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CONSTANTINUS AFRICANUS (ca. 1020-1098/99)
Constantini Africani post Hippocratem et Galenum, quorum, Graecę linguae doctus, sedulus fuit lector, medicorũ nulli prorsus, [...] posthabendi opera, cõquisita undi[que] [...] iam primum typis evulgata, praeter paucula quędam quae impressa fuerũt, sed & ipsa à nobis [...] tanta cura castigata, ut huius autoris antehac nihil aeditum censeri possit [...]
Heinrich Petri, August 1536
2800.00 €
Govi Libreria Antiquaria
(Modena, Italy)
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CONSTANTINUS AFRICANUS (ca. ca. 1020-1098/99)-GAZIO, Antonio (1450-1525/28). Summi in omni Philosophia viri Constantini Africani Medici operum reliqua, hactenus desiderata, nunc[que] primum impressa ex venerandae antiquitatis exemplari, quod nunc demum est inventum. In quibus omnes communes loci, qui propriè Theorices sunt, [...] explicantur & tractantur [...] (with: Antonius Gaizo de somno ac eius necessitate). Basel, Heinrich Petri, (August 1539).
Two works in one volume, folio (308x200 mm). I: [16], 387, [1] pp. Collation: a-b4 A-Z6 AA-GG6 HH-II4 KK6. Lacking leaf a2; II: [16], 361, [3] pp. Collation: a-b4 A-Z4 Aa-Xx4 Yy6. 18th-century half-vellum, lettering piece on spine, ink title on front edge. Some light browning and foxing, but a good, genuine copy with wide margins. Provenance: ownership entry on the title page “Ex lib. Ant. Gambarotti M.Ph.Ch.D.” (Antonio Gambarotti, fl. 18th cent., was a physician and public lecturer of anatomy at the University of Padua), followed by a long 16th-century censorship note: “Obliteratis […] vestigiis impressoris et aliis obliterandis […] librum edidimus donec melius emulgetur, ut […] possit […] die 25 maij 1559 fr. Marcus Ant.ius […]”. As a matter of fact, both the printer's name and device on the title page have been inked out and the following leaf containing the dedication by Heinrich Petri to Lux Klett, chancellor of the bishop of Basel, cut out. A few contemporary marginal annotations.
Second edition of Constantinus Africanus' collected works. The first appeared in Lyon in 1515 (Omnia opera Ysaac) together with a collection of texts attributed to Isaac Judaeus, but Constantinus' treatises De coitu, De mulierum morbis and De melancholia are here in first edition.
The first work contains: De morborum cognitione & curatione; De remediorum & agritudinum cognitione; De urinis; De stomachi affectionibus; De victus ratione variorum morborum; De melancholia; De coitu; De animae & spiritus discrimine; De incantatione & adjuratione collique suspensione; De mulierum morbis; De chirurgia; and De gradibus simplicium.
The second work, dedicated to the Abbot Desiderius of Monte Cassino, contains the Pantegni (or Theorica or Loci medicinae) in ten books, a translation of extracts from the theoretical parts of al-Majusi's Kamil as-sina'a at-tibbiya (‘The Whole Art of Medicine', 10th century), which is still considered the clearest general overview of medieval medicine that we have.
“Constantine the African was the first major translator of Arabic medical writings into Latin and hence the most important figure in the revival of scientific medicine in the West from the late eleventh century on. The only biographical data that can be firmly documented are his arrival in Salerno in 1077 and his death at the Italian Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino by 1098-1099 at the latest. (The death date of 1087 that is often cited in secondary accounts has no documentary foundation.) Peter the Deacon (d. after 1154), another monk at Monte Cassino, provides the earliest account of Constantine's life: he came originally, Peter claims, from Carthage, and traveled to ‘Babilonia' (Cairo), India, Ethiopia, and Egypt. Another telling of Constantine's activities by the mid-twelfth-century physician Matheus Ferrarius of Salerno claims that Constantine initially visited Italy and, finding the Latins impoverished in their medical literature, returned to Africa to gather books, though several were lost when he was shipwrecked on his return. A third, entirely different account (perhaps written by a partisan for the rival school of Montpellier) presents him as a fugitive from Spain who nearly killed his royal patient. Given his clear associations with the medical community of the Tunisian city of Qayrawan, it may well be that his origins lie there. Although clearly of African origin, Constantine's original religion remains unclear. Ferrarius explicitly refers to him as a