MONDELLA, Luigi.

First edition containing new material written between 1538 and 1542; a volume of Mondella’s letters had appeared in 1538, and this edition was followed by another in 1550, all printed by Isingrin. Luigi Mondella (b. 1530) was professor of medicine at Padua and director of the botanical gardens there. He was a committed Galenic physician, this work promising to elucidate the difficult points of Galen and make them useful. His letters are chiefly on humoral medicine, as is to be expected, with chapters on curing fever and dysentery, the use of wine to treat fevers, and the use of frogs to cure those bitten by venomous reptiles. In 1568 he published the Theatrum Galeni, a summary of the entirety of medical knowledge along Galenic principles.

The recipients include Girolamo Fracastorio (1478-1553), the noted epidemiologist and supposedly the originator of the term syphilis. Mondella’s letter to Fracastorio discusses the uses of ‘smaragdi’ (emeralds) and other gemstones to treat infections. Other recipients point to a community of humanists beyond medical studies in Brescia and abroad, including Mariotto Martinengo, a vernacular Italian poet, and Marius Nizolius, who published a thesaurus of Ciceronian Latin. The final letter, a commentary on the Examen Omnium Simplicium Medicamentorum of Antonio Musa Brassavola (1500-55), one of the most famous physicians of his day, is addressed to Ercole d’Este, Duke of Ferrara.