A collection of recipes, in Latin, written by two hands, probably in North East Italy, mid 15th century. The collection follows the usual head to toe arrangement in medieval medical manuals and, in particular, in the Liber nonus ad Almansorem, a treatise on the medical therapy of diseases written by the Persian physician Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (865-925 or 933), known in the West as Rhazes or Rhasis. Additional recipes added at the end of the volume by contemporary hands include excerpts from the Antidotarium of the Paduan physician Bartolomeo da Montagnana (c. 1380-before Feb. 1452).
Contents
1. ff. 1r-30v: Receptarium, in Latin, partly drawing from Rhazes, Liber nonus ad Almansorem, in the Latin translation attributed to Gerardus of Cremona (1114-1187). The manuscript was formerly identified (Moorat, I, p. 509) as an abridged copy of the Latin translation of Rhazes's work because of the similarities in the chapter titles and beginnings with those in the parallel chapters by Rhazes in the edition produced at Milan by Leonardus Pachel and Uldericus Scinzenzeler, dated 14 Feb. 1481, ff. i7r-m3v (ISTC ir00175000).
The incipit 'Soda est lesio in membris capitis' of the first chapter, entitled the Capitulum de soda, is identical to the beginning of a chapter on Soda in the Latin translation of Avicenna's Canon, Book 3, Tractatus 2, attributed to Gerardus of Cremona (by comparison with the text in the incunable edition produced in Padua by Johannes Herbort de Seligenstadt in 1476; ISTC ia01418000). However, the text continues with the words 'Signa propria sode colerice sunt mordicatio …', turning into a different and so far unidentified work.
The first lines of chapters 2-23, from 'De scotomia et Vertigine' (f. 2r) to 'De casu vuule' (f. 13v), mostly draw from the first lines in the corresponding chapters of Rhazes's work (as printed in the 1481 edition, ff. i7r-k7r), but the text that follows in the chapters consists of unidentified commentaries and/or recipes. The texts of chapters 24-40 differ from those of Rhazes.
For another manuscript in the Wellcome Library containing an unidentified collection of medical recipes in Latin similarly following the chapter organisation of Rhazes's Liber nonus ad Almansorem, see MS. 684.
f. 1r: Incipit: Capitulum de Soda // [S]Oda est lesio in membris capitis. Signa propria sode colerice sunt mordicatio ...
f. 30v: Explicit: … Capitulum de remotione defedationis cutis in manibus et pedibus periodice euenientur … tunc ergo ex eo liniatur membrum tepido vel calido actu. Et sanabitur. Amen.
2. ff. 31r-35v: Recipes added by the second scribe and other hands in cursive script, North East Italy, mid 15th century.
f. 31r: Caption: Experimentum valde solempne ad curandum fistulam; Incipit: Recipe admoniaci et infunde in aceto fortissimo …
f. 35v: Caption: Unguentum pro stomaco; Incipit: Recipe olium de spica … cere parum fiat unguentum mollem.
3. f. 36r-37v: Bartolomeo da Montagnana, Antidotarium, in Latin, excerpts, including recipes for ointments, emplastra, patches, oils, powders, pills and pessaries. Montagnana's Antidotarium is also mentioned in a marginal note on f. 32v.
For the Paduan physician Bartolomeo da Montagnana and his Antidotarium, datable before 1445, see Tiziana Pesenti, Professori e promotori di medicina nello Studio di padova dal 1405 al 1509: repertorio bio-bibliografico (Padua: Edizioni Lint, 1984), pp. 141-157, in particular pp. 154-155 with mention of the present manuscript.
Montagnana's Antidotarium was first printed at Padua by Petrus Maufer de Maliferis on 4 May 1476 (ISTC im00813000).
f. 36r: Caption: Iste recepte extracte sunt ab Antidotario magno Montagnane; Incipit: Unguentum usuale pro stomaco. Recipe oleorum masticini mirtini …
f. 37v: Explicit: ... Pessarium ad impregnationem. Recipe coaguli leporis … et addantur muscys laudani ana grani. ij. et predictis addita lana fiat pessarium et cetera.
4. f. 38r-v: Recipes added by a single cursive hand, North East Italy, mid 15th century.
f. 38r: Caption: Remedia contra crepatos pulvis; Incipit: Recipe medule carcami …
f. 38v: Caption: … Contra sputum sanguinis prouenientem a rupta vene in pectore; Incipit: Recipe Sirupi rose [?] et de mirtis ana drame 15… quod sufficit fiat mixtis.