[MANUSCRIPTS—ENGINEERING & SCIENCE]. [COPPÉE, Evence (1851-1925)]. Collection of six notebooks for classes in various scientific fields which he attended at Catholic University at Louvain.  [Louvain, ca 1868-1870].

6 volumes, 4to sizes (mostly ca 230 x 178mm): Vol. I, Differential and Integral Calculus, 216 pp; Vol II, Cours de description des Machines, 118 pp, including blanks; Vol III, Construction de Machines, 144 pp, including blanks; Vol IV, Analytical Chemistry, 200 pp; Vol V, Mineralogy, 155 pp, including blanks; Vol VI, Industrial Chemistry, 253 pp, including blanks. In French. Written mostly in a cursive hand in black ink. Illustrated throughout with numerous figures and diagrams. (Occasional soiling.) Bound in near-uniform quarter morocco, some with subjects and instructors’ names gilt-lettered on spines, marbled boards (some wear to board edges, some rubbing).  Provenance: Evence Coppée (signatures in several volumes, gilt-lettered initials on several spines, and some notes and pencil sketches laid in).

A collection of lecture notebooks recorded by Coppée while attending Catholic University at Louvain during the mid-19th century. Coppée’s father, his namesake, perfected the coke production furnace in Belgium in the middle of the 19th century. His son, who wrote these notebooks, continued his father’s activities and created the factory for coke production at Ressaix, while purchasing the coal mines at Ressaix and beginning geological prospecting in Campine. An interesting collection recording the scientific studies of one of the captains of industry of the 19th century in Belgium.

Selections from Antiquariat Botanicum, Dr. Eugene Vigil