The album amicorum of Adam Harel, and other papers of Dr. Christian Harel.

  • Sir Norman Moore, 1st Baronet
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The album amicorum of Adam Harel, and other papers of Dr. Christian Harel. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    Habent Tlieologi Verbum Dei scriptum, Jurisconsidti suas Leges: ab illo recedere impiimi est: ab hisce piaculum. Medici vero nil tale, sed solam rationem experientiam, quibus pro fundamento nitantur, habent, a qnibus si Veterum ant Neotericorum scripta declinent, non improbandum, sed veritati potius, quam authoritati locum demus. Adam Harel, of Aix-la-Chapelle, was a student of the apothecaries’ art in the University of Vienna in 1624, and Dr. John Ruland, who was probably one of his teachers there, wrote the above sentences in a very beautiful hand in an album bound in brown stamped leather, and bearing on its central panel, on one side, the initials A • H • A for Adam Harel Aquisgranensis, and on the other, the date 1621, which no doubt is the year in which his career as a student began. Many students in the continental universities had such albums in the seventeenth century, in which their friends and fellow-students wrote short original remarks in prose or verse, or quotations from sacred or profane literature in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, or Arabic, or in some modern language; or inserted drawings, most often of their coats of arms, adding their own signatures with the date and place of signing, and their good wishes to the owner of the book. Adam Harel’s book begins with a rough drawing of his own coat of arms, followed by some French verses. These are followed by German lines explaining the purpose of the book : Dis Buck vor gute Hern unnd Freund. “ Audi vor alle Wolthater mein A ns g'utter meinung ist gemacht Wan sich begeb ein solche zeitt Denn maneber zeucht in fremdelandt Wan ich nun vor micli nim dis Buch So find ich offt ein Nahmen drin Dem wuntsch ich als dan Gluck und Heil.” After some more German lines, six Latin rules of life and a French couplet, all more or less prefatory, there is a finely painted page of Harel’s armorial bearings—“ Azure, between three estoiles or, afleur de lys argent.” Then follow the inscriptions of his friends. In this, as in many such albums, the pages first used are those at the end of the book. Thus traced the dates show that he began his studies at Heidelberg in 1621 and stayed there till the end of September, 1623, was at Vienna, July, 1624, to March, 1625, at Dresden, June, 1625, to April, 1626, and at Berlin, July, 1626, to April, 1627,besides some shorter periods at Leipzig and other towns. At his two universities of Heidelberg and Vienna he is described as “ pharmaceuticae artis candidatus,” or “ artis peoniae studiosus,” or “ artis pharmacopolarum studiosus.” At Heidelberg a friend wrote for him inaccurately a line of the Schola Salernitana : “ Contra vim mortis non est medicamentum in liortis.”
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