[MANUSCRIT]. - Lot 47

[MANUSCRIT]. Physica. S.l., ca. 1730-1735. - 2 volumes in-4, 211 x 164. Brown calf, ornate spine bands, red edges (period binding). Important Latin manuscript of over 400 pages for the first volume and over 500 for the second, from the first half of the 18th century. This is a course in physics taught at a Jesuit college, probably at Louis le Grand. Perfectly legible and almost without erasures, the first volume covers everything to do with the physics of bodies: principles and properties of bodies, their positions and movements, the celestial world. The second volume covers the senses (sight, light, phosphorus, the Newtonian system, sound, odors, touch, heat, etc.), meteors, comets, stars, magnetism and more. The copy includes numerous drawings and diagrams in the text, except for one fold-out, as well as several engraved, cut-out and glued vignettes. There is also an engraved frontispiece depicting an allegory of the sciences, captioned "Stant circum variæ Physicæ, Astronomia, Chymia, Anatomia, &c.", as well as two engraved plates, one showing various experiments on magnetism, the other depicting various mechanical instruments. At the end is the handwritten inscription: "A M.D. G.V.q.M", which seems to mean "A M[ariae] D[ei] G[enetrici] V[irginique] Q[ue] M[atrici]", i.e.: "To Mary, Mother of God, Virgin and Mother." At the end of the second volume, an engraved fold-out leaflet has been bound, of which only the lower part remains, the rest having been torn. This piece of folio bears this printed indication: "Has Theses, Deo Duce, et Auspice Dei-parâ Virgine propungnabit Petrus-Renatus Floquet, Clericu Parisinus. In regio Ludovici magni collegio societatis Jesu. Die Veneris decima-quinta Julii 1735, à nona matutina ad undecimo. Pro actu publico" ("These theses will be defended, with God as guide and under the protection of the Virgin Mary, by Pierre-René Floquet, a Parisian cleric, at the Collège Royal Louis-le-Grand of the Society of Jesus. Friday, July 15, 1735, from nine in the morning to eleven o'clock, during a public act."). This could be, but is not certain, Pierre-René Floquet, a Jesuit born in Paris in 1716 and who died in Quebec City in 1782. The document is dated July 1735, a year after he entered the novitiate in Paris and a year before he taught grammar and humanities at the Collège de Quimper. It is quite possible that this manuscript was composed by the latter during his formative years. He subsequently studied theology at the Collège de La Flèche (1740-1744), arriving in Canada on August 17, 1744. "After five years of teaching at the Jesuit college in Québec, he tried his hand at missionary life in Sault-Saint-Louis (Caughnawaga) in 1749-1750, then returned to Québec as procurator of the college (1750-1756). In 1757, he replaced Father Nicolas Degonnor as superior of the Jesuits in Montreal, a position he held until his retirement in 1780, while taking care of the Congrégation des hommes de Ville-Marie and the priestly ministry at the Jesuit chapel" (Joseph Cossette, "FLOQUET, PIERRE-RENÉ", in Dictionnaire biographique du Canada, vol. 4, Université Laval/University of Toronto, 2003). Copy in first condition. Rubbing and spotting, mainly to binding of first volume, corners dulled. Second volume lacks lower head cover. Several blank leaves cut out at the end of both volumes.