Educational sammelband circa late 17th century

This article describes the provenance, contents, and provides selected transcriptions from the manuscript portions of this collection--the Visus Libelli. For further details, please consult this item's Hamnet record V.a.615.

Provenance

Sir William Waller (c. 1639-1699) was a politician and his tutor was the likely compiler of this sammelband. Waller's Visus Libelli brought together the disparate portions of this combination of manuscript and printed works to supplement his Grand Tour he took with his tutor during 1656.

About the sammelband

Visus Libelli contains printed extracts from at least sixteen printed educational titles, mostly in Latin, which are then framed by manuscript prefatory and postscript material, curricula, and a table of contents. Its size was one of its chief assets. Instead of having to travel with an entire library of text books devoted to mathematics, medicine, languages, theology, and astronomy, a tutor could carry a single, very rotund, duodecimo. The compiler provides a unique window into the intended use of his work, and into the needs of tutors on the Grand Tour, which had its beginnings in England at the time that he compiled the book.

Sammelband contents

[ALSTED, Johann. Methodus Admirandorum Mathematicorum Novem Libris...]. [Liber 3] Geometriam, pp. 98-144, 4 tables; [Liber 4] Cosmographia pp. 145-168, 11 plates and plate of music; Liber Quintis Uranoscopiam pp. 169-248.

Galtruchii Tabulae Mathematicae, figures [i.e., GAUTRUCHE, P. Mathematicae totius...ca.1668

[Jonas] Moore's Fortification Tables [i.e., Mathematical compendium, ca. 1674] Begins: Chapter I, Of a Perpetual Kalendar or Almanack, pp. 1-[120].

[FARNABY, Thomas] Farnabii Poeticae Phrases Selectae [various, interleaved].

[Jonas] Moore's Mathematical Manual [i.e., Mathematical compendium].

[COMENIUS, Johann A. Ianua linguarum reserata. Elsevier, 1640s?]. Latin and Greek in parallel columns.

Cartesii Diopticae Figurae.

[HORN, Georg. Orbis Politicus] Pars 3. Complectense Meorabilia totius mundi, pp. 1-114, various insertions.

Contracted Euclid. Isaac Barrow: series of 166 + 39 geometric figures with printed notes.

[SCHMITZIUS, Johann Andreas. Medicinae Practicae Compendium. Geneva, 1659?], pp. 250, with "Salmons anatomical figures" [folded leaf].

[Astrological map; Systema Saturni]

[ALSTED, J.H. Methodus ss. Theologiae in VI libros ?Hanover, 1634, 311 pp.] [Running title] Praecognita Theologica / Systematis Theologica pp. 33-[?280]

Figurae Principiorum et Meteororum Cartesii; figures.

Epitome REgularum Iuris Civilis: 5 ff., 32mo.

[Grammaticae Latine Graecae and Hebraicae compendium, ca. 1665] An introduction to the Latine tongue. 70 pp.; Grammaticae Graecae compendium; Rhetoricae adumbratio; Linguae Hebraicae dileatio; Radices Hebraicae.

Mathematical Tables.

Selected manuscript transcriptions

Title

Visus Libelli

This Vade-Mecum Memorial Ma=

nual of Muses, or Compleate Compen=

dious Complexe and Companion, of

Learned Languages Sciences,

Scarcely another to be seen so short,

small and full, is most fitt and servicea=

ble

(folio 1r)

Selected alternate titles

I. Or a Travelling Tutor

and Disciple abroad, or

else much rising and walking

at home. 1. Because this Little

Library of Learnings and lan=

guages saves the troubles and

paines of carrying and turning

great many book-baggages.

(folio 1r)

7. Makes at last a full Treasure of

heart, mind, memory and iudgement,

without whimsing and confounded

Quack cawdle or hotch-potch:

all in a due Right nature and Or-

der of things, both Old and New

Rarities, by a full heart, and

Ingenious exercised iudgement, not

by a pocked paper, and cunning

Coucheon Copy-hold, or a babbling

Quack spirit.

(folios 1v-2r)

[II.] 5. The young Scholar alone, or

with his more or less Learned Com=

panion, may turn, talk, or Con=

verse together, in and with this

Little Library Companion: till

the Book once will be well

wasted, far above the money-

worth.

(folio 2r)