RARE HUGUENOT SCIENCE TEXTBOOK

Bon, Jean: Physica Ioannis Bon doctoris medici et philosophiae professoris in academiâ Montalbanensi Podiolaurum translatâ. Castris [Castres], apud Bernardum Barcoudanum, typographum regis, anno 1664.

First edition of this student textbook for Aristotelian physics, cosmology, elementalism, and psychology and ontology, for the Protestant Academy of Montauban, which had moved (1659) to Puylaurens (both towns of southern France). This academy closed in 1685. Jean Bon (d.1682), professor of philosophy (1658-1682), had studied philosophy in Nîmes and medicine in Montpellier. He was a public and vociferous opponent of the philosopher and correspondent of Galileo and Descartes, David Dérodon (c.1600-1664) (Haag). It is interesting that our copy of this book of Protestant learning was accessioned by a Dominican convent.

Details

One volume, 17.5 cms. x 10.9 cms. in binding, octavo, pp. 650. Woodcut vignette to title-page, woodcut initials, typographical decoration. Light browning, slight worming at bottom margin (blank) at beginning. Bound in contemporary mottled calf, spine with five raised bands, decoration to spine showing traces of gilt, edges mottled red (binding rubbed, slight repair). Endpapers removed. Stamps of Dominican convent of St Romain, Toulouse, old MS number 528 to title-page.

Bibliography:

Rare: CCFr shows three locations in southern France (Carcassonne, Nîmes, Albi), one elsewhere (Paris, Bibliothèque du protestantisme français). The one copy located outside France (OCLC 557697662), at British Library, is incomplete, lacking pp. 643-650 (index) (for confirmation see the copy digitised, at Google Books).

'The reformed academies in the XVIth and XVIIth centuries'. Musée virtuel de protestantisme.  https://museeprotestant.org/en/notice/the-reformed-academies/ (accessed 23 May 2024).

Eugène and Émile Haag, La France Protestante (6 vols., Paris, 1877-1888), II, cols. 777-782.