern foliation, fos 31-4, 55-8, 73-82, 186-7 blank). College bookplate (eighteenth century) inside front cover. 'MSS 126' inside front cover. On second flyleaf, in Thomas Baker's hand: 'Liber olim ornatiss: Viri Tho: Wagstaff' and 'Tho: Baker dedit Coll: Jo: Socius ejectus'.

A single hand throughout, with few alterations or corrections, and with many interesting mathematical diagrams and illustrations of apparatus, drawn in the same hand. Paper. Contemporary limp vellum binding; formerly with two pairs of ties. The spine title is now so worn as to be illegible.