Beschreibung:

HIPPOCRATES (460-ca. 370 B.C.). Omnia opera Hippocratis , in Greek. Edited by Francesco Torresani. Venice: Aldine Press, May 1526. Aldine 2 o (306 x 208mm). Collation: * 6 ; A-Z AA-EE 8 FF 1 0 (*1r title, *1v blank, *2r-*2v privilege of Pope Clement VII in Latin addressed to the heirs of Aldus Manutius *3r editor's letter in Latin addressed to Giovanni Giorgio Trissino, *3v blank, *4r editor's preface in Latin, *4v blank, *5r-v table in Greek and Latin, *6r Soranus' life of Hippocrates in Greek, *6v Hippocratic Oath in Greek; A1r-FF9r 58 works in Greek attributed to Hippocrates or his followers, FF9v register and colophon, FF10r blank, FF10v printer's device). 240 leaves. 54 lines and headline, table in two columns. Ten- to three-line initial spaces with printed guide letters. Line numbers printed in inner margins. Printer's woodcut devices on A1r (Fletcher f6) and FF10v (Fletcher f4). (Some browning and foxing, dampstains in lower margins towards the end, small wormholes in the extreme margins of quires L-R, DD-FF.) Early 19th-century French russia, panelled in gilt and blind, green-sprinkled edges, earlier pastedowns bound in as flyleaves (joints slightly rubbed). Provenance : occasional marginalia in Latin and Greek; Greek signature (or motto) on title page and verso of rear flyleaf. EDITIO PRINCEPS OF THE HIPPOCRATIC CORPUS. "The Hippocratic corpus, brought together ... from the writings attributed to Hippocrates and his school, has exerted a most profound influence on all subsequent Western medical thought ... Through the writings attributed to him Hippocrates is credited with developing the first system of empirical medicine based on clinical experience, and the Hippocratic Oath has long been regarded as expressing the fundamental ethical and moral standards of the medical profession" (Grolier Medicine ). This body of about sixty Greek medical works written between 420 and 350 B.C. was assembled at Alexandria about 280 B.C. Which of the texts, if any, are directly connected with the historical physician Hippocrates of Cos is uncertain; the works assigned to Hippocrates are 'Hippocratic' in the sense that they are routinely labelled as such in the manuscript tradition. In the second century A.D. Galen dealt at length with many of the writings and "raised 'Hippocrates' to a quasi-divine status as first discoverer of the medical art" (ibid.). The first edition of the Greek text of the Hippocratic corpus, published a year after the first edition in Latin (see lot 110), was based on a fifteenth-century manuscript that survives as Paris, BNF, MS gr. 2141, incorporating corrections from a second manuscript, now Venice, Bibl. Marciana, MS gr. 269, which had belonged to Cardinal Bessarion. The text of the Aldine edition marked a considerable advance over the Latin translation of Marco Fabio Calvo in that "it repaired a considerable number of accidental omissions and one long repetition that Calvus ... made because he followed only one manuscript. Moreover, by presenting the original text, it laid the necessary foundation for all further philological and medical study of the corpus" (ibid.). Adams H-563; Grolier Medicine 1B (this copy); NLM/Durling 2316; Osler 142; Renouard 1526.1 (p.102); Stillwell Science 405 and 656; Wellcome 3173; Norman 1077.