A Compendium of Medical Treatises in Judeo-Arabic and Hebrew, Catania (Sicily): ca. 1452

(7 ¾ x 5 ½ in; 197 x 140 mm). Written in brown ink on paper in a Judeo-Arabic and Hebrew in Hebrew Sephardic semi-cursive, rabbinic script. Modern brown buckram.

The arts of medicine have a complicated history of textual transmission across cultures and languages, graphically illustrated by works such as the present anthology. The largest part of the present manuscript (253 leaves) comprises the work known as  Kamil al-Sinaa (also known as Kitab al-Maliki) by Ali ibn al-Abbas al-Madjusi (d. ca. 985), which served as a primary textbook for medical students. Though Arabic copies are not uncommon, only three other copies written in Hebrew characters are known. The manuscript also includes part of the Book of Ilnesses and Symptoms, a title listed among the works of Galen. The colophon of this work states that it was copied by Abu-l-Hasan Saad ibn Hibat Allah for David ben Shalom, in the year 1448 in Catania, a Sicilian town where the the presence of Jews is already attested to in 383 CE. Many of the references to the Jews of Catania in later centuries indicate the presence of numerous physicians.

For other similar multicultural medical anthologies, see Steinschneider, Die Arabische Literatur der Juden, 1902, pp. 213–221. "One reason for this devotion of Jews to medicine was that the study of medical science was looked upon as a sort of religious duty" (Jewish Chronicle, 19 November 1926, p. 17). Yet despite the importance of medicine in medieval Jewish learning, medical manuscripts are of extreme rarity.  Furthermore, this manuscript  is the only surviving text written in Hebrew characters from the ancient Jewish community of the Sicilian port city of Catania.

The earliest presence of Jews in Catania is attested to by a lengthy Jewish tombstone inscription dating from the year 383 CE. Many of the references to the Jews of Catania in the subsequent centuries refer to Jewish medical practitioners, among them a Jewish woman who in 1376 obtained a license to practice medicine throughout Sicily.  In 1455, near the time this manuscript was written, Jews from Catania and other towns in Sicily attempted to immigrate to Jerusalem but were discovered by the authorities and punished.  When the Jews of Catania were finally expelled in 1492 along with the rest of Sicilian Jewry, this manuscript was likely carried into exile with them.

Sotheby's is extremely grateful to Dr. Menahem Schmelzer for providing information which aided in the cataloging of this lot.

Contents:

I.)
13 miscellaneous unpaginated leaves:
[1-7]: Arabic (in Arabic characters), interspersed with Samaritan writing. There is mention of Samaritans living in Catania, Sicily in the 6th century. See: Encyclopaedia Judaica, under Catania.
 [8-9]: Hebrew, mainly scribbling.
 [10]:  as [1-7]
 [11]: In Hebrew: Novellae on Babylonian Talmud Kiddushin 40a.
 [12]: In Hebrew: Rules on ritual salting (meliha).
 [13]: In Hebrew: Decorated title page, date: 1810, “to write in my book anything that I find”. Probably    the title page of a notebook containing a variety of writings and quotations. The script and the decoration are in the style of Hebrew manuscripts from Morocco.

II.)
Medical work in Arabic in Hebrew characters. 
At the end of part II, there is a lengthy colophon. It states that the work, the Book of Illnesses and Symptoms by Abu-l-Hasan Saad ibn Hibat Allah ibn al-Hasan is completed for David be Shalom, in the year 1448 [or 1456—the date is given by a Biblical verse, Genesis 27:19, but the signing of letters is somewhat ambiguous), in Catania. A work by the same title is listed among the works of Galen, see Steinschneider, Hebraeische Uebersetzungen, 652. Catania was an important Jewish community in the Middle Ages in Sicily, with many physicians, see: Shlomo Simonsohn, Between Scylla and Charybdis: The Jews in Sicily. Brill, 2011, index. It bears noting that Arabic language and culture were still present in Sicily long after the end of Islamic rule.

III.)
14 unpaginated leaves of a Hebrew medical work. Chapter 9-10 of [Part 1] and chapters 1-4 of part 2. Deals with simple and compound drugs and illnesses.  Some in alphabetical order. First four leaves  in different hand. Last ten leaves in hand of pt IV.

IV.)
[253] leaves paginated in Hebrew. ,  Kamil al-Sinaa, also known as Kitab al-Maliki by Ali ibn al-Abbas al-Madjusi. The author died in the years between 982 and 985. His book was the chief textbook of medicine for students. It is found in many manuscripts in Arabic script, and also in 3 manuscripts, besides the present one, in Hebrew characters (Berlin, Catalog Steinschneider, number 250, Munich, Catalog Steinschneider, number 104, Vatican, Catalog Richler, number 358). The work was translated into Latin in the 12th century but only a brief section of the book was translated into Hebrew. See: Steinschneider, Hebraeische Uebersetzungen, p. 669;  Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, vol. 1, p. 381.  

 Fol. 133 and 2 leaves after fol. [253] are in a much younger hand. 3 leaves at the end are stuck together; fol. 15: Part 2 of the work begins; fol.  42a: Colophon: tractate 6 of the book finished; fol. 42b: the 7th tractate  begins. With table of contents of 51 chapters; fol. 132b: Colophon: the 7th tractate ends; fol. 133b: The 8th tractate begins. With table of contents of 53 chapters.  

COLOPHONS:
There are additional colophons on ff. 42b and 132b: on f. 42b it indicates that chapter 6 of the book is completed, on f. 132b it states that the 7th chapter is concluded and it gives the date marked by a verse from Proverbs 4:7. It is not clear what letters should be counted, but it is most likely that the date is 1452.