Ksposiro — On the " Secrets of SalemoJ^ 211 



et viandes car il les fera eiitier en char et les anioitira. Et pour euiter 

 pvolixite cy est la liii cle ce lime ouquel sont contenuz les secretz de Saleme. 

 Deo gracias. Explicit.' 



The treatise described above is manifestly not an original work. After a 

 considerable amount of investigation among the medical books current during 

 the later ^[iddle Ages, I discovei'ed that it is a translation with large 

 additions and many alterations of a Latin alphabetical dictionary of pharma- 

 ceutical plants entitled " Liber de Simplici Medicina," or better known, 

 from its opening words, as the " Circa instans,"' which was compiled towards 

 the end of the twelfth century by a physician of the School of Salerno named 

 Platearius."- This Latin work was printed' several times towards the end of 

 the fifteenth century and also during the sixteenth, since when it fell into 

 almost complete oblivion {cidc a valuable note by M. Charles Joret in 

 "Romania," tome xvi, 1887, pp. 593-594). 



The French translation* contained in the Academy's MS. is neither unique 

 nor unknown, for I find it to be identical with that which occurs in the 

 French MS. numbered 28 in the Eegia Biblioteca Estense of Modena. The 

 latter ms., which is also of the fifteenth century, is unfortunately defective, 

 owing to the loss of several folios. An account of it, with two small 

 photographic facsimiles of the beginning and end, and a number of extracts 

 from the descriptions of plants, with valuable botanical notes, was published 

 by Signor Giulio Camus in a monograph entitled " L'opera Salernitana 

 ' Circa Instans ' ed il testo primitivo del ' G-rant fferbier en/rancoys' secondo 

 due codici conservati nella Eegia Biblioteca Estense ("Memorie della Sezione 

 di Lettere della Eegia Accademia di Scieuze, Lettere ed Arti in ilodeim," 

 aerie ii, vol. iv, Modena, 1886, pp. 55-57, 65-175). This memoir is of capital 

 importance for the history of botany during the later Middle Ages.' Aided 

 at times by the paintings, which, as in the Dublin cop-y, abound in the 

 Modena ms., Signor Camus has succeeded in identifying practically every 



"' It will be noticed that for consonantal i and u the scribe uses iiidirt'erently i and j 

 and « and v. For au he writes sometimes au and sometimes on. 



■ On the name and date of tliis-writer consult the memoir.s of Camus (pp. 40-54) and 

 Joret (pp. 593-59.5 , which will be cited further on. 



^ Along with the "Practica" of Serapion at Ferrara, U88 ; Venice, 1497, 1499, 1530 : 

 Lyons, 1525 ; and with the " Dispensarium"" of JJicolaus at Lyons, 1512, '153t> ; Paris, 

 1582. 



* On the relations between the Latin and French texts, of. Joret {loc. cit., pp. 695- 

 597). M. Paul Meyer ("Romania," 44, 1915, p. 17fi,' aptly remarks, "les recherches qui 

 ont e'te' publiees a ce sujet ue sunt pas suffisantes. " 



" Camus (pp. 53-54) points out that Platearius may be ranked with Dioscorides and 

 Pliuy as one of the most, important figures in the history of botany. 



