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Harley MS 3747

Record Id:

040-002049579

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002049579

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x000100

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 3747

Title:

Giovanni Garzoni of Bologna, Practica medicinae secundum modum Avicennae, and other medical treatises

Scope & Content:

This manuscript contains a collection of medical lectures, known as the Practica medicinae (The Practice of Medicine), composed by the physician and humanist Giovanni Garzoni of Bologna (b. 1419, d. 1506), probably between 1465 and 1471. The volume also includes a number of shorter medical texts, including treatises on fevers and the plague by the Florentine physician Niccolò Falcucci (d. c. 1412), a treatise on diet by Giovanni's father Bernardo Garzoni (d. 1450/6), professor of medicine and philosophy at Bologna, and two treatises on medical baths attributed to Gentile da Foligno (d. 1348) and Pietro d'Abano (b. 1250, d. 1316). A treatise on migraines by Jean Spierinck (d. 1499), professor of medicine at Louvain, was added at the end of the Practica medicinae in a later hand.

The manuscript features marginal annotations in contemporary and later hands throughout, which reference other medieval physicians and their medical works, including John of Gaddesden and his work Rosa medicinae (f. 198v), Galeazzo di Santa Sofia (f. 216r), Bernardo [Garzoni], and Gentile Gentili da Foligno (f. 227r).

According to the colophon, the manuscript was written in 1477 for a certain Roland Cornelius, by the scribe Henricus de Bergis (d. 1502), who at the time was abbot of St Denis en Broqueroy, and would later become bishop of Cambrai.

An autograph manuscript of Garzoni's Practica (written in three volumes) now survives as Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria, MS. 731.

Contents:

f. 1*r: added ownership inscriptions.

ff. 2*r-3*r: Giovanni Garzoni of Bologna, Prologue to Practica medicinae secundum modum Avicennae.

ff. 3*r-4*v: Table of contents, including notes of additions to the manuscript, written in a later hand (f. 4*v).

ff. 1r-206v: Giovanni Garzoni of Bologna, Practica medicinae secundum modum Avicennae, divided into 22 sections, beginning, 'Antequam accedamus ad curam doloris capitis', and ending, 'hec enim cura facit occultare alguasen ad tempus Laus Deo'.

ff. 206v-208v: Jean Spierinck, De soda influentiali, beginning, '[M]ulti reperiuntur homines iuvenes et senes', and ending, 'Et sic finitus est tractatus digressivus singularis egregij viri artium magistri medicine doctoris magistri Johannis Spirinis quem subiunxit tractatus secundi de soda'.

ff. 209r-227r, 227v-228r, 229r: Niccolò Falcucci, Consilia super de febribus abbreviata, written in 30 chapters, beginning, 'Quamvis multi ad manus meas curandi venerunt tam de synocha Inflatiua', and ending, 'Cura 3 ^ospeciei impossibilis est sed sit blanditoria & resumptiva et cetera '.The treatise is the second of the eight sermons that Falcucci composed on human diseases and their treatments.

f. 227r-v: Niccolò Falcucci, De febre pestilentiali (On plague fevers), in an abridged version by Giovanni Garzoni, beginning, 'Nycolus Florentinus scribit capitulum satis prolixum de cura febris pestilentialis quod ego magister Jo. de garçonis in pauca redigam nihil necessarium pretermittens', and ending, 'In capitulo febris sincopalis humorose & minutarum'.

f. 227v: Galeazzo di Santa Sofia (attributed), an unidentified treatise on the plague, beginning, 'In magna corpora Recipe', and ending, 'sincopalis humorose et minutarum'.

ff. 228r-229r: Bernardo Garzoni (attributed), De dieta acutorum (On the diet of the sick), beginning, 'Medicus in dietando & maxime in cibo et potu sollicitus esse debet', and ending, 'lactucarum corticum papaveris'. A marginal note attributes the treatise to Giovanni Garzoni 'Magistro Jo. de garçonibus' (f. 228r).

ff. 229v-230r: Capitulum de preservatione a pestilentia (Treatise on protection from the plague), beginning, 'Preservativa a peste virtutibus omnibus familiaria', and ending, 'Utatur gaudio quantum possibile est. Vitet tristitiam Scripsi ex exemplari magistri Jo. de garçonibus scripto a manu patris sui magistri Bernardi de garçonibus excellentissimi medici'. The scribe claims to have copied the present text from an exemplar written by Bernardo Garzoni and owned by Giovanni Garzoni.

