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xii PREFACE.

In the Vatican Library (Palatine 828) there is a MS. of Perspectiva stated in the colophon to have been completed on Sept. 29, 1349, of which the title is Tractatus perspectivae habens tres partes principales extractus ex multis auctoribus perspectivac compilatus per fratrem Rogerum Bacon ordinis fratrum minorum. Pars prima hujus persuasionis habens 9 distinctiones; prima habct capitula 5; primum est de pulcritudine et utilitate hujus partis in universali.

The MS. begins: Propositis radicibus sapientiae tam divinae quam humanae quae sumuntur pencs linguas a quibus scientiae Latinorum sunt translatae, nunc volo radices aliquas discutere quae ex potestate per- spectivae oriuntur (et seq. as in this edition). But the nine distinctions spoken of in this MS. are not identical with those of Reg. and O. They cover the whole of the three parts of the treatise. Thus Dist. iii. cap. í. appears in this MS. as Dist, ii, cap. 4.; Dist. v. cap. i. as Dist. iii. cap. i. ; Dist. viii, cap. i. as Dist. iv. cap. i.; Dist. x. cap. i, as Dist, v. cap. i. ; Part II. Dist. iii. cap. i. as Dist. vi. (the second distinction of Part II, being omitted). l'art III. Dist. i. is Dist. vii.; Part III. Dist. ii, is Dist. viii,; Part III. Dist. iii. is Dist. ix.

Other and later MSS. of this portion of the Opus Majus are, Harleian 80, Sloane 2156; Magd. Coll., Cambridge, possesses a copy of it; also St. Mark's Library, Venice (Lat. 133), and Paris Bibl. Nat. (Nouv. Fonds Latins 10260). This last is on paper, beautifully written, of the sixteenth century. Combach's edition published in 1614 is said by him to be founded on "very old Oxford MSS." What these were he has not told us; nor can the variants of this edition be connected with any of the MSS. known to us. Some of them probably are of his own devising. It thus appears that for the first five parts of the Opus Majus, contain- ing two thirds of the whole work, early manuscript authority is not wanting. The case is far otherwise with the sixth and the seventh parts, for which we have principally to depend upon O. In Part VI., indeed, some assistance has been afforded by the Vatican MS. 4091, to which attention has been called in the additional notes. It extends, however, only to the first third of the section.

For Part VII. we have, besides O., the Royal MS. 8 F ii.. here spoken of as M. It is of the early part of the fifteenth century, perhaps thirty years older than O. But the text is far more corrupt than that of O., and it only covers the first 52 pages, not a third part of the section. Coming to what is here printed as an Appendix to the Opus Majus, the Multiplicatio Specierum, we find again an abundance of manuscript material. The oldest MS., contemporary with Bacon, is contained in Royal 7 F viii. ff. 13 (et seq.) preceding the MS. of Perspectiva already