Plinius Secundus nouocomensis equestribus militiis industrie functus ... [line 12] Libros Naturalis Historiæ nouitiu camenis qritiu tuo opus natu apud me proxima fetura, &c. [Ends:--Colophon.] Quem modo tam rarum cupiens uix lector haber& : Quiq etiam fractus pene legendus eram : Restituit Venetis me nuper Spira Ioannes : Exscripsitq libros ere notante meos. Fessa manus quondam moneo : Calamusq quiescat. Nanq labor studio cessit studio cessit : & ingenio. M.CCCC.LXVIIII

Caius Plinius Secundus (23-79) compiled his famous work using extracts from a vast number of earlier works concerning every aspect of nature. In addition, it included travellers' tales and superstitions, making the a valuable record of beliefs and customs of the ancients. For the next one thousand years Pliny's was the main source of the little natural history that was studied. The edition exhibited here is the oldest book in the Museum Library. It consists of 355 leaves, with 50 lines to a full page. There is an illuminated border to the first page, the initial letters to the Books are finely illuminated and those to each paragraph are supplied in colour. There are manuscript notes throughout.

Without pagination, catch words or signatures: 355 leaves, of which the 19th (wanting in this copy) and the last, are blank: there are 50 lines to a full page. There is an illuminated border to the first page, the initial letters to the Books are finely illuminated, and those to each paragraph supplied in color, but not always correctly. Leaf 20 and leaf 346 have been supplied from a later edition, and the initial letters are in inferior pigments.

There are manuscript notes throughout