Clerselier, Claude (1614-1686)

Lectiones in universam [Aristotelis] philosophiam. Some incomplete. Illustrated with a few pen-drawn diagrams and figures. Contents: Logica (111 pp.); Physica (113 pp.) incomplete, ending at Disputatio 3a, Sectio 5a: De motu; Summulae seu compendium Logicae (3 ll.) incomplete; Tractatus unicus de Meteoris (20 ll.); Disputationes in tres Aristotelis de Anima libros (44 ll.) incomplete; Ethica seu philosophia moralis (57 pp.); Tractatus Metaphysicus (33 pp.). The MS. may be approximately dated from the statement on the verso of the first leaf of 'Sectio II. De cometis' in the 'Tractatus de Meteoris'. Here the writer remarks 'ut constat ex ultimo cometa anni 1652 qui et a nobis Turnone et ab aliis simul observabatur'. Produced in Paris.

c. 1655

1 volume 2 bl. ll. + 113 pp. last 2 bl.. + 114 pp. last bl.. + 3 ll. + 22 bl. ll. + 20 ll. last 4 bl.. + 51 ll. last 7 bl.. + 58 pp. last bl.. + 33 pp. + 3 bl. ll. 8vo. 181/2 x 13 cm. Original vellum binding. Outer lower corners of the first 20 leaves damaged.

Purchased 1930.

Claude Clerselier [1614-1686], philosopher and writer, was a very ardent supporter of the Cartesian philosophical system.

The attribution of this MS. to Clerselier is made by P. Duhem, bookseller of Montpellier, from whom it was purchased for the Wellcome Library. Armorial woodcut Ex-libris of 'P[hilippe] Cochon D.M.M.' of Niort [c. 1700], numbered 893 in MS. A reproduction of this book-plate is found in Henri André's 'Les Ex-libris de Médecins' 1908, p. 10, No. 8.

Database description transcribed from S.A.J. Moorat, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts on Medicine and Science in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library (London: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1962-1973).