GALEN, comm. THRIVERIUS, Jeremias Brachelius, trans. LINACRE, Thomas.

Three rare works of commentary on Galen’s De temperamentis and his Ars medica by the Dutch humanist physician Thriverius, in a lovely contemporary Roman binding by the workshop of Marcantonio Guillery, one of the binders responsible for the library of Giovanni Battista Grimaldi (d. 1612), famed bibliophile known for the plaquette bindings on his books depicting Apollo and Pegasus. This copy was bound for its owner, a contemporary medical doctor, whose name is on the cover. This sammelband includes first editions of the second and third works, and a second edition of the first work, first published Louvain 1535. Two of the tools used in the gold-tooling on this binding, the ‘draw handle’ tool and the small ‘three-legged’ tool used for punctuating the titles and name, appear in the list of those used by ‘Binder B’ of Grimaldi’s books, according to Anthony Hobson (Apollo and Pegasus (Amsterdam: 1975), p. 66; see also plate XIX(b)), who identified this binder as Marcantonio Guillery (pp. 86-88). His father was of French origin and moved to Rome as a printer and bookseller in the early sixteenth century. Guillery’s workshop produced almost half of Grimaldi’s ‘Apollo and Pegasus’ bindings.

The Latin translations from Galen are by Thomas Linacre (d.1524), English humanist and founder of the College of Physicians in London, each Latin section followed by Thriverius’s commentary. The first work is on temperaments, a typology of the human anatomy in which Galen describes nine mixtures of the temperaments, hot, cold, wet (or humid) and dry. The first two books consider the good mixtures, the final book discussing imbalances in the temperaments leading to fevers and other diseases. The second work is Thriverius’s brief epitome of the former. The final work, De techne iatrike or Ars medica, also known as the ‘little art,’ is a foundational treatise describing the principles of ancient Greek medicine: the four humours, their imbalances leading to disease, and treatment through diet and exercise. It was a standard feature of the medical curriculum in ancient times and throughout the middle ages.

We have been unable to identify the original owner, Giovanni Alberto, who was evidently a doctor. The later owner of the book, Godefroy Loyer (1660-1715), born in Rennes, was a missionary in West Africa, spending two years at Assinie in modern-day Ivory Coast between 1701 and 1703. He later wrote an account of his journey, Relation d’un Voyage du Royaume d’Issyny (1714), in which he described African fetishism and proved that it was a non-theistic religion.

The first work was issued simultaneously in apparently using the same sheets but with a Bering brothers title-page, which usually accompanies the second work, a very brief epitome, so it is surprising to find it here with the much scarcer Rouillius imprint.