[ 208 ] 



III. 



THE -SECEETS OF SALERNO": AN ANCIENT FRENCH :\rANU- 

 SCrJPT IN THE POSSESSION OF THE ROYAL IRISH 

 ACADEMY. 



By M. ESPOSITO, B.A 



ne.n.l DrcEMBEP. !>. 191S. PuMished Mauch 27, 1919. 



The MS. classified '24. G. 8 in tlie Library of the Royal Irish Academy lias 

 never hitherto been described. An account of it would have appeared in due 

 course in the present writer's " Inventaire des anciens inanuscrits francais 

 des bibliotheques de Dublin," but the publication of that work having been 

 8U8pende<l for an indefinite period after the appearance of Part 1 in 1915 

 (ridf "Rex-ne des Bibliotheciues," tome 24, 191-1 [pub. 1915], pp. 185-198, and 

 "Romania," tome 44, 1915, pp. 131-135), it may not be inappropriate to lay 

 before the Members of the Academy a description of this most valuable and 

 interesting MS. 



It is a splendid folio volume, consisting of 202 numbered vellum folios, 

 measuring 342 cms. by 24 cms., written in double columns, with 35 lines to 

 the column. The ruling on each page shows 35 horizontal lines and four 

 vertical ones. The text is the work of one hand, and is in the very best style 

 of early fifteenth -century French handwriting.' The entire M;?. is taken up 

 by one work, a treatise in the French language on Simple Medicines, arranged 

 in alphabetical order, and illustrated with several hundred beautifully 

 executed paintings of jiiants, and of a few other objects — r.//., meitury in a 

 bowl (f. 3a), a fish (13a), a vessel of wine (15a), bitumen il7a), 8hells(27a), 

 butter (28b), coral 45b), resin (colo/oinr, 49a), draf/aniuni or covperos (64b), 

 emnthiste (73b), la piere dt Faztir (105a), various minerals (115a), a skeleton 

 in a cotlin '124b), a mortar and pestle of lead 157a, slabs of soap (178a , 

 pumice-stone (190a). A vandal hand has cut out paintings on ft. 16, 76, 84, 

 90, 96, 99, 100. 120, 137, 149, 181, 195. In a number of places (ff. 21b, 58a, 

 70b, 74b, 88b, 92b, 93a, 104b, 106b, 108b, 120a, 139a, 142b, 144a, 146a, 151b, 

 157b. 166b, 168b, 169b, 170a, 181b, 183b, 185b, 192b, 200b) blank spaces 

 have been left by the artist, possibly because specimens of the plants to be 



' An expert would prob«bly be able to decide in what part of France the m.i. was 

 executed. 



