MONTE, Giovanni Batista, da.

by Giovanni Batista, da Monte

£3,250 · Offered by Sokol Books

Second, enlarged edition of this commentary on Avicenna’s ‘Canon of Medicine’ (‘al-Qānūn fī aṭ-Ṭibb’). In a charming contemporary binding with C14 vellum ms lining including a few lines from Constantine of Orvieto’s legend of Dominic, in particular the apparition of a demon in the shape of a large, horrid cat, among the Cathars to whom the saint was preaching. Giovanni Battista da Monte (1498-1551) was a major Renaissance physician, professor at Padua, and acquainted with Vesalius. He was a prolific author of commentaries on ancient Greek medical texts, while his numerous commentaries on Rhazes and Avicenna’s (Ibn Sina, 980-1037) Arabic ‘Qanūn’, in G. of Cremona’s Latin translation, contributed to the continuing circulation of Arabic medical theories in the C16. ‘Avicenna’s “Quanūn” […] is a compendium of Greek and Arabic medical knowledge […] coordinating the teachings of Galen, Hippocrates and Aristotle. It superseded all previous works – even […] Rhazes – and in its Latin translation became the authoritative book in all universities’ (PMM 11). The present treatise – with 3 additional chapters as compared to the first ed. (1554) – focuses on Book I, Part I, of the ‘Qanūn’, concerned with the definition of medicine, its subdivision into theoretical and practical – a question which much interested da Monte, who was a supporter of the use of clinical medicine in universities – body physiology based on the four humours, and the causes of illness. Among the dozens of topics disc

• Binding: Hardcover

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