The Prefaces to the First Humanist Medical Translations

THE PREFACES TO THE FIRST HUMANIST MEDICAL TRANSLATIONS By STEFANIA FORTtINA A large part of the literary production of humanist physicians consists of Latin translations of Greek medical texts.1 They considered these translations the first and necessary approach to ancient Greek medicine, which in turn was viewed as having ensured scientific and therapeutical progress against the barbarisms of dominant Arabic medical culture. In a passage from a work entitled De Plinii et plurium aliorum medicorum in medicina erroribus, the humanist physician Nicolo Leoniceno (1428-1524), who taught for sixty years at the University of Ferrara, attacks Avicenna's doctrine as chaotic, obscure, and dangerous to life. He then presents his own medical program, which is first of all based on translations: "Nos sane ad hanc amovendam atque extirpandam et nostrae aetatis hominibus Iucem aliquain veritatis aperiendam, partim librorum Galeni medicorum principis translationibus , partim in eosdem commentationibus, die noctuque laboramus."2 Leoniceno was actually a prolific translator of Galen. Before 1480 only few medical texts had new humanist translations. The Hippocratic works entitled On Diseases and On Breaths were translated by 1 The humanist translations of Greek physicians have, for the most part, been catalogued : Dioscorides by John M. Riddle, and Paulus Aegineta by Eugene F. Rice, in Catalogus translationum et commentariorum: Mediaeval and Renaissance Latin Translations and Commentaries, ed. Ferdinand Edward Cranz and Paul Oskar Kristeller, vol. 4 (Washington, 1980). 1-191; Hippocrates by Pearl Kibre, Hippocrates Latinus: Repertorium of Hippocratic Writings in the Latin Middle Ages, rev. ed. (New York, 1985); and Gilles Maloney and Raymond Savoie, Cinq cent ans de bibliographie hippocraiique: 1473-1982 (St-Jean-Chrysostome , Québec, 1982); Galen by Richard J. Durling, "A Chronological Census of Renaissance Editions and Translations of Galen," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 24 (1961): 230-305, who also provides the best introduction to this subject. 1 wish to thank Thomas Rütten for his valuable suggestions, which allowed me to improve this article. 2 Nicolai Leoniceni De Plinii el plurium aliorum medicorum in medicina erroribus (Ferrara , 1509), fol. 74r (Leoniceno's letter to Francesco Totti). On Leoniceno, see Daniela Mugnai Carrara, La biblioteca di Nicola Leoniceno: Tra Aristotele e Galeno; cultura e libri di un medico umanista (Florence, 1991). Janus Cornarius's dedicator}' letter regarding his translation of Paulus Aegineta addresses the same topic; Cornarius explains his academic education in Arabic medicine and his gradual conversion to the Greek. This preface is published by Rice, Paulus Aegineta, 173-75; it is analyzed by Brigitte Mondrain, "Éditer et traduire les médecins grecs au XVIe siècle: L'exemple de Janus Cornarius," Les voies de la science grecque: Etudes sur la transmission des textes de (Antiquité au dix-neuvième siècle, ed. Danielle Jacquart (Geneva, 1997), 391-417. 318TRADITIO Francesco Filelfo (1398-1481) about 1444, and On Breaths was probably translated again some years later by Janus Lascaris (1445-1535).3 Hippocrates ' Letters were translated by Giovanni Aurispa (ca. 1370-ca. 1459), then by Rinuccio d'Arezzo (1395-1456), who revised his own work several times, between 1434 and 1450, and who worked from the Greek manuscript containing a collection of epistles, which he had acquired during his travels to Constantinople in 1423.' The Hippocratic Oath was translated by Nicolo Perotti (1429/30-1480) in 1454/55.5 In most of these cases, however, the texts in question are not very Hippocratic and, above all, not very medical. Between 1479 and 1480, Andrea Brenta (1454-1484) translated a number of Hippocratic texts: On Dreams, On the Nature of Man, Law, Oath, and the beginning of On Art, the latter being presented subsequently as two different short works: one entitled Demonstratio quod artes sunt (On Art 2-3: 225, 9-226, 11 J.), and the other entitled Invectiva in obtredatores medicinae (On Art 1: 224, 1-225, 8 J.).6 In 1490, Leoniceno finished at least a first version of his translation of Galen's commentary on Hippocrates' Aphorisms.' In a letter of the same year, Angelo Poliziano (1454-1494) mentions his own translation of the same text by Galen, which has not been preserved.8 In 1481, Ermolao Bárbaro (1453/54-1493) completed his translation of...