New Post: "I Do Listen to the Experts. Do YOU?"

[asteckley]

Well there are more descriptions, and I think I've covered them all here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

I looked through your list there, but I think those four references are all that properly belong in the list. Except perhaps the single adjective "arcane"  (well its Latin source that is) and perhaps any of the variations of the noun that are used (book vs codex vs manuscript).  

The other descriptions that you have mentioned that I do not have, might be well listed too but separately to keep the list only on what describes the physical item -- otherwise passages that describe conditions, people, events and such can too easily be conflated with what describe the item itself -- with either of positive or negative effects on identifying it. (The descriptions used to surmise that the author had gathered medicinal knowledge  and from where is an example.)

One minor comment by the way:  I do agree with the suggestion (I think it was Rene's) that the absence of more obvious features like bathing ladies can be expected within the one passage because he is making the case for his hypothesis that the book is for medicinal purposes. Inclusion of features that didn't specifically support that idea would read as unnatural if included in that sentence.  

What strikes me more than an absence in that particular passages is that, within the letters that say anything at all about the referent manuscript, there is a general sparsity of description or discussion of its content.  They seem to have found the thing worth wondering about and sending around for inspection, but they didn't seem to find it quite as unusual as so many do today. Barely a comment on its peculiar features beyond those where Barschius posits the medicinal book idea; nowhere else do the references seem to go any deeper than the equivalent of "Weird book, eh?  Now about those observations on magnetisms..." I guess it was just not as interesting to talk about as the topics at hand.  (To be clear, I don't think these speculative comments of mine have any value on the identification of it though.)