A "small medicine book for poor people", probably written in the region of Venice/Northern Adriatic Sea; the work, written in Arabic in Hebrewscript, was completed on May 19, 1413, according to the date note. The manuscript was later probably part of a Jewish library that cannot be located more precisely; it was transferred to the Bernese Library at the end of the 18th/beginning of the 19th century, where it was evaluated by the Bernese theology professor Gottlieb Studer (1801-1889). (mit)

Online Since: 06/18/2020

The manuscript protected in a limp binding contains as many blank pages (pp. 167-326) as texts. Copied by several hands between the fourteenth and the fifteenth century, these texts are extremely varied. The codex begins with prayers to the Virgin and to Christ (pp. 2-26), followed by excerpts from the (pseudo-)Bernard of Clairvaux (pp. 27-36), a collection of fragments of patristic texts on the virtues of the mass (pp. 37-44), the Meditatio super missam by Iohannes de Brunswig (pp. 133-164), as well as a series of sermons attributed to Augustine, such as the Sermo ad Heremitas (pp. 44-60), De miseria mundi (pp. 60-65), De duodecim gradibus abusionum (pp. 119-122), etc. Inserted among these texts appears the De proprietatibus (or the Epistola Ameti), a rare translation from the Arabic of the Kitāb al-khawāss by Ahmad ibn Ibrâhîm ibn al-Jazzâr of Qayrawân († 1009). This work is a treatise on organic magic dealing with the properties of animals, plants, and minerals (pp. 97-106). (rou)

Online Since: 12/11/2025