Add MS 5302 B-C

Two distinctive sets of watercolours (Add MS 5302 B and Add MS 5302 C) are bound together in this volume, Add MS 5302 B-C. Foliation is original and is separate for Add MS 5302B and 5302 C.

Add MS 5302 B, catalogued in Sloane's collection as 'Miniatura 182', is a series of watercolours, mainly of mushrooms, made by abbot and naturalist Bruno Tozzi. The watercolours are preceded by a title page with an elaborate cartouche inscribed in the middle with the title "Observationes Fungorum Etruriae 1714". The drawings are executed on recto and verso of most folios, with their names inscribed in Italian or in Latin in pen and brown ink and, on occasion, with an additional translation in English by another hand. At the end of the volume (ff. 333-336) is a series of smaller folios written in Latin by Tozzi and dedicated to James Petiver. This is a list describing additional watercolours of plants and mushrooms that are numbered individually and drawn on ff. 325-332.

f. 337 is a list written in Latin indicating the names of mushrooms with and without gills (‘lamellati, seu non lamellati’). On ff. 343-352 is a list titled in Latin "Fungorum Etruriae a Bruno Tozzi depictae Catalogus" and containing the names of the mushrooms in the order in which they are depicted in the volume, with their names in Italian or in Latin.

ff. 353-355 are foliated as part of Add MS 5302 B. However, their contents suggest that they belong with Add MS 5302 C. This is a list written by James Petiver with names of English and Italian butterflies whose watercolours are included in Add MS 5302C.

Add MS 5302 C, catalogued in Sloane's collection as 'Miniatura 183', is a series of watercolours of butterflies, insects and reptiles found around Tuscany and drawn from life by Bruno Tozzi. The watercolours are preceded by a title page with an architectural framework drawn around the title inscribed in pen in ink: "Tract. De Insectis Etrurie ad vivum expressis & ad celeberrimum virum D. Jacobum Petiverium Riegie Societatis Londinensis Socium & c." The drawings are executed on most folios both recto and verso. Several insects have their name inscribed in ink, in Italian and include abbreviated cross-references to James Petiver’s Musei Petiveriani Centuria Prima (London, 1695-1703).