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High school record incorporating a very rare mnemotechnical print-series


MANUSCRIPT NOTE-BOOK containing a course on physics, together with a letter-press table of contents of this course, an extensive engraved pictorial memory aid, and a letter-press list of names of students following the courses in philosophy and physics at the Jesuit College Aquicinctinus (Collège d'Anchin) in Douai.

With large folding letter-press table, woodcut printer's device of the Widow of Balthazar Bellerus on title of the published list of names, and engraved print-series, consisting of a richly designed architectural title and 20 full-page finely engraved plates, each with numerous small illustrations to serve as a student's memory aid. 7, (1 blank) pp. for the Student's names list, (1), 20 lvs. for the print-series, and (2 blank, 106, 4 blank) lvs. for the manuscript note-book.

With large folding letter-press table, woodcut printer's device of the Widow of Balthazar Bellerus on title of the published list of names, and engraved print-series, consisting of a richly designed architectural title and 20 full-page finely engraved plates, each with numerous small illustrations to serve as a student's memory aid. 7, (1 blank) pp. for the Student's names list, (1), 20 lvs. for the print-series, and (2 blank, 106, 4 blank) lvs. for the manuscript note-book.

With large folding letter-press table, woodcut printer's device of the Widow of Balthazar Bellerus on title of the published list of names, and engraved print-series, consisting of a richly designed architectural title and 20 full-page finely engraved plates, each with numerous small illustrations to serve as a student's memory aid. 7, (1 blank) pp. for the Student's names list, (1), 20 lvs. for the print-series, and (2 blank, 106, 4 blank) lvs. for the manuscript note-book.

With large folding letter-press table, woodcut printer's device of the Widow of Balthazar Bellerus on title of the published list of names, and engraved print-series, consisting of a richly designed architectural title and 20 full-page finely engraved plates, each with numerous small illustrations to serve as a student's memory aid. 7, (1 blank) pp. for the Student's names list, (1), 20 lvs. for the print-series, and (2 blank, 106, 4 blank) lvs. for the manuscript note-book.

With large folding letter-press table, woodcut printer's device of the Widow of Balthazar Bellerus on title of the published list of names, and engraved print-series, consisting of a richly designed architectural title and 20 full-page finely engraved plates, each with numerous small illustrations to serve as a student's memory aid. 7, (1 blank) pp. for the Student's names list, (1), 20 lvs. for the print-series, and (2 blank, 106, 4 blank) lvs. for the manuscript note-book.



Douai, Widow of Balthazar Bellerus, Rector of the College Aquicinctinus, Guilielmo Le Vaillant, 1704. 4to. Contemporary calf, spine ribbed and richly gilt, with red title-label, gilt binding edges. With large folding letter-press table, woodcut printer's device of the Widow of Balthazar Bellerus on title of the published list of names, and engraved print-series, consisting of a richly designed architectural title and 20 full-page finely engraved plates, each with numerous small illustrations to serve as a student's memory aid. 7, (1 blank) pp. for the Student's names list, (1), 20 lvs. for the print-series, and (2 blank, 106, 4 blank) lvs. for the manuscript note-book.

A very rare complete record of a student's secondary education at a Jesuit College at the turn of the 17th and 18th century in Western Europe. It contains:

a. SODALES PHILOSOPHI COLLEGII AQUICINCTINI. Douai, the Widow of Balthazar Bellerus, 1704. With large woodcut printer's device on title. 7, (1 blank) pp.- Letter-press list of student's names attending the lectures in philosophy and physics at the Jesuit  Highschool, the Collège d'Anchin at Douai, in 1704, officially published by the Douai publisher's, the Widow of Balthazar Bellerus. The student's names are arranged under four headings: "Physici Scholae  Inferiores, - Superiores", and "Logici Scholae Inferiores, - Superiores", and are printed in two columns, each list including almost one hundred students. At the head of the inferior classes in logic two teachers are named: Franciscus Pennaert, abbot of a Cistercian monastry at Douai, and Carolus de Croix, of the Order of the Holy Trinity &  the Redemption of Prisoners, probably because they were not Jesuits.- The present publication is an unrecorded edition.

