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Collection of medical recipes, in Latin, partly following the arrangement of chapters in Rhazes, <i>Liber nonus ad Almansorem</i>, and partly extracted from Bartolomeo da Montagnana, <i>Antidotarium</i>. Public Domain Mark. Source: Wellcome Collection.
A collection of recipes, in Latin, written by two hands, probably in North East Italy, mid 15th century. The collection follows the usual head to toe arrangement in medieval medical manuals and, in particular, in the Liber nonus ad Almansorem, a treatise on the medical therapy of diseases written by the Persian physician Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (865-925 or 933), known in the West as Rhazes or Rhasis. Additional recipes added at the end of the volume by contemporary hands include excerpts from the Antidotarium of the Paduan physician Bartolomeo da Montagnana (c. 1380-before Feb. 1452).
Contents
1. ff. 1r-30v: Receptarium, in Latin, partly drawing from Rhazes, Liber nonus ad Almansorem, in the Latin translation attributed to Gerardus of Cremona (1114-1187). The manuscript was formerly identified (Moorat, I, p. 509) as an abridged copy of the Latin translation of Rhazes's work because of the similarities in the chapter titles and beginnings with those in the parallel chapters by Rhazes in the edition produced at Milan by Leonardus Pachel and Uldericus Scinzenzeler, dated 14 Feb. 1481, ff. i7r-m3v (ISTC ir00175000).
The incipit 'Soda est lesio in membris capitis' of the first chapter, entitled the Capitulum de soda, is identical to the beginning of a chapter on Soda in the Latin translation of Avicenna's Canon, Book 3, Tractatus 2, attributed to Gerardus of Cremona (by comparison with the text in the incunable edition produced in Padua by Johannes Herbort de Seligenstadt in 1476; ISTC ia01418000). However, the text continues with the words 'Signa propria sode colerice sunt mordicatio …', turning into a different and so far unidentified work.
The first lines of chapters 2-23, from 'De scotomia et Vertigine' (f. 2r) to 'De casu vuule' (f. 13v), mostly draw from the first lines in the corresponding chapters of Rhazes's work (as printed in the 1481 edition, ff. i7r-k7r), but the text that follows in the chapters consists of unidentified commentaries and/or recipes. The texts of chapters 24-40 differ from those of Rhazes.
For another manuscript in the Wellcome Library containing an unidentified collection of medical recipes in Latin similarly following the chapter organisation of Rhazes's Liber nonus ad Almansorem, see MS. 684.
f. 1r: Incipit: Capitulum de Soda // [S]Oda est lesio in membris capitis. Signa propria sode colerice sunt mordicatio ...
f. 30v: Explicit: … Capitulum de remotione defedationis cutis in manibus et pedibus periodice euenientur … tunc ergo ex eo liniatur membrum tepido vel calido actu. Et sanabitur. Amen.
2. ff. 31r-35v: Recipes added by the second scribe and other hands in cursive script, North East Italy, mid 15th century.
f. 31r: Caption: Experimentum valde solempne ad curandum fistulam; Incipit: Recipe admoniaci et infunde in aceto fortissimo …
f. 35v: Caption: Unguentum pro stomaco; Incipit: Recipe olium de spica … cere parum fiat unguentum mollem.
3. f. 36r-37v: Bartolomeo da Montagnana, Antidotarium, in Latin, excerpts, including recipes for ointments, emplastra, patches, oils, powders, pills and pessaries. Montagnana's Antidotarium is also mentioned in a marginal note on f. 32v.
For the Paduan physician Bartolomeo da Montagnana and his Antidotarium, datable before 1445, see Tiziana Pesenti, Professori e promotori di medicina nello Studio di padova dal 1405 al 1509: repertorio bio-bibliografico (Padua: Edizioni Lint, 1984), pp. 141-157, in particular pp. 154-155 with mention of the present manuscript.
Montagnana's Antidotarium was first printed at Padua by Petrus Maufer de Maliferis on 4 May 1476 (ISTC im00813000).
f. 36r: Caption: Iste recepte extracte sunt ab Antidotario magno Montagnane; Incipit: Unguentum usuale pro stomaco. Recipe oleorum masticini mirtini …
f. 37v: Explicit: ... Pessarium ad impregnationem. Recipe coaguli leporis … et addantur muscys laudani ana grani. ij. et predictis addita lana fiat pessarium et cetera.
4. f. 38r-v: Recipes added by a single cursive hand, North East Italy, mid 15th century.
f. 38r: Caption: Remedia contra crepatos pulvis; Incipit: Recipe medule carcami …
f. 38v: Caption: … Contra sputum sanguinis prouenientem a rupta vene in pectore; Incipit: Recipe Sirupi rose [?] et de mirtis ana drame 15… quod sufficit fiat mixtis.
On paper. Watermarks: 1. Bull's head on f. 2, similar to Piccard 66535 (Landshut, Bavaria), 1460, issuer Pfalzgraf Ludwig, Herzog in Bayern; 2. Bull's head (With eyes - Above rod consisting of one line - Above a 5-petal flower) on f. 20 (111 x 35 mm; distance between chains 68 mm), not found in Piccard; 3. Triple mount on f. 39, similar to Piccard 150048 (Vicenza, 1442).
39 leaves, plus four modern flyleaves at the beginning and the end; modern foliation '1-39' in pencil (followed here), supplemented by another foliation '24-40' in the lower left corner of ff. 23-39 on recto; f. 22 fragmentary, with only one surviving column; f. 39 blank. 300 x 202 mm; written space 240 x 153 mm; ruled in single vertical bounding lines in metal point for double columns, no horizontal lines, 46-53 written lines to the column on ff. 1r-30v, 45-48 written lines on ff. 36r-37v, irregular number of lines on ff. 31r-35v and 38r-v; no trace of pricking holes.
Original collation for quires 1-2 only: 1-210, with catchwords on last versos, descending along and outside the vertical bounder in the lower right corner. Modern incorrect collation of quires 3-4: 310-2 (wanting iii and x, and part of ii), 412-1 (wanting ii). Possible reconstruction of the original collation of quires 3-4 as follows: 310-2 and 1/2 (wanting i and ix, and half of iii), 4 10-1 (wanting x), 5 2 (a bifolium?).
Secundo folio: Jn soda et emigranea.
Written in light brown ink in cursive script with formal features (such as two-compartment 'a') by two main hands in North East Italy in mid 15th century: 1. ff. 1r-9v; 2. ff. 10r-30v and 32v-35v. The scribes occasionally supplied marginal additions, notes and nota signs. Additions by other Italian mid 15th-century cursive hands in different inks on ff. 30v, 31r-32r, 36r-37v (more regular), and 38r-v (more cursive). One of these hands also added the marginal note '<..>ntabrigus <..>rnigus [?]' on f. 32v, read as '[ca]ntabrigus [a]rmiger' and attributed to an English owner (Moorat, I, p. 509).
Four-line initial 'S' outlined in blue on f. 1r.
Additions and notes supplied in cursive hands by readers, passim.
Binding: Laced-in limp parchment cover with modern sewing and alum-tawed skin tackets and ties, 20th century.
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