Early Science and Medicine 17 (2012) 371-377 www.brill.com/esm

Printing Greek Medicine in the Renaissance. Scholars, Collections, Opportunities, and Challenges Introduction

Alain Touwaide Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions and Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. (U.S.A.)*

Printing Greek medical texts of classical antiquity in the Renaissance was a complex enterprise which was not limited merely to philological erudition, technical capacities, and entrepreneurial ability, but also required a broad range of skills, a vast network of connections, and favorable circumstances. The best example of the complexity of such an endeavor is probably the translation (with commentary) of De materia medica by the first-century Greek pharmacologist Dioscorides,1

* Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions, P.O. Box 7606, Washington, DC, 20044, U.S.A. ([email protected], [email protected]) 1) On Dioscorides, see recently Alain Touwaide, “Pedanius [1] Dioscorides,” in Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider, eds., Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World. Brill’s New Pauly, 16 vols. (Leiden and Boston, 2002–2010), 10: 670-72. For the Greek text, the edition to be used is still the one by Max Wellmann (Pedanii Dioscuridis Anazarbei, De materia medica libri quinque, 3 vols. [Berlin, 1906–1914], with several reprints), though its text may no longer be considered the best possible reconstruction of Dioscorides’ original. A new English translation has been published by Lily S. Beck on the basis of Wellmann’s edition (Pedanius Dioscorides of Anazarbus, De materia medica [Altertumswissenschaftliche Texte und Studien 38] [Hildesheim, Zürich and New York, 2005], with a revised edition in 2011). ough not necessarily meeting the highest philological standards of accuracy, it usefully replaces the seventeenth- century translation by John Goodyer published in 1934 by Robert T. Gunther (e Greek Herbal of Dioscorides Illustrated by a Byzantine A.D. 512, Englished by John Goodyer A.D. 1655, Edited and First Printed A.D. 1933. [Oxford, 1934]), and reprinted several times since. ere is also a new German translation by Max Aufmesser (Peda- nius Dioscurides aus Anazarba, Fünf Bücher über die Heilkunde [Hildesheim, Zürich

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2012 DOI: 10.1163/1573382320120001 372 A. Touwaide / Early Science and Medicine 17 (2012) 371-377 authored by the Venetian scholar Ermolao Barbaro (1453/4– 1493).2 Barbaro started studying Dioscorides possibly as early as 1481–1482.3 His was a premonitory work, some ten years before the Pliniana con- troversio. In 1488 or slightly later,4 however, he interrupted his work to devote himself to another opus magnum of Antiquity, the Naturalis Historia by Pliny (ad 23/24-79).5 Together with a commentary, he compiled textual annotations published under the title Castigationes Plinianae.6 He may have diverted his attention from Dioscorides and conceived this project on Pliny out of rivalry with another scholar of Pliny, namely Marcantonio Sabellico (1436–1506).7 Furthermore, and New York, 2002]), which replaces the version by Julius Berendes (Des Pedanios Dioskurides aus Anazarbos Arzneimittellehre in fünf Bücher [Stuttgart, 1902], with reprints). Finally, there is now a modern Spanish translation by Manuela García Val- dés (Dioscórides, Plantas y remedios medicinales (De materia medica). Introducción, tra- ducción y notas, 2 vols. [Madrid, 1998]). 2) On Barbaro, see Martin J.C. Lowry, “Ermolao (1) Barbaro,” in Peter G. Bietenholz and omas B. Deutscher, eds., Contemporaries of Erasmus. A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and Reformation, 3 vols. (Toronto, 1985), 1: 91-92. 3) On the period when Barbaro started studying Dioscorides, see Giovanni Pozzi, “Appunti sul ‘Corollarium’ del Barbaro,” in Gabriella Bernardoni-Trezzini, Ottavio Besomi, Luigi Bianchi et al., eds., Tra latino e volgare. Per Carlo Dionisotti, 2 vols. (Padua, 1974), 2: 619-40, especially 624-26. 4) On the question of the period when Barbaro began working on Pliny, see Pozzi’s introduction to Hermolai Barbari Castigationes Plinianae et in Pomponium Melam, ed. Giovanni Pozzi, 4 vols. (Padua, 1973–1979), 1: xxxvi-xxxviii. 5) On Pliny, see Klaus Sallmann, “Plinius [1] Secundus,” in Cancik and Schneider, eds., Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World, 11: 383-90. For the Latin text (with an Eng- lish translation) of the Naturalis Historia, see Pliny, Natural History, trans. Harris Rackham et al., 10 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1938–1962). 6) For a modern edition of the Castigationes, see Hermolai Barbari Castigationes Pli- nianae et in Pomponium Melam, ed. Giovanni Pozzi, 4 vols. (Padua, 1973–1979). On this work and, more generally, the study of Pliny’s encyclopedia in the West, see Charles Nauert, “Caius Plinius Secundus,” in F. Edward Cranz and Paul Oskar Kristeller, eds., Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum: Mediaeval and Renaissance Latin Trans- lations and Commentaries. Annotated Lists and Guides, vol. 4 (Washington, 1980), 297-422, specifically 338-44 for Barbaro. 7) On him, see Egmont Lee, in Bietenholz and Deutscher, eds., Contemporaries of Erasmus, 3: 181-82. On this possible rivalry, see Pozzi’s introduction to Hermolai Barbari Castigationes Plinianae, 1: xxxvi-xxxvii.