Hippocrates (ca. 460-370 BC)
Hippocratis Coi Asclepiadeae gentis sacrae Coryphaei viginti duo commentarii tabulis illustrati: Graecus contextus... emendates. Latina versio Iani Cornarij... correcta... Theod. Zvingeri Bas. studio & conatu... Eusebius Episcopius and Heirs of Nikolaus Episcopius, 1579.
Folio (320x208 mm). Collation: α6, β8, A-Z6, Aa-Zz6, AA-DD6, EE8, FF-LL6, MM10. [28], 594, [114] pages. Roman, italic and Greek type. Woodcut printer's devices on the title-page and verso of the last leaf. Woodcut animated and decorated initials, on seven lines that on fol. α2r. Contemporary limp vellum, yapp edges. Traces of ties. Smooth spine, with inked title. Red edges. A very good, unsophisticated copy; paper slightly browned, as expected. Small repairs to the gutter of the title-page.
Provenance: the Swiss physician and humanist Theodor Zwinger (1533-1588); given by him as a gift to Joachim Camerarius the Younger (1534-1598; the inscription 'Joachimo J.F. Camerario Donus Autoris [sic]' on the title-page; some annotations and underlining in his own hand); the German scholar Gottlieb Christoph Harless (1738-1815; ownership inscription 'D. Harles 1795' on the title-page; his autograph notes on the flyleaves).
A highly interesting copy of the authoritative bilingual edition of Hippocrates edited by the physician and philologist Theodor Zwinger, celebrated author of the Theatrum vitae humanae (1565), and gifted by him to Joachim Camerarius the Younger, son of the renowned humanist and great editor of classicsJoachim Camerarius the Elder (1500–1574). The edition contains a selection of twenty-two writings from the vast Hippocratic corpus, supplemented with the Latin translation by Janus Cornarius (ca. 1500-1558), and commentary with the help of tables and charts.
Camerarius was born in Nuremberg. After his early studies at Wittenberg and Leipzig, he turned to medical pursuits under the tutelage of Johannes Crato von Krafftheim, physician to the emperors Ferdinand I and Maximillian II, and dedicatee of this edition of Hippocrates. He studied medicine at the University of Padua, and took his doctorate in Bologna in 1562. He subsequently returned to Nuremberg to establish his medical practice. In 1592 the Nuremberg city council founded the Collegium Medicum; Camerarius served as dean of this latter until his death. He corresponded with other pre-eminent physicians and scientists such as Gaspard Bauhin, Carolus Clusius, Thomas Erastus, and Konrad Gessner.
In the present copy, some annotations in Camerarius' own hand are visible – as in the list of Hippocrates' works written on the front flyleaf – thus offering a striking testimony to Camerarius' interest in the ancient medical tradition.
This copy was subsequently held in the library of the classical scholar and bibliographer Gottlieb Christoph Harless. Harless was appointed professor of oriental languages and eloquence at the Gymnasium Casimirianum in Coburg in 1765, and professor of poetry and eloquence at Erlangen in 1770; he also edited a revised, twelve-volume edition of the Bibliotheca Graeca of Johann Albert Fabricius, which appeared in 1790-1809. On the front flyleaf of this Hippocrates, Harless included some notes regarding the rarity of this edition, the import and value of which are increased by the presence of marginalia which – as he here states – 'manu Joachim Camerarii Fil. sunt scripta'.
Adams H-621; VD16 H-3791; Choulant 36; Durling 4805; Wellcome 3252; Hieronymus (ed.), Griechischer Geist aus Basler Pressen, Basel 2003, no. 325; Hoffmann II, 415; Philobiblon, One Thousand Years of Bibliophily, no. 156.