Auction 31 / Graphics & Books

tue 26 OCTOBER -  fri 29 OCTOBER 2021
Lot 1361

Hippocrates

[ Marco Fabio Calvo ]
Medicina, Letteratura classica, Letteratura

Hippocratis coi medicorum omnium longe Principis, Octoginta Volumina [...] nunc tandem per M. Fabium Calvum [...] latinitate donata...

(Al colophon:) Romae: ex aedibus Francisci Minitii Calvi Novocomensis, 1525.

In-folio (mm 268x200). Pagine [84], DCCXXXIII [i.e. DCCXXXII], [4]. Frontespizio in bella cornice architettonica xilografata, con 5 bisanti medicei al margine superiore. Esemplare rifilato, con macchioline e lievi tracce di foxing sparse; uno strappetto marginale restaurato alle carte E4-E5. Complessivamente buone condizioni di conservazione. Legatura successiva in mezza pergamena con punte e piatti in carta marmorizzata; fregi e titoli in oro su tassello in pelle al dorso. Abrasioni ai piatti, altrimenti buono stato conservativo. Annotazioni manoscritte, parzialmente cassate, al frontespizio.



Norman Library, 110: «First edition. Only a few of the texts attributed to Hippocrates were known to the Latin Middle Ages. The project of preparing a complete Latin translation of the Hippocratic corpus was undertaken in the early sixteenth century by Marco Fabio Calvo of Ravenna. A friend of Raphael, Calvo has translated Vitruvius into Italian for the use of the artist, and also prepared the first archeological mapping of ancient Rome [...]. In preparation for his work on Hippocrates, Calvo collated and wrote out his own manuscript of the Greek text, depending primarily on a fourteenth-century manuscript then in his own possession but also consulting a 12th-century codex that is one of the oldest and most important Hippocratic manuscripts. [...] Both of his source manuscripts, as well as his own copies of the Greek text and Latin translation survive in the Vatican Library. Calvo's Latin translation of Hippocrates was printed in Rome in 1525 by the bookseller and printes Francesco Calvo, who published official documents for the papacy and also works by authors connected with the curia. Calvo's Greek text was never published...». Heirs of Hippocrates, 10: «This historically important book [...] must be regarded as the definitive Hippocrates»; Osler, 149; Walleriana, 4495; Adams, H 567; Wellcome, 3177.

Base price
EUR 10.000,00
unsold