1486 Avicenna "Canon of Medicine" Incunable Printed by Petrus Maufer
Item Details
A 1486 incunable of Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine printed in Venice by early printer Petrus Maufer. The first initial is hand painted with gilding. Other capitals are hand painted in alternating blue and red pigment throughout. The entire text features marginalia by an early hand in both Latin and Hebrew. Of particular note are two longer passages, one in Latin (image 10) and one in Hebrew (image 25), both of which appear to be recipes for cures. The inscription on the verso of the last page was partially translated from the Hebrew by a Dr. A. Levinson in 1925 and appears to be a remedy for ‘the French sickness’, possibly a very early reference to syphilis. The earliest written records are from an outbreak in 1494-5 during a French invasion of Naples, and was thus referred to as the ‘French disease’. Although the inscriptions are not dated, the hand is consistent with 15th century cursive hands.
References:
Osler, William. Bibliotheca Osleriana: A Catalogue of Books Illustrating the History of Medicine and Science (1969), p. 45.
Index-Catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon-General’s Office, United States Army (1905), p. 382.
Signatures:
4 0: a 8 (-a1, a6, a7, a8); b-h 8 ; i-k 6 ; aa-ii 8 ; kk 6 ; A-Z 8 ; AB 8 ; AA-LL 8 ; MM-NN 6 ; OO 4; aA-dD 8 ; eE 10 (-eE1); fF 8 : 495 leaves
| Title and Author/Editor | [ Canon Medicinae ] (Avicenna; Ibn Sīnā, Persian, circa 980-1037) |
| Genre | Medical, History |
| Type of Illustration | Hand Painted |
| Binding | Mottled Leather, Blind stamped spine, Leather and gilt spine label |
| Publisher or Printer | Petrus Maufer (Pierre Maufer, French, active late 15th century) |
| Publication Year | 1486 |
| Place of Publication | Venice |
| Language | Latin |
| Ex-Libris | Horace Manchester Brown, Frank H. Taylor |
Condition
- scuffs to boards with wear to hinge, edges and corners; pages have been trimmed and dyed; five leaves (a1, a6-8, eE1) are missing; S4 misprinted as S3, corrected by hand; handcolored initials at the beginning of each book, except the first, have been removed with pages repaired and tipped in transliterations of the now missing text; extensive marginalia and notes throughout text, some cut partially by later page trimming; occasional stains to generally bright and clean pages; some loss to painted opening initial from transfer.
Dimensions
Item #
ITMG181378
