Jesuit Science.- [Lalieu (Paul)] & Nicolas Beautour

Philosophia particularis…, 3 parts in one, includes Ethica sive Scientia Morum & Philosophia Transnaturalis seu Metaphisica, [Nicolas Joseph Beautour, 1740], [1], 375, 121, 86 pp, [5] ff. bl., Latin manuscript in a cursive hand, ink on paper, a few drawings pen within the text, engraved title page, completed in manuscript, 2 tipped in illustrations, 27 engraved plates by Jacques Jaillot, one volvelle with 3 moveable parts, leaf 42 holed, occasional spotting, some marginal damp staining in places, contemporary calf, spine gilt, a.e.r., marbled endpapers, spine tail cracked, corners worn and scuffed, rubbed, 4to, Douai, 1735.

*** An extensive series of lecture notes, on a course delivered at the Jesuit College of Anchin at Douai by Paul Lalieu, by a student. The college, founded in 1568, was the largest of the University of Douai. After the expulsion of the Jesuits (1764) it became ‘imperial high school’ (1802). Paul Lalieu was Provincial of Gallo-Belgium in the 1760s. Sets of plates were possibly offered for sale to students to accompany their lecture notes (who would otherwise make their own drawings). The topics covered by the plates are more extensive than those covered in the notes. They include optics and anatomy, physics, and botany, etc. One of the plates is a double hemisphere world map (California as an island). The manuscript is in a cursive rather than formal hand, suggesting that the notes were taken down viva voce.