In septem libros Aphorismorum Hippocratis Commentaria (A Commentary on the Seven Books of Hippocrates' Aphorisms) [BOUND WITH] Tractatus de febrium acutarum (A Treatise on Acute Fevers)
Venice: Giovanni Guerigli, 1621. First edition (in part). Hardcover. Two works in one volume, jointly issued with collective title-page, quarto (21.7 by 15.2 cm). Collation: [pi]4 A-2H8 [asterisk]4 (second series) A-G8 (= 312 leaves); [4], 248 ff; [8], 112 pp. Woodcut printer's device at each title; woodcut initials and ornaments in first work. Contemporary vellum. Small marginal puncture (5 cm) at title; occasional mild dampstaining and mild embrowning; light, strictly marginal worm traces in about a third of the work (with loss of a letter or two at only a few leaves in the printed marginalia), else a good, amply-margined and complete copy of an uncommon work.
Third complete edition (the last to be published in the author's lifetime) of this commentary on the well-known book of precepts traditionally attributed since antiquity to the Greek physician, Hippocrates of Kos (ca. 460-375 BCE). The first two books were published at Florence by Bartolomeo Sermatelli in 1590. The first complete edition appeared at Venice in 1595. A very popular work, no fewer than nine editions appeared at Venice and Padua through the end of the eighteenth century. This joint issue contains the first edition of the separately-titled treatise on acute fevers in which a full range of diatetic, pharmacological and surgical interventions is discussed.
Born in Lisbon in the middle of the sixteenth century, Rodrigo da Fonseca (d. 1622) was one of the notable conversos (Marranos; new Christians; crypto-Jews) who, in the early modern era, held distinguished positions as professors of medicine in Italy. This fraternity included Amatus Lusitanus (Ferrara), Gabriel de Fonseca (Pisa and Rome), and Estêvão Rodrigues de Castro (Pisa), among many others. All were descendants of those Jews in Spain and Portugal who accepted baptism, but secretly preserved loyalty to their ancient faith, and in some cases returned to the open practice of Judaism. After practicing medicine in Lisbon, Fonseca was called to a professorship of medicine in Pisa, where he taught until 1615, establishing a reputation through his "clear diagnoses and descriptions of internal diseases, fevers, surgery, and pharmacology" (Enc. Jud.). "He was then given the first chair in medicine at the University of Padua, which he held until his death in 1622. Fonseca was one of those more capable practitioners who had developed themselves in the second half of the sixteenth century through the renewed study of the medical classics of antiquity, especially Hippocrates, and who once again placed emphasis on independent observations instead of scholastic subtleties" (Hirsch). Fonseca had long been interested in the diagnosis and treatment of fevers and plagues. His early Opusculum appeared at Florence in 1596. Along with other matters, including instruction for children on how to easily take medicine, this Little Work announces at the title "casus omnium febrium methodice discutiuntur et curantur" (the cases of all fevers are methodically discussed and treated). Fonseca's De tuenda valetudine et producenda vita (On Maintaining Health and Producing Life), which deals mainly with the plague, appeared at Florence in 1602. A few years before publishing the Tractatus de febrium acutarum, Fonseca edited the Methodus curandarum febrium (A Method of Treating Fevers), the work of Leonardo Giacchini (1501-1547), one of the founders of the New Florentine Academy of Medicine. This posthumous publication appeared at Pisa in 1615. Friedenwald notes that Fonseca's edition "filled out many gaps, matters that [Giacchini] had omitted or that had been lost in the course of years."
Annotations: The running title in the second book of the Commentary incorrectly reads: In Primum Aphoris. Commentaria; on several pages an old hand has made the correction "secundum." Recent bibliographical notes appear in pencil at the front endleaf. Good. Item #54460
References: Enc. Jud. (1st ed.) 11: 1194; H. Friedenwald, The Jews and Medicine (1967): p. 63; A. Hirsch, Biographisches Lexikon der hervorragenden Aerzte aller Zeiten und Völker, vol. 2 (1885), p. 399; Krivatsy (NLM 17th) 4163; C. Griffante et al., Le edizioni veneziane del Seicento (2003), 631f. SBN ITICCUPUVE 11602; Not in Kayserling.
Full titles and imprints: [1] - Roderici a Fonseca Olysiponensis olim Pisis medicinam supraordinariam, nunc Patavii praxim priore loco profitentis. In septem libros Aphorismorum Hippocratis Commentaria, eo ordine contexta quo doctoratus (ut aiunt) puncta exponi consuevere. Accessit huic tertiae editioni eiusdem auctoris Tractatus de remediis febrium acutarum, & pestilentium. Venetiis, MDCXXI. [1621] Apud Ioannem Guerilium. [2] - Roderici a Fonseca Olysiponensis practicam medicam Patavii in priore loco profitensis, Tractatus de febrium acutarum, et pestilentium remediis, diaeteticis, chirurgicis, & pharmaceuticis. Cum indice rerum memorabilium. Venetiis, MDCXXI. [1621]. Apud Ioannem Guerilium.
Price: $750.00