THE ·OSLER·LI BRARY·NEWSLE TTER· NUMBER 107 · 2007 Osler Library of the History of Medicine, McGill University, Montréal (Québec) Canada • IN THIS ISSUE THE EARLIEST KNOWN FRENCH TRANSLATION THIS ISSUE HIGHLIGHTS THE OF GALEN (CA. 1530) AT THE OSLER LIBRARY Osler Library’s purchase of what appears to be a unique publication, th he Osler Library has roughly one gathering. It stands by an unknown 16 century edition of recently acquired from apart from the other, slightly later Galen’s Therapeutics to Glaucon – unique William Kemp* the rare book dealer editions of French translations of in that it is a translation from Latin T into French, the earliest known Bruce McKittrick a previously Galen, in that it was printed in a vernacular translation of a work from unknown 16th century edition of Bastard Gothic type, as can be antiquity of a medical text. William a French translation of Galen’s seen in the accompanying Kemp, research associate with the Therapeutics to Glaucon (Ad illustrations of the title page and French Department at McGill is the Glauconem de methodo medendi).1 The of the first page. (Fig. 2) The author of the featured article and the title of the book is Le deuxiesme liure colophon may have contained the specialist who brought this work to de Claude Galene intitule lart curatoire date of impression, but the title the attention of the Osler Library. a Glaucon. (Fig. 1) This quarto page does not – though it Our ability to purchase the text volume contains 32 leaves, but it provides the name of the Parisian results from the James Darragh Rare is incomplete at the end, lacking printer, Jérôme Denys or Denis. Book Endowment, recently es- tablished by The Harold Crabtree Foundation. It fits in perfectly with Osler’s wish to build the French language holdings of his collection. Dr. Richard Golden offers us a graceful article on Osler, this time concerning another incunable in our collection, presented to Osler by fellow members of the Colophon Club. We mourn the passing of two distinguished members of McGill’s Faculty of Medicine and supporters of the Osler Library, Dr. Charles Leblond and Dr. Patrick Cronin, former Dean of the Faculty of Medicine. We note the recent meeting of the American Osler Society in Montreal and draw to your attention, the Library’s unexpected presence in outer space. Fig. 2 Start of Galen’s Le deuxiesme As this issue goes to press, we are saddened to hear that Dr. John liure lart curatoire a Glaucon. McGovern, Oslerian benefactor extraordinaire, has passed away. A full appreciation will appear in our next issue. Fig. 1 Galen’s Le deuxiesme liure de Claude Galene intitule lart curatoire a Glaucon. • ·1· • In all likelihood, the translation is Library, or major medical the new anatomy of the human based on Simon de Colines’s 1528 historical libraries (Wellcome, body by Vesalius, published in reprint of the new Latin Yale, Johns Hopkins). Nor does Basel in 1543 (Osler 567).4 translation of De arte curativa ad it appear in any of the key Glauconem libri duo by the humanist databases like WorldCat, the Less spectacular but still crucial Niccolò Leoniceno (†1524).2 Catalogue collectif de France, or was the work of Renaissance With 1528 as a terminus a quo, and COPAC in the UK. humanists who edited the texts of Here are a the fact that Denys is not known the medical writers of Antiquity, few to have printed any titles after Here are a few perspectives that especially Hippocrates and 1530 or 1531, we can confidently give some idea of the significance Galen.5 In 1510, Wilhelm Cop perspectives assign our Galen a date of ca. of this latest addition to the Osler from Basel, physician to King that give some 1530. This makes the Osler Galen collection. Among the milestones Louis XII of France and translator the earliest printed vernacular of Renaissance medicine are, of of Paulus Aegineta and Galen, idea of the translation in any language of a course, the discovery, description, wrote: “In view of the multitude significance substantial medical text from naming and proposed cures for [of ancient texts] that [the of this latest Antiquity, and the first such syphilis (Leoniceno’s De morbo Venetian printer] Aldus’ diligence addition to the Osler collection. Fig. 3 De morbo gallico by Niccolò Leoniceno. Page a5r, Fig. 4 Beginning of Syphilis sive Morbus Gallicus discussing various illnesses including elephantiasis and by Girolamo Fracastor. satyriasis, with numerous marginal notes. translation in French.3 No copy of gallico, 1497 (Osler 7452) (Fig. 3); has recovered for us, I thought it this edition is recorded in any Hutten’s De Guaiacum, 1519 (Osler worth trying to restore the ancient other major library, such as the 4974 and 4975); Frascatoro, medical