![[NICETAS]. Chirurgia. Translated from Greek into Latin by Vidus Vidius (ca. 1500-69). Paris: Pierre Gaultier, 30 April 1544.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/1998/NYP/1998_NYP_08854_0143_000(104749).jpg?w=1)
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[NICETAS]. Chirurgia. Translated from Greek into Latin by Vidus Vidius (ca. 1500-69). Paris: Pierre Gaultier, 30 April 1544.
Large 2o (360 x 248mm). Collation: aa8 bb10; a-z8 A-I8 K-L6. 285 leaves (of 286, without L6 blank). Roman and Greek types. Woodcut illustrations after Primaticcio and Jean Santorinos, ornamental metalcut initials. (Occasional light foxing, heavier at beginning and end, dampstains in the margins of several quires, small paper flaw in the blank margin of pp. 305-6, printing flaw to pp. 429-30 due to creased paper.) Modern vellum over pasteboard, reusing a bifolium from a large-format manuscript choirbook (MS text and musical notation erased, crease and eight small holes from manuscript sewing in back cover). Provenance: a few marginalia of the 16th and 17th centuries.
One of the most beautiful science books of the renaissance, this edition includes Latin translations of treatises on surgery by Hippocrates, Galen, Oribasius, and others, with commentaries by Galen and other ancient writers. Hippocrates' treatise on dislocations and Soranus' work on bandages are illustrated with woodcuts, many of them full-page, which illustrate the treatments discussed in the text. Both texts and illustrations derive from a tenth-century illustrated Greek manuscript compiled by the Byzantine physician Nicetas. Brought to Italy by Janus Lascaris in 1495, this codex (now Florence, Laur. Plut. LXXIV, 7) was used by the Florentine physician Guido Guidi for the preparation of this Latin translation. Guidi, a native of Florence and grandson of the painter Domenico del Ghirlandaio, was physician to King Francis I of France and the first professor of medicine at the Collge de France (1542-48). While in Paris he shared quarters with Benvenuto Cellini, who also accommodated the press that produced this edition. The woodcuts, probably by Franois Jollat, were based on drawings by Primaticcio and Jean Santorinos that were copied in turn from the tenth-century codex. These drawings survive, together with Guidi's reference to the artists, in the dedication manuscript of the translation presented to Francis I (Paris, BNF lat. 6866; see H. Omont, Collection des chirurgiens grecs avec dessins attribus au Primatice, Paris n.d.). The origin of the designs has been traced back to the first century B.C.; they were undoubtedly transmitted directly from Antiquity to Byzantium and so may be regarded as embodying the genuine Hippocratic tradition of surgical practice (H. Schne, Apollonius von Kitium, Leipzig 1896). Choulant-Frank pp. 211-2; Dibner Heralds of Science 118; Garrison-Morton 4406.1; Harvard/Mortimer French 542; NLM/Durling 2204; Osler 155; Waller 1960; Wellcome 6596; Norman 954.
Large 2o (360 x 248mm). Collation: aa8 bb10; a-z8 A-I8 K-L6. 285 leaves (of 286, without L6 blank). Roman and Greek types. Woodcut illustrations after Primaticcio and Jean Santorinos, ornamental metalcut initials. (Occasional light foxing, heavier at beginning and end, dampstains in the margins of several quires, small paper flaw in the blank margin of pp. 305-6, printing flaw to pp. 429-30 due to creased paper.) Modern vellum over pasteboard, reusing a bifolium from a large-format manuscript choirbook (MS text and musical notation erased, crease and eight small holes from manuscript sewing in back cover). Provenance: a few marginalia of the 16th and 17th centuries.
One of the most beautiful science books of the renaissance, this edition includes Latin translations of treatises on surgery by Hippocrates, Galen, Oribasius, and others, with commentaries by Galen and other ancient writers. Hippocrates' treatise on dislocations and Soranus' work on bandages are illustrated with woodcuts, many of them full-page, which illustrate the treatments discussed in the text. Both texts and illustrations derive from a tenth-century illustrated Greek manuscript compiled by the Byzantine physician Nicetas. Brought to Italy by Janus Lascaris in 1495, this codex (now Florence, Laur. Plut. LXXIV, 7) was used by the Florentine physician Guido Guidi for the preparation of this Latin translation. Guidi, a native of Florence and grandson of the painter Domenico del Ghirlandaio, was physician to King Francis I of France and the first professor of medicine at the Collge de France (1542-48). While in Paris he shared quarters with Benvenuto Cellini, who also accommodated the press that produced this edition. The woodcuts, probably by Franois Jollat, were based on drawings by Primaticcio and Jean Santorinos that were copied in turn from the tenth-century codex. These drawings survive, together with Guidi's reference to the artists, in the dedication manuscript of the translation presented to Francis I (Paris, BNF lat. 6866; see H. Omont, Collection des chirurgiens grecs avec dessins attribus au Primatice, Paris n.d.). The origin of the designs has been traced back to the first century B.C.; they were undoubtedly transmitted directly from Antiquity to Byzantium and so may be regarded as embodying the genuine Hippocratic tradition of surgical practice (H. Schne, Apollonius von Kitium, Leipzig 1896). Choulant-Frank pp. 211-2; Dibner Heralds of Science 118; Garrison-Morton 4406.1; Harvard/Mortimer French 542; NLM/Durling 2204; Osler 155; Waller 1960; Wellcome 6596; Norman 954.