ff. 230r-231r: Pietro d'Abano or Gentile Gentili da Foligno, De balneis (On baths), beginning, 'Intendo mediocriter medicos docere quantum brevius potero', and ending, '& hoc ad presens de balneis non cir/constantibus Petri de Ebano doctoris excellentissimi tractatus de balneis feliciter explicit'. The text is perhaps perhaps attributable to Pietro d'Abano, but traditionally ascribed to Gentile Gentili da Foligno, possibly based on a text by d'Abano.

f. 231r-v: Gentile Gentili da Foligno, De balneis (On baths), beginning, 'Terme secundum medicos sunt balnea naturaliter calida', and ending, 'ita potentialiter sed satis proprie Gentilis de fulgineo'.

Decoration:

Large and small initials alternately in red or blue ink. Rubrics in capitals of silver (tarnished) or pale red. Running titles in capitals of pale red. Paragraph marks alternately in red or blue ink. Occasional guide-letters to initials. A simple decorative frame drawn by the scribe around a paper flaw (f. 157r). Maniculae, mainly in brown ink, but also in red (f. 22r) and blue (f. 35r), and parentheses in the shape of human profiles added by later hands (e.g. ff. 44v, 46r, 102r).

The cataloguing of this manuscript was funded by the Wellcome Trust.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002049579", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 3747: Giovanni Garzoni of Bologna, Practica medicinae secundum modum Avicennae, and other medical treatises" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002049579

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 3747 : Giovanni Garzoni of Bologna, Practica medicinae secundum modum Avicennae, and other medical treatises

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[3748]/040-002049579

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1477

End Date:

1477

Date Range:

1477

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Material: Paper.

Watermark: a five-pointed crown (ff. 1-197); a trimontium (ff. 198-234), neither found in Briquet or Picard.

Dimensions: 433 x 285 mm (written space: 265 x 163-165 mm), in two columns.

Foliation: ff. 1*-4* + 231 ( + 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and at the end).

ff. 1*-4* are paper leaves.

Collation: Gatherings: i-xviii¹⁰, xix^10-1 (tenth missing), xx^10-2 (third-fourth missing), xxi¹⁴, xxii-xxiii¹⁰, xxiv^10-7 (fourth-tenth possibly cancelled, but original composition not securely ascertainable).

Original horizontal catchwords at centre of lower margin of last versos.

Leaf signatures, the first with incorrect numbering, occasionally cut away by a later binder.

Script: Humanistic with Gothic influence, written by Henricus de Bergis.

Binding: Covers of blind-tooled brown calf over pasteboards possibly from a Harleian binding, attributable to Thomas Elliott, with fragments of the gilt-tooled spine compartments and title-label in red morocco 'Garzon / Pratica' pasted on the inside front cover.

Custodial History:

Origin:

Cambrai, France.

Provenance:

The manuscript was made in 1477 for a certain Roland Cornelius by the scribe Henricus de Bergis (d. 1502), then abbot of St Denis en Broqueroy in the diocese of Cambrai, who later became bishop of Cambrai in 1580: his colophon, 'Et sic est finis practice Johannis garçonis / Per me henricum de bergis sitque leonis / In anno domini millesimo & quatuor centum / Et septuagesimo cum septem sitque completum / In die vigesimo februarij mense secundo / Pro viro digno rolansque cornelio' (f. 206v) (see Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts (1979), p. 139, pl. 804; du Bouveret, Colophons de manuscrits occidentaux (1967), p. 362).

Petrus Brugelius (d. 1578), professor of medicine at Louvain, owned in the 16th century: his inscription, 'Sum Brugelii' (f. 1*r), followed by a later inscription recording the acquisition of the manuscript after his death by Johannes Valla.

Johannes Valla (fl. 17th century), medical doctor of Liège:, owned in the 17th century: an added inscription recording the manuscript's acquisition by Valla (here under the alias Montpellirus) after Brugelius's death (f. 1*r).

Samuel Knott (d. 1687), rector of Combe Raleigh and priest of Broad Hembury, County Devon, owned later in the 17th century: a few marginal notes added by him (ff. 2*v, 3*r, 30r, 30v, 32v, 33r); passed from him to Robert Burscough.

