286 Aster History ; BARTHOLOMAEUS 
Much of the puerile in Bartholomaeus * is borrowed from Isido- 
rus, Bishop of Seville in 596, whom he tookas his standard for names, 
and whose name sometimes appears in full as Ysidorus, but usu- 
ally in abbreviated form as Ysi, Ysid, or Ysidor, or disguised as 
Ysyder. From Isidorus he takes his absurd etymologies, as that 
of aster a star from auster the south,* his ‘‘ste//ae, a stando sunt 
dictae,”’ * and his punning explanation of szdera, his third name for 
stars, “ Sydera a considerando dicta,’ + because ‘“ considered by 
mathematicians in making reckonings !”’ 
Little that is new occurs among Bartholomaeus’ plant chapters; 
perhaps the most distinctive so far as name-form goes, are his 
Quisguilia (certain doubtful foreign seeds), his Thimzama (a prep- 
aration made for use at the altar, of galbanum, incense, etc.) and 
his Armonium, from Syria, which appears to be the gum called 
Armoniacum } in Circa instans. 
More familiar names disguised § by his spelling are his Sico- 
first edition in English was of 1495, in black letter and pronounced ‘‘ the most magni 
existing. A copy from the library of the late Henry Newnham Davis sold in London, 
Nov. 1900, for £212. A fourth copy in N.Y. is the Latin edition by Koberger, Nur- 
emberg, 1483; in the N. Y. Public Library. The French translation made 1392 by 
Corbichon, was first printed at Paris perhaps 1480, and six times at Lyons before 1500; 
the first Belgian, 1479, printed by Bartholomaeus de Engelsman ; the first Dutch, 1485, 
the first Spanish 1494, etc. 
* Lacroix’s remarks on Bartholomaeus, although based chiefly on his puerilities, HS 
‘ood an index of the usual modern attitude to him that I quote them: ‘ Another 
recently published selections from Bartholomaeus. 
74, book 8. 
{ Produced from Dorema Ammoniacum Don. 
4 Some of his authors are also well masked ; as his Pictagora for Pythagoras, ie 
medicus for Haly, to say nothing of Ypocras (Hippocrates) and Ysaac, P lat, Dyas; 
and Ysyder, mentioned above, 
