Chapter 11 of 20 · 531 words · ~3 min read

book 20

, accidents of things, that is, numbers, measures, weights and sounds. The Paris edition of 1574 has a book on bees.

There were 15 editions before 1500. An English translation was completed 11th February 1398 by John Trevisa, and printed by Wynkyn de Worde, Westminster, 1495? fol.; London, 1533, fol.; and with considerable additions by Stephen Batman, a physician, London, 1582, fol. It was translated into French by Jehan Corbichon at the command of Charles V. of France, and printed 14 times from 1482 to 1556. A Dutch translation was printed in 1479, and again at Haarlem, 1485, fol.; and a Spanish translation by Padre Vincente de Burgos, Tholosa, 1494, fol.

Pierre Bersuire (Berchorius), a Benedictine, prior of the abbey of St Eloi in Paris, where he died in 1362, wrote a kind of encyclopaedia, chiefly relating to divinity, in three parts:--_Reductorium morale super totam Bibliam_, 428 _moralitates_ in 34 books on the Bible from Genesis to Apocalypse; _Reductorium morale de proprietatibus rerum_, in 14 books and 958 chapters, a methodical encyclopaedia or system of nature on the plan of Bartholomew de Glanville, and chiefly taken from him (Berchorius places animals next after fishes in books 9 and 10, and adopts as natural classes _volatilia_, _natatilia_ and _gressibilia_); _Dictionarius_, an alphabetical dictionary of 3514 words used in the Bible with moral expositions, occupying in the last edition 1558 folio pages. The first part was printed 11 times from 1474 to 1515, and the third 4 times. The three parts were printed together as _Petri Berchorii opera omnia_ (an incorrect title, for he wrote much besides), Moguntiae, 1609, fol., 3 vols., 2719 pages; Coloniae Agrippinae, 1631, fol., 3 vols.; _ib._ 1730-1731, fol., 6 vols., 2570 pages.

A very popular small encyclopaedia, _Margarita philosophica_, in 12 books, divided into 26 tractates and 573 chapters, was written by Georg Reisch, a German, prior of the Carthusians of Freiburg, and confessor of the emperor Maximilian I. Books 1-7 treat of the seven liberal arts; 8, 9, principles and origin of natural things; 10, 11, the soul, vegetative, sensitive and intellectual; 12, moral philosophy. The first edition, Heidelberg, 1496, 4to, was followed by 8 others to 1535. An Italian translation by the astronomer Giovanno Paolo Gallucci was published at Venice in 1594, 1138 small quarto pages, of which 343 consist of additional tracts appended by the translator.

Raphael Maffei, called Volaterranus, being a native of Volterra, where he was born in 1451 and died 5th January 1522, wrote _Commentarii Urbani_ (Rome, 1506, fol., in 38 books), so called because written at Rome. This encyclopaedia, printed eight times up to 1603, is remarkable for the great importance given to geography, and also to biography, a subject not included in previous encyclopaedias. Indeed, the book is formed of three nearly equal parts,--geographia, 11 books; anthropologia (biography), 11 books; and philologia, 15 books. The books are not divided into short chapters in the ancient manner, like those of its predecessors. The edition of 1603 contains 814 folio pages. The first

## book consists of the table of contents and a classed index; books 2-12,

geography; 13-23, lives of illustrious men, the popes occupying book 22 , and the emperors