Robert Burscough (b. 1650/51, d.1709), prebendary of Exeter in 1701, archdeacon of Barnstaple in 1703, rector of Cheriton Bishop in 1705: MS. 59 in his collection (see Bernard, Catalogi librorum (1697), III, no. 7678); sold by his widow on 17 May 1715 to Robert Harley, along with other manuscripts (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), pp. 87-88; Diary (1966), I, p. 11 n. 6; II, p. 498).

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, inscribed with the date of acquisition by their librarian, Humfrey Wanley, ‘17 May 1715' (f. 1*r). Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta Cavendish, née 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.

Publications:

Edward Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ, 3 vols (Oxford: E Theatro Sheldoniano, 1697), III, no. 7678.

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 3747.

Serafino Mazzetti, Repertorio di tutti i professori antichi e moderni della famosa Università, e del celebre Istituto delle scienze di Bologna (Bologna, 1847), p. 142.

Lynn Thorndike, 'Manuscripts of the Writings of Peter of Abano', Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 15, no. 2 (1944), 201-19 (p. 203).

George Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science: Vol. 3: Science and Learning in the Fourteenth Century: Part 2 (Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins Co., 1948), pp. 1194-95.

G. Manfrè, 'La biblioteca dell'umanista bolognese Giovanni Garzoni (1419-1505)', Accademie e biblioteche d'Italia , 28 (1960), 249-78 (p. 255).

Lynn Thorndike and Pearl Kibre, Catalogue of Incipits of Medieval Scientific Writings in Latin, rev. ed., The Mediaeval Academy of America Publication, 29 (London, 1963; with supplements in 1965 and 1968), pp. 107k, 521j, 759c, 863h, 887g, 1086g, 1165g, 1430b, 1564d.

The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril Ernest Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), I, p. 11 n. 6; II, p. 498.

Bénédictins du Bouveret, Colophons de manuscrits occidentaux de origines au XVIe siècle (Fribourg, 1967), p. 362, nos. 6442-43.

P. Kibre, 'Giovanni Garzoni of Bologna (1419-1505), Professor of Medicine and Defender of Astrology', Isis, 58:4 (1968), 504-514 (p. 505).

Palémon Glorieux, La faculté des arts et ses maîtres au XIIIe siècle (Paris: Librarie philosophique J. Vrin, 1971), p. 274.

C. E. Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 85, 87-88, 335-36, 434.

Dennis E. Rhodes, 'Nicolaus Falcutius and Nicolaus Nicoli', British Library Journal, 5 (1979), 198-200.

T. Pesenti, Professori e promotori di medicina nello Studio di Padova dal 1405 al 1509. Repertorio bio-bibliografico (Padua: Edizioni Lint, 1984), pp. 182-86.

A. G. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts, c. 700-1600 in the Department of Manuscripts: The British Library, 2 vols (London: The British Library 1979), I, p. 139, pl. 804.

Marilyn Nicoud, 'Les médecins italiens et le bain thermal à la fin du moyen age', Médiévales, 43 (2002), 13-40 (pp. 30, 39).

Bibliographie annuelle du Moyen Age tardif: auteurs et textes latins, vers 1250-1500, ed. Jean-Pierre Rothschild (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), no. 1242.

Laura Nuvolini, 'The Harleian Medical Manuscripts', The Electronic British Library Journal (2008), 1-20 (pp. 14, 18).

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Brugelius, Petrus, Professor of medicine at Louvain, d 1578
Burscough, Robert, Church of England clergyman, 1650/51-1709
Elliott, Thomas, bookbinder, fl 1712-1763
Falcucci, Niccolò, Florentine physician, d c 1412
Galeazzo di Santa Sofia, Italian physician and anatomist, d 1427
Garzoni, Bernardo, Professor of philosophy and medicine at the university of Bologna, d 1450/6
Garzoni, Giovanni, of Bologna, physician and humanist, 1419-1505
Gentile Gentili da Foligno, Italian professor and doctor, d 1348
Knott, Samuel, Rector of Combe Raleigh Devon, 1661-1668, d 1687
Pietro d'Abano, Italian philosopher and professor of medicine, c 1257-1316
Spierinck, Johannes, Professor of Medicine at Louvain, d 1499
Valla, Johannes, alias `Montpellirus', physician at Liège, fl 17th century
de Bergis, Henricus, abbot of St Denis en Broqueroy, bishop of Cambrai, d 1502

Places:

Cambrai, France