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Hippocrates Latinus: Repertorium of Hippocratic writings in the Latin Middle Ages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Pearl Kibre
Pearl Kibre*
Affiliation:
Hunter College, New York Graduate School, City University of New York
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Extract

In the annals of medieval medical as well as cultural history the name and authority of Hippocrates of Cos knows no rival other than his later disciple, Galen. Yet there has so far been no systematic attempt to gather together, with any degree of completeness, the names and locations of manuscripts of the individual treatises that circulated in the Latin West before 1500 under the name or aegis of the famed physician of Cos. The present investigation of this subject, that is of the constituents of a ‘Repertorium of Hippocratic Writings in Latin’ or of a ‘Hippocrates (Ypocras) Latinus,’ was begun nearly four decades ago, particularly in the ill-fated years 1938 to 1939, while on a sojourn in Europe before the outbreak of World War II. The intention, then as now, was to provide the basis for determining the extent to which there was continuity in the transmission of Greek medicine, albeit in Latin dress, from antiquity to the early and later Middle Ages. The research was thereafter continued sporadically whenever there was an opportunity to examine manuscripts in European depositories. In recent years the work has been greatly facilitated by the published results especially of the researches of two late scholars of medieval medical manuscripts, Augusto Beccaria and Ernest Wickersheimer, as well as by the cataloguing of various manuscript collections. However, there still remains the task of drawing out the individual works appearing under Hippocrates' name together with their commentaries, not only in the pre-Salernitan, but also in the succeeding centuries before about 1500. To this endeavor the present investigation is directed.

Type
Articles
Information
Traditio , Volume 31 , 1975 , pp. 99 - 126
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University Press 

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References

page 99 note 1 See my earlier survey, Kibre, P., ‘Hippocratic Writings in the Middle Ages,’ BHM 18 (1945) 371–412, henceforth cited as Kibre (1945).Google Scholar

page 99 note 2 Beccaria, A., I codici di medicina del periodo pre-Salernitano (Roma 1956 ), henceforth cited as Beccaria (1956); and Wickersheimer, E., Manuscrits latins du haut moyen àge dans les Bibliothèques de France (Paris 1966), henceforth cited as Wickersheimer (1966).Google Scholar

page 99 note 3 For the most part, these will not be cited separately; they can be found by turning to Kristeller, P. O., Latin Manuscript Books Before 1600 (3rd ed.; New York 1965).Google Scholar

page 103 note 1 Beccaria ( 1956) no. 28.5.Google Scholar

page 104 note 2 Beccaria, A., ‘Sulle Trace di un antico canone latine di Ippocrate e di Galeno I,’ Italia Medievale e Umanistica 2 (1959) 1–56.Google Scholar

page 104 note 3 Hippocrates, with an English translation by Jones, W. H. S. (The Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge, Mass. 1952) II 59–60, 63 ff.; 83 ff.; also Kibre (1945) 389 and note 113.Google Scholar

page 104 note 4 See for example, the items noted on pp. 105, 108, 109, 111, and 112 below. On the two translators, Constantinus and Gerard of Cremona, see Thorndike I chap. 32, and II 87 ff.; also Schipperges, H., ‘Die Assimilation der arabischen Medizin durch das lateinische Mittelalter,’ Archiv Beihefte, Heft 3 (1964).Google Scholar

page 104 note 5 For example, see below p. 112, Munich: CLM 13034, 14c; and p. 113, Vatican 2369, 14c; and for Nicholas de Reggio, see Parco, Lo (1913).Google Scholar

page 123 note 1 Hippocrates, with an English translation by Jones, W.H.S. (Loeb Classical Library) I 66 ff.Google Scholar

page 123 note 2 Kibre, (1945) 393–394, and notes 137–143.Google Scholar

page 123 note 3 For St. Basil's Hexaemeron, see PG 29; and for the influence of this work in the west see especially Thorndike I chap. 21. Google Scholar

page 123 note 4 Beccaria, A., ‘Sulle Trace di un antico canone latine di Ippocrate e di Galeno I,’ Italia medievale e umanistica 2( 1959) 1–56.Google Scholar

page 123 note 5 Kibre, (1945) 359, note 141; Hans Diller, ‘Die Überlieferung der Hippokratischen, Schrift πεϱὶ ἀέϱων, ὑδάτων, τόπων,’ Philologus Supplementband 23, Heft 3 (1932), 1–190 reproduces this translation (pp. 83–104).Google Scholar

In at least one instance, MS Vatican Pal. 1079, (p. 125 below), there is a suggestion that the work was translated from the Greek by Bartholomaeus of Messina, the thirteenth-century translator from the Greek in the court of Manfred (son and successor to Frederick II). See in this regard Ilberg, J., ‘Zur Ueberlieferungsgeschichte des Hippocrates,’ Philologus 52 (1894) 422–430; and for Bartholomaeus of Messina, also Thorndike II 314 and notes. However, the assignment of the translation of the tract in Vienna 2328 to the Greek translation of Isaac Toletanus appears clearly erroneous.Google Scholar