Description
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AlGazirah, Viaticum. Manuscript in Latin on vellum. France, middle of the 14th century. Small folio (26.5 x 19 cm.), 67 leaves in a small gothic hand, generally on 42 lines; black ink, with 8 featherwork initials in blue and red, and smaller red initials; commentaries in the same hand on inner and outer margins; without the final blank; last leaf with blank verso pasted down on lower cover; early 15th century pink goatskin over wooden boards, rubbed, spine lacking, one clasp (of two): in fine condition. An attracted manuscript copy of the 11th-century Latin translation by Constantinus Africanus of Ibn Al-Jazzar's Arabic text, Zad Al-Musafir, with the late 12th-century commentary by Gerard of Berry ("Gerard Parisiensis"). Constantinus Africanus, the first great translator from the Arabic to Latin, was born at Tunis at the beginning of the eleventh century. He travelled for many years through the East until he finally settled in Mone Cassino and died there in 1087. He was fundamental in the introduction of Arab medicine at the medical school of Salerno, where he stayed for several years. "As distinguished from the many cathedral schools whose purpose was to teach the liberal arts and to educate clerks, Salerno was a scientific or professional school, the first of its kind in Christian Europe. It is impossible to determine exactly its beginning; in all probability it had no definite beginning, but grew and imperceptibly became a famous medical centre ... Intellectual and political conditions combined to make of Salerno an excellent clearinghouse of medical ideas. Barbarian, Latin, Greek, Jewish, and Muslim influences were naturally and gradually syncretized and produced the first medical school of Europe. At the beginning, Muslim influences were accidental and limited, but later they were considerably increased by the activity of Constantine the African" Sarton I p. 725. "His arrival in Salerno marked the beginning of what historians have labelled 'the golden age' of its famous medical school. It is [in Italy] that he is siad to have become acquainted with the reigning prince's brother, who was a doctor. His experiences made him realise the poverty of medical literature in Latin, and he returned to study medicine for three years in Tunisia; then, having collected together several treatises on Arab medicine, he departed, with his precious treasure, for southern Italy ... It is not yet possible to establish the exact date of these events. But is is certain that he translated into Latin the best works on Arab medicine which had appeared up to the 5th/11th century ... Constantine's work infused new life into the medical school of Salerno, and indeed into the teaching of medicine in Europe for centuries to come" (EI). "We cannot determine the soruces of all of those [Arabic texts], but it is quiet possible that a number of shorter treatises that now appear to be Constantine's own compsitions will prove to be translations. Many of the identifiable translations are of the works of Isaac Judeas ... others are the works of Ibn al-Jazzar (Algazirah) most notably the text that Constantine entitled Viaticum" (DSB). The commentator Gerard of Berry, was a peripatetic scholar who studied and taught in Salerno, Montpellier and Paris. On Ibn al-Jazzar, see: Gerrit Bos, 'Ibn al-Jazzar on women's dieseases and their treatment' in Medical History, 1993, 37, pp. 296-312; EI, III, p. 754. For Constantinus Africanus see DSB, 3, 393-95 and EI, II, p. 59. For Gerard of Berry, see: M.F. Wack, 'Lovesickness in the Middle Ages. The Viaticum and its Commentaries, 1990, pp. 52-55, and 194-205. On Salerno, see: P.O. Kristeller, 'The School of Salerno. Its development and its contribution to the history of learning' in Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 17, pp. 138-194., Main Heritage Shelves General, HC.MS.LAT.00713, Manuscripts, Item-ID: i10238748, BIB-ID: 1025510, Latin script Gothic |