Averroës, Colliget, and Avenzoar, Taisir, texts on medicine, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum

Estimate

5,000 - 7,000 GBP

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Description

136 leaves (3 originally blank), 296m. by 259mm., apparently complete (last leaf replaced in the fourteenth century), collation: i-xiii^{10, xiv^{5+1 [of 6, vi lost (or never written), replaced by present fol.136], double column, at least 45 lines originally, written-space at least 211mm by 153mm., written in dark brown ink in a skilful rounded gothic bookhand, headings in red, paragraph-marks throughout in alternately red and blue, 2-line decorated initials throughout (often many to a page) in red or blue with good penwork in the contrasting colour,}} twenty-one large painted initials in lush leafy designs in colours with white heightening and on panel grounds usually with leafy extensions into the margins, three formed of figures of standing men with dragons’ heads (fols. 28v, 41v and 84v), the initials 2 to 6 lines high, mostly 5-line, descenders from several more once at top of pages, two 2-sided illuminated borders (fols.1r and 81r), the first including a half-length figure of a soldier, very many medieval sidenotes and annotations, faces, pointing fingers (and a pointing penis on fol.22v where the text mentions ‘sperma’), etc., last page of text in a slightly later and more informal hand, the upper part of every leaf throughout defective with loss of text, now repaired with blank vellum, slight worming at ends, generally (apart from the loss on the top of every page) in fine condition, paper boards, vellum spine

Provenance

provenance

The style of illumination is Paduan or Bolognese (cf. a very comparable Galen in Parole Dipinte, La miniature a Padova, 1999, p.82, no.16). Both texts here are associated with the medical schools of Padua (see below). The half-length figure of the soldier in the lower margin of fol.1r is inscribed with a contemporary name within the foliage, “petrucius de cancello”. This may be the owner; or perhaps the man shown reminded the owner of someone of this name; or, perhaps most likely of all, this is the artist’s name, like that of the celebrated Bolognese illuminator Oderisi written similarly in the decoration of Chester Beatty W. MS. 57, sold in these rooms, 24 June 1969, lot 51.

Catalogue Note

text

The manuscript comprises translations of two rare and important medical texts written in Arabic in twelfth-century Spain. The first is the Liber qui Colliget nominatur of the philosopher and astronomer, Averroës (1126-1192), of Cordoba, Abul Wallid Muhammad Ibn Roschd in Arabic. The name ‘Colliget’ is a western corruption of ‘Kitab al-Kulliyyat’, the book of medicine. The text was also widely known in Hebrew. The present translation is that of a Jew, Bonacosa of Padua, completed in 1255. The text was first printed in Venice in 1482 and in 1527 in the tenth volume of collected edition of the Latin works of Aristotle. There is an edition by A. Bustani, 1939, and books I-II are printed in E. Torre, Averroës y la ciencia medica: la doctrina anatomofuncional del Colliget, 1974; cf. also G. Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science, II, i, 1931, pp.360-61. Manuscripts are very scarce. To judge from the Schoenberg database, no manuscript of the text appears to have come onto the market since 1911. Folio 1r here has lost its opening words but begins with a prologue and a summary of the seven books which follow, continuing with Book I on fol.2v, “Particule …”, with chapters of the mouth, teeth, veins, muscles, the heart, eyes, nose, spleen, etc; Book II, “Sanitas est bona dispositio …” (fol.6v), chapters on the movement of limbs, the brain, sleep, etc.; Book III (fol.16v), on illnesses, wounds, tremors, spasms, etc.; Book IV (fol.28v) on signs to look for in judging health, on breathing, healthy testicles, heartbeat, colour of urine, fevers, blood flow, etc.; Book IV (fol.41v), on food and medicines, fish, milk, fruit, water, digestion, etc.; Book V; Book VI (fol.60r) on the preservation of health, on baths, diet, exercise, etc.; Book VII (fol.64v) on curing illness, pharmaceuticals, on treating fevers, sewing up wounds, blood-letting, etc., ending on fol.78v, “… lumine nostros oculos illuminare dignetur, Amen, Explicit liber methemet aventost, qui colliget nominatur, Deo gracias, Amen, Benedicta sit virgo maria in eternum”.

The second text is by Avenzoar (c.1094-1162), of Seville, Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik Ibn Zuhr in Arabic, physician and anatomist. He was the first scientist to test medicines on animals before administering them to humans and many major medical conditions were scientifically observed and recorded by him. The present text, the Kitab al-Taisir fi al-Mudawat wa al-Tadbir (literally ‘Simplifications of Therapy and Diet’), was written at the request of Averroës. It is the earliest influential text in the west to describe medical treatment on the basis of a scientific analysis of diet; cf. Sarton, op. cit., II, pp.230-34, and D. Campbell, Arabian Medicine, 1926, I, pp.90-92. The edition of 1491-92 gives the Latin translator’s name as ‘Magister Paravicinus’, presumably a corruption of ‘magister Patavinus’, an unnamed Paduan master, who finished it in 1281 (cf. L. Thorndike, Isis, XXVI, 1936, pp.33-6, and R.J. Durling, A Catalogue of Sixteenth-Century Printed Books in the National Library of Medicine, 1967, p.46). In the present manuscript it opens with a prologue and summary of the books which follow, with Book I, with tractates i (fol.82r), ii (fol.83r), iv (fol.84v), v (fol.85r), vi (fol.85v), vii (fol.86r), viii (fol.86v), ix (fol.90r), x (fol.96r), xi (fol.100r), xii (fol.103r), xiii (fol.104r), xiv (fol.105r), xv (fol.105v), and xvi (fol.108v); Book II opening on fol.110v, “Dicit servus regis …”, with tractates i, ii (fol.112r), iii (fol.115r), iv (fol.117r), v (fol.117r), vi (fol.118v) and vii (fol.120v); Book III opening on fol.127v, “Dicit servus regis …”, with tractate i, ii (fol.129v), and iii (fol.130v), all ending on the substituted leaf, fol.136v, “…’ corpus sua societate vivificat, & semper ipsam sua ratione disponat, Explicit”.