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Harley MS 3706

Record Id:

040-002049538

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002049538

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x0000d7

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 3706

Title:

Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum with commentary

Scope & Content:

Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum with commentary; imperfect. The short version of the famous collection of didactic verse (360 verses) on health, diet, and medicine put together for oral transmission by doctors at the School of Salerno and assembled in written form with an anonymous commentary in the 13th century. Begins imperfectly with the commentary (f. 1r): 'hominem in iuventute conservat', first verse (f. 1r): 'Lumina mane manus surgens gelida lavit aqua', breaking off with the last verse of the text (f. 86v): 'utilis est requies sit cum moderamine potus', followed by one line of commentary 'In hoc passu autor plura notat. Primum est quod ieiunare multum'. With occasional marginal notabilia added by the scribe.

Another copy of the text without commentary is Sloane MS 345, ff. 8v-14v, dated 'a^o 1406 16 may'; for a longer version of the text see Harley MS 2268, ff. 118r-138r; excerpts in Harley MS 3719, ff. 281v-282r.

First printed, with commentary attributed to Arnaldus de Villanova, by Johannes de Westfalia (also known as Jean de Padeborn) in Louvain between 1477 and 1483 (see Fredrick R. Goff, Incunabula in American Libraries: A Third Census of Fifteenth-Century Books Recorded in North American Collections (New York: The Bibliographical Society of America, 1964), R61; H 13749?; ir0061000), or by Conrad Winters de Homborch in Cologne circa 1480 (Goff 1964, R59; H 13751; ir0059000). Among modern editions see Das medizinische Lehrgedicht der Hohen Schule zu Salerno, ed. by P. Tesdorpf and Th. Tesdorpf-Sickenberger (1915); The School of Salernum, Regimen Sanitatis Salerni, with English translation, ed. by J. Harington (Salerno, 1953). See also K. Sudhoff, 'Zum Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum', Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin, 7 (1914), 360-62; 8 (1915), 292-93; 9 (1916), 221-29; 10 (1917), 91-101; 12 (1920), 149-80; L. Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental Science (New York, 1923), I, pp. 736-37; L. Thorndike and P. Kibre, Catalogue of Incipits of Medieval Scientific Writings in Latin, The Mediaeval Academy of America Publication, 29 (London, 1963; with supplements in 1965 and 1968), p. 96a; its electronic version on CD-ROM ed. (Ann Arbor, MI, 2000), no. 96A; H. Walther, Initia carminum ac versuum medii aevi posterioris Latinorum, 2nd edn (Göttingen, 1969), no. 1039; E. de Divitiis, P. Cappabianca and O. de Divitiis, 'The Schola Medica Salernitana: The Forerunner of the Modern University Medical Schools', Neurosurgery, 55, 4 (2004), 729-30. For further bibliography see P. Nigro, La scuola medica salernitana: bibliografia cronologico analitica delle edizioni a stampa del 'Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum' (Salerno, 2004).

Decoration:

Large initials (1-4 lines) in red or blue with pen-flourished decoration in contrasting black or red for both text and commentary, throughout. Verse and sentence initials highlighted in red.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection
Harley Science Project

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002049538", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 3706: Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum with commentary" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002049538

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 3706 : Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum with commentary

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[3708]/040-002049538

Container:

View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

86 folios.

Digitised Content:

http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_3706 (digital images currently unavailable)

Thumbnail:

Languages:

Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1400

End Date:

1449

Date Range:

1st half of the 15th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Paper codex.

Dimensions: 223 x 153 mm (text space: 113 x 79-80 mm).

Foliation: ff. vi + 86 (all unfoliated flyleaves are paper). Modern foliation in pencil ff. '1-86'.

Collation: i^12-1 (first missing), ii-vii¹², viii^6-3 (fourth-sixth cancelled), with leaf signatures (a.i-a.vi type) in lower right corner of rectos, and horizontal catchwords within frames in lower right corner of last versos.

Layout: Horizontal and vertical single bounding lines ruled in ink for single column of 28-29 lines. Text below top line.

Script: Gothic for the text, and gothic cursive (retaining some Anglicana letter forms such as round 'e' and 's') for the commentary.

Binding: British Museum/British Library 18th-century binding of mottled brown leather over pasteboards with spine in gilt-tooled compartments; decorated paper pastedowns and contiguous flyleaves.

Custodial History:

Origin: England.

Provenance:

John Covel (b. 1638, d. 1722), chaplain to the Levant Company at Constantinople, 1670-1676, and later Master of Christ's College, Cambridge: possibly identifiable with manuscript no. 15, 'Schola Salernitana cum commentario Arnoldi Villanovani', in his autograph catalogue (now Additional MS 22911, ff. 180r-183r). The lack of the usual Covel shelfmark may result from the loss of the frontispiece or of the original endleaves.

The Harley Collection, formed by Robert Harley (b. 1661, d. 1724), 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, and Edward Harley (b. 1689, d. 1741), 2nd earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts. Possibly acquired for the Harley Collection on 27 Feb. 1715/6 together with many other Covel manuscripts (Wright and Wright 1966; Wright 1972).

Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta, née Cavendish Holles (b. 1694, d. 1755) during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (b. 1715, d. 1785), duchess of Portland; the manuscripts were sold by the Countess and the Duchess in 1753 to the nation for £10,000 (a fraction of their contemporary value) under the Act of Parliament that also established the British Museum; the Harley manuscripts form one of the foundation collections of the British Library. Harley shelfmarks '119.A.6' in pen in light brown ink, followed by '3706' in pen in dark brown ink, and '16/II E' in pencil (f. ii recto) .

Publications:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 3706.

Salvatore De Renzi, Collectio Salernitana, ossia documenti inediti e trattati di medicina appartenenti alla scuola medica Salernitana, ed. by August W. E. T. Henschel, Charles Daremberg and Salvatore De Renzi, 5 vols (Naples: Filiatre-Sebezio, 1859; new edn by Antonio Garzya, Napoli: D'Auria, 2001), V, p. 140, no. 65.

Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 113-14, 433.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Covel, John, traveller, botanist and college head, 1638-1722