Histoire Naturelle des Indes
22 of 122
Accession number: MA 3900
Credit: The Morgan Library & Museum. Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983.
Title: Histoire Naturelle des Indes [supplied on an 18th century title page]
Contents: 199 images of West Indian plants, animals and human life, with accompanying manuscript captions written in late sixteenth-century French.
Medium: Most of the illustrations consist of a black chalk underdrawing and a combination of pen and brown ink with watercolor; on some images selected areas have also been glazed with a gum.
Dimensions: Binding: 30 x 21 cm; individual leaves: 29.3 x 19.7 cm.
Binding: Bound or rebound in brown leather in the late 18th century.
Pagination: Penciled folio numbers (1–125) in lower right corner of each page were added by The Morgan Library & Museum. Folios 92v–93, 93v–94, and 95v–96 are fold-out leaves.
Histoire Naturelle des Indes
Hagis Roges, Hagis Ianne, Hagis Vert (Red Pepper, Yellow Pepper, Green Pepper)
Hagis means pepper in the language of the Indians and there are three kinds. However, the smallest, which is green, is the strongest and its leaf is very good when added to soup and salad. The Indians mash this pepper with salt and put it in the husk of millet and when they go far away where they cannot find fresh water to drink, they east as much as possible of this pepper en route and are not thirsty, feeling always fresh in spite of the very intense heat and their being nude.
Histoire Naturelle des Indes
Illustrated manuscript, ca. 1586
Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983; MA 3900 (fol. 21v–22)
