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Description
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Illustrated manuscript on vellum, medieval foliation runs from 26-77 for Book I, and Book II (beginning on the verso of 77) I-II, 13-21, 30-38, double column, 56 lines, ruled in plummet, written in black ink in a well-formed gothic bookhand, chapter titles and number in red, intials alternately in red and blue with contransting penwork infilling and scrolling extensions down the margins, capitals touched in red or blue, many medieval sidenotes in red and blue cartouches, at the beginning of Book II a large (9 line) historiated initial in red, blue and orange showing a doctor at the patient's bedside, burnished gold background, full length illuminated bar border between the columns with tendrils extending into the upper margin; occasional corrections and other annotations, generally in very good condition, with bright fresh illumination; disbound in a morocco backed cloth box. An impressive and substantial fragment of a very grand Avicenna Canon, with an illuminated miniature executed in the best Paris style - clear black outlines, and the colour and design of a stained glass window. The manuscript dates from the time when the University of Paris was drawing scholars and masters from all over Europe. Paris was the most international of the medieval universities; medicine was one of the four principal teaching faculties; and Avicenna's Canon was the most important of medical textbooks. This Latin translation by Gerard of Cremona remained the standard version throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Book I ("Generalities") is the most complex book of the Canon. It contains four funun (treatises). The first is a study of the four elements: fire, air, water, and earth, and the reactions between them which form the temperaments. This is followed by an account of forces - psychic force, with the brain as its centre; natural force, concerned with self-preservation (centred in the liver and testicles), and animal force (with the heart at its centre), which controls the pneuma affecting the senses and locomotion. The second treatise is on aetiology and symptoms; the third is on hygiene and the causes of health and sickness; the fourth is a classification of the modes of therapy, a survey of treatment by regimes, diets, and the administration of cathartic and emetic drugs. Book II ("Materia medica") is divided into two sections: a general account of the physical properties of drugs and an alphabetical list of drugs detailing their particular virtues. Complete manuscripts of the Canon containing all five books are of the greatest rarity. Of the five MSS listed in de Ricci and Supplement, for example, none is complete, and two (Boston Medical Library, and Bryn Mawr College) consist of but a single book. EI, III, pp. 941-47. On the reception of Avicenna's Canon in France, See: Danielle Jacquart, 'La Reception du Canon d'Avicenne: comparaison entre Montpellier et Paris aux XIIe et XIVe siecles' in 110 Congres national des societes savantes, Montpellier, 1985, Colloque sur l'ecole medicale de Montpellier, pp. 69-77, Vert. Gerardus Cremonensis. Comm. Jacobus de Partibus. Ed. Jacobus Ponceau. Met toevoegingen van Janus Lascaris., Main Heritage Shelves General, HC.MS.LAT.01922, Manuscripts, Item-ID: i10069653, BIB-ID: 1008601 |
