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 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.<ref>Marshall, Alan. “Waller, Sir William (c.1639–1699).” Alan Marshall In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online ed., edited by Lawrence Goldman. Oxford: OUP. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28562 (accessed May 29, 2014).

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.