"SOME THINGS WORTH KNOWING": ARISTOTELIAN NATURAL PHILOSOPHY MANUSCRIPT, DECORATED

(ARISTOTLE). Disputatio de Generatione et Corruptione. No place, circa 1700. Quarto, contemporary limp vellum. $1200.

Attractive late 17th or early 18th-century manuscript of Aristotelian commentary in Latin, featuring decorative inked headers and illustrations.

This manuscript volume contains over 300 pages of painstakingly inked notes engaging with Aristotle's treatise De generatione et corruptione, covering "Rarefactione et condensatione," "Actione et passione," "De mixtione," etc. On the last page is a list of Aristotelian quotes—captioned "Quaedam scitu digna," or "Some things worth knowing"—attributed to poet and scholar Vespasiano Crispolti of the Accademia degli Insensati of Perugia, 1587. Each main section opens with a calligraphed header, some in two colors; also present are two marginal graphs, one section header with a colored thistle decoration, and one with a remarkable drawing of a royal stag facing off against a cockatrice-like mythical beast. Paper watermarked with a bird over three hills, in a circle.

First section (approximately 60 pages) waterstained; a few scattered spots of staining elsewhere, contents overall clean. A unique, intriguing manuscript.