GALEN.
NAMED CONTEMPORARY VENETIAN BINDING OF A DOCTOR-POET
Terrapeutica. Methodus medendi, vel de morbis cura[n]dis.
Venice, in aedibus Hieronymi Pentii, 1530£9,500.00
16mo. ff. (xlvii [index]) 504 (i). Roman letter. T-p in red and black, woodcut of rose in red. Woodcut initials. Contemporary Venetian panelled morocco, inner panel with arabesque tools to corners in blind, upper cover with title lettered gilt, lower with owner’s name and fleuron, gilt (one letter in blind in error), ‘H. Amalthei,’ outer panel roll tool with triple fillets, leaves and tendrils blind, spine in panels of diamond cross-hatching with triple fillets, raised bands, spine and joints discreetly repaired, minor loss from surface of lower cover, slightly affecting lettering and roll border, worming to pastedowns and rear endpaper, front endpaper missing. Occasional contemporary ms. annotations in ink. Tiny marginal wormhole to final few ll., light splashes to a few edges not affecting text, couple of ll. and pp. with paper flaws at edges, a very good copy.
Rare fourth edition of Thomas Linacre’s Latin translation of Galen’s Methodus Medendi or art of method of how to cure diseases, first published 1519. There is a dedicatory poem by the Polish humanist Jan Laski, a dedicatory letter from Guillaume Budé to Linacre’s fellow English humanist Thomas Lupset (misspelled ‘Luspet’), and Linacre’s dedication of the truly copious index (which ends with a ‘Laus Deo’) to Henry VIII.
Hieronymus Amaltheus (1507-1574), or Jerome Amalthei, was an Italian poet and Latin stylist, described by his contemporary Marc Antoine Muret as ‘the greatest living Italian poet’ (Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. XXX, Nov. 1848, p. 496). William Parr Greswell noted that he ‘united in his own person the characters of a skilful physician, and a pleasing poet. His Latin poems are in general written in a style of singular elegance and purity’ (Memoirs of Angelus Politianus, etc. (1801), p. 203). Amalthei was one of three literary brothers born in Oderzo, in the Veneto. Alexander Pope was an admirer and even expressed a preference for Jerome out of the three.
The Chiesa-De Marinis copy, III 3116.
Not in NLM, Osler, Wellcome or Heirs of Hippocrates. Not in Adams, Graesse or Brunet.