Histoire Naturelle des Indes
28 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
Canifiste
Very good fruit for the sick having been preserved when small; the Indians use it together with Pimento as remedy for their illnesses.
Laciqve
Herb very appropriate for relieving those hurt by work. Being boiled with water, it is rubbed on the sole of one's foot and the palm of one's hand to get rid of any pain.
Sacafras (Sassafras)
Tree growing in Florida very much in the interior. The Indians make wine from its root which is as good as cinnamon and equally excellent as Muscadet and it grows throughout the Cape St. Augustine.
Histoire Naturelle des Indes
Illustrated manuscript, ca. 1586
Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983; MA 3900 (fol. 27v–28)
