Details
CELSUS, Aulus Cornelius (ca. 25 B.C.-ca. 50 A.D.). De medicina. Edited by Bartholomaeus Fontius (1445-1513). Florence: Nicolaus Laurentii, 1478.
Chancery 2o and royal half-sheet 4 (264 x 187mm). Collation: s6 a4 b-i6 l-z6 &6 aa-gg6 hh4; A8 (r blank, v letter by Fonzio to Francesco Sassetti, r text, hh4v colophon; A1r table, A8 blank). 196 leaves. 34 lines and headline. Types 2:106R (text), 3:92R (table). Initial spaces with printed guide letters, catchword at end of quire only. (Dampstains at head of textblock and throughout first and last quires, some foxing, many leaves strengthened in inner margin, one tiny wormhole in lower blank margin of first three quires, hh1 with closed tear touching three lines of text, hh4 short at head and tail and reinforced on verso with some loss of text, printing flaw on c2r resulting from a crease in the paper.) Gilt-panelled calf antique, gilt spine, by the Lakeside Press Bindery (quire A bound first). Provenance: extensive 15th-16th century marginalia in Latin and Greek (cropped).
FIRST EDITION of the oldest Western work on medicine after the Hippocratic corpus. De medicina is the only surviving portion of an encyclopedia compiled in the first century A.D. "The text, which give an account of the whole of medicine and surgery, is based on a thorough and impartial use of Greek material from the last two centuries B.C., carefully worked into a harmonious and effective unity, and expressed in elegant Ciceronian Latin ... De medicina's interest for historians of ancient medicine is heightened by the fact that only very limited source material has survived from the period between the formation of the Hippocratic corpus (ca. 350 B.C.) and Celsus, so that for reconstructing the development of medicine during these four centuries De medicina plays a crucial role" (Grolier Medicine). In addition to serving as a source for reconstructing the medical history of Antiquity, De medicina also served as a useful handbook for practitioners, being reprinted a number of times in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Almost unknown in the Middle Ages, De medicina was rediscovered in the fifteenth century when several early manuscripts came to light. The first edition was prepared by the humanist Bartolomeo Fonzio using a codex copied by his brother Niccol from a now-lost source and incorporating corrections based on a ninth-century copy of the text (now Florence, Laur. 73.1). This manuscript may have belonged to Francesco Sassetti, the wealthy Medici banker and collector, whom Fonzio thanked for helping him obtain access to manuscripts (A.C. de la Mare, 'The Library of Francesco Sassetti', in Cultural Aspects of the Italian Renaissance, ed. C.H. Clough, Manchester 1976, p.170 and no.78).
In this copy, o5r has the correct reading "quintus" in the headline. Sheets y1.6, z1.6 and z2.5 and quires aa-hh and A are quarto; the rest are folio.
Goff C-364; BMC VI, 627 (IB. 27079, 27079a-b); BSB Ink. C-207; Flodr, Celsus 1; GW 6456; HC 4835*; IGI 2674; Klebs 260.1; Oates 2333; Osler Incunabula medica 147; Pellechet 3464; Proctor 6116; Dibner Heralds of Science 119; Garrison-Morton 20, 5733.50, 5548.1, and 3666.81; Grolier Medicine 4; Osler 286; Stillwell Science 331, 610; Waller 44; Wellcome 1392; Norman 424.
Chancery 2
FIRST EDITION of the oldest Western work on medicine after the Hippocratic corpus. De medicina is the only surviving portion of an encyclopedia compiled in the first century A.D. "The text, which give an account of the whole of medicine and surgery, is based on a thorough and impartial use of Greek material from the last two centuries B.C., carefully worked into a harmonious and effective unity, and expressed in elegant Ciceronian Latin ... De medicina's interest for historians of ancient medicine is heightened by the fact that only very limited source material has survived from the period between the formation of the Hippocratic corpus (ca. 350 B.C.) and Celsus, so that for reconstructing the development of medicine during these four centuries De medicina plays a crucial role" (Grolier Medicine). In addition to serving as a source for reconstructing the medical history of Antiquity, De medicina also served as a useful handbook for practitioners, being reprinted a number of times in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Almost unknown in the Middle Ages, De medicina was rediscovered in the fifteenth century when several early manuscripts came to light. The first edition was prepared by the humanist Bartolomeo Fonzio using a codex copied by his brother Niccol from a now-lost source and incorporating corrections based on a ninth-century copy of the text (now Florence, Laur. 73.1). This manuscript may have belonged to Francesco Sassetti, the wealthy Medici banker and collector, whom Fonzio thanked for helping him obtain access to manuscripts (A.C. de la Mare, 'The Library of Francesco Sassetti', in Cultural Aspects of the Italian Renaissance, ed. C.H. Clough, Manchester 1976, p.170 and no.78).
In this copy, o5r has the correct reading "quintus" in the headline. Sheets y1.6, z1.6 and z2.5 and quires aa-hh and A are quarto; the rest are folio.
Goff C-364; BMC VI, 627 (IB. 27079, 27079a-b); BSB Ink. C-207; Flodr, Celsus 1; GW 6456; HC 4835*; IGI 2674; Klebs 260.1; Oates 2333; Osler Incunabula medica 147; Pellechet 3464; Proctor 6116; Dibner Heralds of Science 119; Garrison-Morton 20, 5733.50, 5548.1, and 3666.81; Grolier Medicine 4; Osler 286; Stillwell Science 331, 610; Waller 44; Wellcome 1392; Norman 424.