b. PALATIUM SAPIENTIAE. Paris, Stephanus (=Étienne) Gantrel, (ca. 1700). Engraved print-series, with a richly engraved architectural title-engraving and 20 full-page beautifully designed plates by Étienne Gantrel (1646-1706), with numerous illustrations to serve as a student's aid to learn all about arts and sciences by heart and memorize by means  of the pictures. The title-page has a blank central title-space above a blank cartouche probably meant for the publisher's address, but the address is also engraved at the bottom of the first plate. Each plate is numbered and devoted to a specific subject. The first plate here depicts classical philosophy and ancient religions, the second logic, the third syllogisms, the fourth Aristotelian categories, the fifth Cartesian substance, the sixth Pythagoras' ethics, and from the seventh plate onwards all the plates depict sciences, including astronomy, cosmography, optics, geometry, experimental physics, chemistry, hydrostatics, the experiment of Torricelli, scientific instruments, hygrometers, barometers, mechanics, ballistics, weights, balances, perspective, movement, sound, etc. These print-series to aid the student's memory were very popular at the time, and were published in all kinds of variations. Ours is a jewel in its genre, comprising the whole of scientific knowledge available at the time in a beautiful, very rare and complete baroque print-series. We could not find any record of it.

c. HUNC TRACTATUM in quattor partes dividimus. Fine manuscript  note-book in which one of the students has taken down the complete course in physics, delivered at the Jesuit Collège d'Anchin at Douai. The manuscript is clearly arranged and neatly written in a small and regular student's hand, with all headings in thick brown ink, and all initials at the beginnings of the lines in thick brown ink as well. It was probably worked out, quietly at home, from notes taken during the classes. The course is neatly divided in four main parts, and each part is divided in Chapters, called "Dubium". The course treats physical bodies in nature, still according Cartesian thought, movement of physical bodies,  including by mechanic means, properties of inanimate and animate  matter, including experimental physics, and cosmography. The manuscript is of major importance, as it was probably never printed.

d. PRINTED PROSPECTUS of the course on physics, discussed above. Printed on one side of one large folding leaf in four columns, it presents a short survey of the contents of the four main parts of the course on physics delivered at the Douai College. It was propably published by the College itself, with underneath the name of the college's president and teacher: Guilielmo Le Vaillant e Societate Jesu, Artium Doctore ac Philosophiae Professore.- Like  all advertising material from the period the prospectus must be of the utmost rarity. De Backer Sommervogel lists a regular Jesuit college at Douai, and Porteman gives the curriculum of such Jesuit Colleges, which were "Latin Schools" really. All children of the town were  freely admitted to the regular Jesuit Colleges and the curriculum,  completed in five years, consisted of three grammar classes, called: "Figurae", "Grammatica" and "Syntaxis", followed by two more classes: "Poesis" and "Rhetorica". The present record is especially important because it not only gives a complete course of physics, but also includes a rare complete pictorial memory aid for physics and philosophy, as well as a list of students attending the courses, and finally a printed advertisement for the course in physics is present as well. It naturally is also of the utmost rarity.

We thank dr. Erik-Jan Bos for updating our description.
Perfect copy in fine condition.- (Binding very sl. rubbed).
Ad a: cf. De Backer-Sommervogel III, p. 159 (variant edition); ad b: not in Le Blanc or Thieme/ Becker (listing other prints by Gantrel) or elsewhere found recorded; ad d: not in De Backer-Sommervogel; for the curriculum in Jesuit Colleges, see: K. Porteman,  Emblematic Exhibitions at the Brussels Jesuit College (1630-1685), 1996, p. 24.

Related Subjects: Education  Jesuits  Philosophy  Physics  Print Series  Prints  Prints - 18th Century 

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