120 



NATURAL SCIENCES. 



The numerous treatises and large works on natural history printed in the 

 fifteenth century show how eagerly this science was studied. Those of 

 Albertus Magnus, whether really written by him or only attributed to him, 

 had an immense circulation. The encyclopaedic compilation of Bartholomew 

 Glanvil, " De Proprietatibus Rerum," notwithstanding its deficiencies and 

 errors, was reprinted ten times in Latin and in French, while it was being 

 translated into English, Spanish, and Dutch, to appear almost simultaneously 

 at London, Tolosa, and Haarlem. The excellent work of Peter Crescenzi 

 (" Ruralium Commodorum Libri XII."), which ohtained the honour of passing 

 through fifteen or twenty editions before the close of the fifteenth century, 

 was also translated into several languages. These large folios did not, of 



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Fig. 88. The Sea-Dog. Fac-similo of a Wood Engraving in the " Dyalogue des Creatures ' 

 (Gouda, Gerart Leeii, 1482, in folio). In the Library of 11. AnVbroise Firmin-Didot, Paris. 



course, reach the country-people, to whom some knowledge of natural history 

 was indispensable ; and this knowledge, which they had acquired by practice 

 and tradition, was popularised by the miniatures of the calendars placed in 

 the frontispieces of books of devotion (Fig. 89), and by wood engravings, 

 which also ornamented these calendars. The same subjects were also illus- 

 trated in a quantity of almanacs, the most celebrated of which is the 

 " Compost et Kalendrier des Bergers." 



The usefulness of plates in a book upon natural history was so generally 

 recognised (Fig. 90) that no book upon botany appeared without some wood 

 engravings, which were not always, as may well be supposed, very true to 

 nature. It was at this period that a Lubeck burgomaster called Arndes went 



