ALCORAN, is also figuratively applied to certain other books full of impieties and impostures. In this sense we meet with the Alcoran of the Cordeliers, which has made a great noise; wherein St Francis is extravagantly magnified, and put on a level with Jesus Christ. The Alcoran of the Cordeliers is properly an extract of a very scarce book, entitled, The Conformity of the Life of the seraphic father St Francis with the Life of Christ, published in 1510, 4to; since, at Bologna, in folio. Erasmus Albertus, being by the elector of Brandenburg appointed to visit a monastery of Franciscans,
Franciscans, found this book; and being struck with the extreme folly and absurdity of it, collected a number of curiosities out of it, and published them under the title of the Alcoran of the Franciscans, with a preface by Martin Luther.