Title taken from spine label.

Author identified by the Biblioteca nacional in Madrid, who also holds copies of this manuscript.

Place of composition can be assumed to be Paraguay as that is where the Jesuit father was sent on mission.

Father Pedro de Montenegro was a Spanish Jesuit and naturalist who embarked on a mission to Paraguy around 1693, where he studied the medicial plants of South America. From 1715 he was sent to Uruguay where he served as a doctor to those missionaries sent to Uruguay and the local populace.

Backer-Somervogel lists a manuscript by the author, dated 1710 with title: Libro primero y segundo de la propriedad y birtudes de los arboles i plantas de las misiones y provincia del Tucuman, con algunos del Brasil y del Oriente, which, in 1882, was part of the collection of the Duque de Ossuna.

A copy of this manuscript, dated 1711, is housed in the Biblioteca nacional in Madrid and was transcribed and published under the title: Materia médica misionera, Buenos Aires, 1945. For an account of other early copies of this manuscript please see La farmacia en la América colonial: el arte de preparar medicamentos, by Carmen Martín Martín and José Luis Valverde, Granada, 1995.

"Tabla de los nombres de los arboles y erbas in Castellano, Guarani, y Tupi", p. 361-368, is an index of trees and herbs in the Spanish, Guarani and Tupi languages.

Text of manuscript written primarily in Spanish with some Guarani and Tupi words appearing throughout.

Backer-Somervogel V:1247-1248.

John Carter Brown Library copy imperfect: many leaves are wormed, with some loss of text.

John Carter Brown Library copy bound in modern vellum.

John Carter Brown Library copy acquired with the assistance of the Benefactors Fund.

John Carter Brown Library copy has a handwritten index of plants and a handwritten note in Spanish stating that this manuscript may have been copied from Montenegro's original and later augmented; these are housed in the JCB bibliographical file.

Provenance of the John Carter Brown Library copy: S[eño]r. D[octo]r. P.N. Arata Rivadera 2251: paper label with autograph affixed to front pastedown; Ventura Gallegos, Paraguay: ms. autograph on p. [1], 1st count; Mario Pedro Arata: name stamp and ms. autograph on p. [2], 1st count;