Sixteen cuttings from bifolia from a manuscript of a Latin wordlist based on Balbus' Catholicon, in Latin, on paper [Switzerland (probably north-west, perhaps Fribourg or Geneva), mid-fifteenth century (probably c. 1430-40)

]Sixteen near-complete bifolia, trimmed at top and on one side and reused together to pack a series of book bindings or a padded object, each leaf with remains of double column of approximately 42 lines in a small and cramped Germanic bookhand, opening capital of each entry touched in red, each letter of alphabet opening with a large red initial (some with baubles and looping calligraphic letterforms that suggest a Swiss origin), watermark of bunch of grapes (with large grapes arranged around an undulating stem with a curled top similar to Briquet 12,991-13,006, these almost entirely recorded from 1420-60, focussed on Switzerland and to a lesser extent Germany, that here perhaps closest to 12,994: Geneva, 1433, and 12,995: Fribourg, 1445-46, among other places), some holes, scuffs, stains, discolouration through dirt and tears to edges, overall fair condition and on robust and heavy paper, each cutting approximately 210 by 340mm.

Johannes Balbus was a Genoese Dominican who finished his Catholicon, a type of Latin dictionary, in 1286. It was widely disseminated and many versions and offshoots from it were produced throughout the later Middle Ages. That here is in a truncated form, and was most probably produced for a specific readership and function.