MONTE, Giovanni Batista, da.

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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 It superseded all previous works – even […] Rhazes – and in its Latin translation became the authoritative book in all universities’ (PMM 11).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 discussed are whether the art of medicine is also a science, the nature of the four elements, whether blood is sufficient for generation and nutrition, the kinds of bile, body heat in children and adults, gonorrhoea, death causes, ‘mumia’, melancholy, fevers, and poison, as well as more specific questions on complexion and humours, such as why the teeth of Ethiopians are white, but not their nails. An early annotator jotted down a recipe for an oil against paralysis and tremor. Sigismondo de’ Bartolomeis was a C18 Italian physician from Sospel, Piedmont. He defended his thesis, later printed, in Turin in 1757. Show more