Volume S 51 from the library of Walter Supersaxo (ca. 1402-1482),
Bishop of Sion, and of his son Georg (ca. 1450-1529) contains two
collections of Latin fables, the first printed, the second
handwritten. The first part, printed around 1475 by Michael
Wenssler in Basel (GW 7890), contains the Speculum sapientiae,
which had erroneously been attributed to the holy bishop Cyril.
This collection of 95 fables in Latin prose was probably compiled
around 1337-1347 by the Italian Dominican Bongiovanni da Messina.
The second part contains Aesop's fables in a Latin version in verse
called “Fables by Anonymus Neveleti“ (after the name of the
first publisher, Isaac Nicolas Nevelet, in the year 1610), which
eventually were attributed to Gualterus Anglicus (12th century).
This second, handwritten part was produced around 1474 by Georg
Supersaxo’s anonymous scribe. It is comparable to other copies
that were produced for Georg Supersaxo around 1472-1474, at the
time that the young man studied law in Basel. This group of
manuscripts includes the classical writers (Terence, Sallust …)
as well as texts known only to scholars (Augustinus Datus,
Gasparinus Barzizius …). Glued to the pastedowns of S 51, there
are parchment fragments with Latin excerpts from Aristotle’s
Physics (Book IV, in the translation of James of Venice).
