[From Certain miscellany tracts / written by Thomas Browne. - London : Printed for Charles Mearn, 1686. In: The works of the learned Sr Thomas Browne.]
TRACT XIII.
MUSÆUM CLAUSUM,
OR,
Bibliotheca Abscondita :
Containing
Some remarkable Books, Antiquities, Pictures
and Rarities of several kinds, scarce or never seen by
any Man now living.
SIR,
WITH many thanks I return that noble Catalogue of Books, Rarities and Singularities of Art and Nature, which you were pleased to communicate unto me. There are many Collections of this kind in Europe. And, besides the printed accounts of the Musæum Aldrovandi, Calceolarianum Moscardi, Wormianum ; the Casa Abbellita at Loretto, and Threasor of S. Dennis, the Repository of the Duke of Tuscany, that of the Duke of Saxony, and that noble one of the Emperour at Vienna, and many more are of singular note. Of what in this kind I have by me I shall make no repetition, and you having already had a view thereof, I am bold to present you with the List of a Collection, which I may justly say you have not seen before.
The Title is, as above,
Musæum Clausum, or Bibliotheca Abscondita : containing some remarkable Books, Antiquities, Pictures and Rarities of several kinds, scarce or never seen by any Man now living.
1. Rare and generally unknown Books.
| 1. A Poem of Ovidius Naso, written in the Getick Language, * during his exile at Tomos found wrapt up in Wax at Sabaria, on the Frontiers of Hungary, where there remains a tradition that he died, in his return towards Rome from Tomos, either after his pardon, or the death of Augustus. | * Ab pudet & scripsi Getico sermone Libellum. |
2. The Letter of Quintus Cicero, which he wrote in answer to that of his Brother Marcus Tullius, desiring of him an account of Britany, wherein are described the Country, State and Manners of the Britains of that Age.
3. An Ancient British Herbal, or description of divers Plants of this Island, observed by that famous Physician Scribonius Largus, when he attended the Emperour Claudius in his Expedition into Britany.
4. An exact account of the Life and Death of Avicenna confirming the account of his Death by taking nine Clysters together in a fit of the Colick ; and not as Marius the Italian Poet delivereth, by being broken upon the Wheel ; left with other Pieces by Benjamin Tudelensis, as he travelled from Saragossa to Jerusalem, in the hands of Abraham Jarchi, a famous Rabbi of Lunet near Montpelier, and found in a Vault when the Walls of that City were demolished by Lewis the Thirteenth.
5. A punctual relation of Hannibal's march out of Spain into Italy, and far more particular than that of Livy, where about he passed the River Rhodanus or Rhosne ; at what place he crossed the Isura or L'isere ; when he marched up towards the confluence of the Sone and the Rhone, or the place where the City Lyons was afterward built ; how wisely he decided the difference between King Brancus and his Brother, at what place he passed the Alpes, what Vinegar he used, and where he obtained such quantity to break and calcine the Rocks made hot with Fire.
6. A learned Comment upon the Periplus of Hanno the Carthaginian, or his Navigation upon the Western Coast of Africa, with the several places he landed at ; what Colonies he setlled, what Ships were scattered from his Fleet near the Æquinoctical Line, which were not afterward heard of, and which probably fell into the Trade Winds, and were carried over into the Coast of America.
7. A particular Narration of that famous Expedition of the English into Barbary in the ninety fourth year of the Hegira, so shortly touched by Leo Africanus, whither called by the Goths they besieged, took and burnt the City of Arzilla possessed by the Mahometans, and lately the seat of Gayland ; with many other exploits delivered at large in Arabick , lost in the Ship of Books and Rarities which the King of Spain took from Syddy Hamet King of Fez, whereof a great part were carried into the Escurial, and conceived to be gathered out of the relations of Hibnu Nachu, the best Historian of the African Affairs.
8. A Fragment of Pythæas that ancient Traveller of Marseille; which we suspect not to be spurious, because in the description of the Northern Countries, we find that passage of Pythæas mentioned by Strabo, that all the Air beyond Thule is thick , condensed and gellied, looking just like Sea Lungs.
9. A Sub Marine Herbal, describing the several Vegetables found on the Rocks, Hills, Valleys, Meadows at the bottom of the Sea, with many sorts of Alga, Fucus, Quercus, Polygonum, Gramens and others not yet described.
10. Some Manuscripts and Rarities brought from the Libraries of Æthiopia, by Zaga Zaba, and afterward transported to Rome, and scattered by the Souldiers of the Duke of Bourbon, when they barbarously sacked that City.
11. Some Pieces of Julius Scaliger, which he complains to have been stoln from him, sold to the Bishop of Mende in Languedock, and afterward taken away and sold in the Civil Wars under the Duke of Rohan.
12. A Comment of Dioscorides upon Hippocrates, procured from Constantinople by Amatus Lusitanus, and left in the hands of a Jew of Ragusa.
13. Marcus Tullius Cicero his Geography ; as also a part of that magnified Piece of his De Republica, very little answering the great expectation of it, and short of Pieces under the same name by Bodinus and Tholosanus.
14. King Mithridates his Oneirocritica.
Aristotle de Precationibus.
Democritus de his quæ fiunt apud Orcum, & Oceani circumnavigatio.
Epicurus de Pietate.
A Tragedy of Thyestes, and another of Medea, writ by Diogenes the Cynick.
King Alfred upon Aristotle de Plantis.
Seneca's Epistles to S. Paul.
King Solomon de Umbris Idæarum, which Chicus Asculanus, in his Comment
upon Johannes de Sacrobosco, would make us believe he saw in the Library
of the Duke of Bavaria.
15. Artemidori Oneirocritici Geographia.
Pythagoras de Mari Rubro.
The Works of Confutius the famous Philosopher of China, translated into Spanish.
16. Josephus in Hebrew, written by himself.
17. The Commentaries of Sylla the Dictatour.
18. A Commentary of Galen upon the Plague of Athens described by Thucydides.
19. Duo Cæsaris Anti-Catones, or the two notable Books writ by Julius
Cæsar against Cato ; mentioned by Livy, Salustius and Juvenal ; which the
Cardinal of Liege told Ludovicus Vives were in an old Library of that City.
Mazhapha Einok, or, the Prophecy of Enoch, which Ægidius Lochiensis, a
learned Eastern Traveller, told Peireschius that he had found in an old Library
at Alexandria containing eight thousand Volumes.
20. A Collection of Hebrew Epistles, which passed between the two
learned Women of our age Maria Molinea of Sedan, and Maria Schurman of
Utrecht.
A wondrous Collection of some Writings of Ludovica Saracenica, Daughter of Philibertus Saracenicus a Physician of Lyons, who at eight years of age
had made a good progress in the Hebrew, Greek and Latin Tongues.
Submitted to the Invisible Library by Owen Massey