authors also to something Bibliothèque nationale de France, Syphilis, sive Morbus gallicus, 1530 of their former glory”.6 Among the British Library, the Bodleian (Osler 4817) (Fig. 4), as well as these humanists must be • ·2· numbered François Rabelais, who vernacular languages of Italian, dominates: during the 1520s published an edition of the French, Spanish, German and alone, Lyon produced 6 editions Aphorisms of Hippocrates in Greek English. of Galen, while Parisian printers and in Latin at the press of put out a remarkable 42 editions.9 Sebastian Gryphius in Lyons in The imposing Galenic corpus was Among the early Latin editions of 1534 (1545 Paris edition: Osler printed in Greek at the Aldine Galen printed in Paris between 153, 164 (Fig. 5) and 394).7 The Press in Venice in 1525 (5 vol.: 1513 and 1520, Thomas Linacre’s recuperation of ancient medical Osler 350).8 Latin translations of translation of De sanitate tuenda, It now treatises, techniques and wisdom individual works of Galen were Paris 1517 (Osler 372), as well as appears, involved locating manuscripts, produced in quantity in Italy Willem Cop’s translation of De printing editions, translating and during the last decades of 15th affectorum locorum, Paris 1513 and however, that commenting on this large corpus. century but, beginning in the 1520 (Osler 379, etc.), are worthy the earliest In the case of Hippocrates and 1510s, France entered the field of note. Major Paris printers got Galen, that meant editing the with five editions from Lyon and involved in this effort: Henri I French original Greek texts, translating nine from Paris. From the 1520s Estienne (fl 1500-1520), Simon de translation of them into Latin and then into the on, and for several decades, Paris Colines (1520-1546), Simon du a medical text from Antiquity was published in Paris in about 1530, … Fig. 5 Hippocrates’ Aphorismorum sectiones Fig. 6 The beginning of “La protestation” or oath of septem…. Hippocrates. ·3· • Bois (fl 1526-1529), Christian blocked Willem Cop, maistre regent recently, this view has been Wechel (1526-1554), to name (“regent master” or professor), confirmed by the extensive only a few. Such translations both from giving his courses in French bibliographical studies on editions facilitated and promoted the in 1498.12 Durling attributed the in French by Stone (1953) and on transfer of Greek medical terms late appearance of French editions of Galen by Durling into Renaissance medical translations of Galen to this (1961).16 It now appears, however, language, which was basically sectarian rivalry: “Such pro- that the earliest French translation It was one of Latin. fessional jealousy goes far, he of a medical text from Antiquity Osler’s most claimed, to explain why we do not was published in Paris in about In the first half of the 16th find French versions of Galen 1530, roughly seven or eight years progressive century, Paris shared the market until the late 1530s”.13 This may before the Lyonese imprints. wishes for his for medical books with Lyon, but well be true, but we now have an Indeed, the ca. 1539, Lyon edition dominated in the production of earlier translation to take into of the 2nd Book of Galen’s Library that Latin translations and Greek account. therapeutics seems to represent a it would editions of Galen. Nevertheless, reprint of the text of Denys’s actively the first important group of Following in Cop’s footsteps, edition. vernacular translations of Galen’s Canape wrote in 1541 in the collect Therapeutics in French was printed appendix to his translation of This edition of Jérôme Denys historic works in Lyon between 1537 and 1539, Galen’s Mouvement des muscles: “l’art raises numerous questions. The beginning with the 4th Book in de medecine et chirurgie ne gist dating of the appearance of many of medicine in 1537 and the 13th and the 14th pas du tout aux langues, car c’est Greek medical terms in French the French in 1538. In 1539, there appeared tout ung de l’entendre en Grec ou must be adjusted. The history of language… an edition of Books 3, 4, 5, 6 and Latin ou Arabic ou francoys, ou the title border should be 13 with a preface by the editor, (si tu veulx) en Breton Bretonnant, investigated, as well as the career Étienne Dolet, a defender of pourveu qu’on l’entende bien. of the bookseller Denys (fl 1527- Ciceronian Latin but also, from Jouxte la sentence de Cornelius 1530). It will also be interesting 1538 on, one of the early Celsus, lequel dict que les to study the translation of the promoters of the French language, maladies ne sont pas gueries par Hippocratic oath that was printed “le françois, langue du roi François eloquence, mais par remedes”. on the recto and verso of the Ier”.