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  • Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Copies of the “Ars Medicine”: A Checklist and Contents Descriptions of the Manuscripts, and : The “Articella” in the Early Press, c. 1476–1534, and : Papers of the Articella Project Meeting, Cambridge, December 1995
  • Walton O. Schalick III
Cornelius O’Boyle. Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Copies of the “Ars Medicine”: A Checklist and Contents Descriptions of the Manuscripts. Articella Studies: Texts and Interpretations in Medieval and Renaissance Medical Teaching, no. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, and CSIC Barcelona, Department of History of Science, 1998. xvi + 165 pp. No price given (paperbound).
Jon Arrizabalaga. The “Articella” in the Early Press, c. 1476–1534. Articella Studies: Texts and Interpretations in Medieval and Renaissance Medical Teaching, no. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, and CSIC Barcelona, Department of History of Science, 1998. 83 pp. No price given (paperbound).
Papers of the Articella Project Meeting, Cambridge, December 1995. Articella Studies: Texts and Interpretations in Medieval and Renaissance Medical Teaching, no. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, and CSIC Barcelona, Department of History of Science, 1998. v + 52 pp. No price given (paperbound).

The Articella, a collection of ancient treatises, formed the core of medieval and early Renaissance medical education. As such, the collection is a continuity of [End Page 145] texts extending from the School of Salerno through the Renaissance universities and beyond, across many countries and contexts. After the pioneering work of P. O. Kristeller, in the middle of this century, the textual history of the Articella has awaited the focused attention it deserves. Stemming from the collective activities of scholars in the United States, Great Britain, Argentina, Italy, and Barcelona, these three short volumes represent the next steps of that effort. They are the first three numbers in a series of “Articella Studies.”

Cornelius O’Boyle’s catalog is an important aid to scholars of the Articella. He collates and describes manuscript versions of the texts from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. His catalog includes 2 suspected copies of the collection, 12 fragments, and 185 complete copies in manuscript. An excellent sixteen-page introduction traces the textual history of the components of the Ars medicine, an early name of the Articella.

Jon Arrizabalaga’s work extends that cataloging into eighteen printed versions from the end of the fifteenth century to the early sixteenth, tabulated by printed edition, families of printed editions, and contents. A forty-page introduction thoughtfully characterizes the effect of the press on the collection. He includes several excellent appendices of prefaces and dedications, and an index of names for his introduction.

Finally, the “Papers” suggest the range of information to be found in studying the Articella, from a wonderful paper by Luke Demaitre on uroscopy to Tiziana Pesenti’s description of Paduan commentaries, Michael McVaugh’s succinct description of Aphorisms 1.1, Miguel de Asua’s evocation of Peter of Spain’s commentary, and Piero Morpurgo’s description of commentaries and their reflection of politics in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Sicily.

The most important lesson to be drawn from this triumvirate of pamphlets is how much we have to look forward to in the future activities of these scholars, and how much more there is to learn about the origins of university-based medicine.

Walton O. Schalick III
Harvard Medical School
Copyright © 1999 The Johns Hopkins University Press
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