Constantini Africani post Hippocratem et Galenum, quorum, Graecę linguae doctus, sedulus fuit lector, medicorũ nulli prorsus, [...] posthabendi opera, cõquisita undi[que] [...] iam primum typis evulgata, praeter paucula quędam quae impressa fuerũt, sed & ipsa à nobis [...] tanta cura castigata, ut huius autoris antehac nihil aeditum censeri possit [...]

A CENSORED COPY

(bound with:)

CONSTANTINUS AFRICANUS (ca. ca. 1020-1098/99)-GAZIO, Antonio (1450-1525/28). Summi in omni Philosophia viri Constantini Africani Medici operum reliqua, hactenus desiderata, nunc[que] primum impressa ex venerandae antiquitatis exemplari, quod nunc demum est inventum. In quibus omnes communes loci, qui propriè Theorices sunt, [...] explicantur & tractantur [...] (with: Antonius Gaizo de somno ac eius necessitate). Basel, Heinrich Petri, (August 1539).

Two works in one volume, folio (308x200 mm). I: [16], 387, [1] pp. Collation: a-b⁴ A-Z⁶ AA-GG⁶ HH-II⁴ KK⁶. Lacking leaf a2; II: [16], 361, [3] pp. Collation: a-b⁴ A-Z⁴ Aa-Xx⁴ Yy⁶. 18^th-century half-vellum, lettering piece on spine, ink title on front edge. Some light browning and foxing, but a good, genuine copy with wide margins. Provenance: ownership entry on the title page “Ex lib. Ant. Gambarotti M.Ph.Ch.D.” (Antonio Gambarotti, fl. 18^th cent., was a physician and public lecturer of anatomy at the University of Padua), followed by a long 16^th-century censorship note: “Obliteratis […] vestigiis impressoris et aliis obliterandis […] librum edidimus donec melius emulgetur, ut […] possit […] die 25 maij 1559 fr. Marcus Ant.^ius […]”. As a matter of fact, both the printer's name and device on the title page have been inked out and the following leaf containing the dedication by Heinrich Petri to Lux Klett, chancellor of the bishop of Basel, cut out. A few contemporary marginal annotations.

Second edition of Constantinus Africanus' collected works. The first appeared in Lyon in 1515 (Omnia opera Ysaac) together with a collection of texts attributed to Isaac Judaeus, but Constantinus' treatises De coitu, De mulierum morbis and De melancholia are here in first edition.

The first work contains: De morborum cognitione & curatione; De remediorum & agritudinum cognitione; De urinis; De stomachi affectionibus; De victus ratione variorum morborum; De melancholia; De coitu; De animae & spiritus discrimine; De incantatione & adjuratione collique suspensione; De mulierum morbis; De chirurgia; and De gradibus simplicium.

The second work, dedicated to the Abbot Desiderius of Monte Cassino, contains the Pantegni (or Theorica or Loci medicinae) in ten books, a translation of extracts from the theoretical parts of al-Majusi's Kamil as-sina'a at-tibbiya (‘The Whole Art of Medicine', 10^th century), which is still considered the clearest general overview of medieval medicine that we have.

“Constantine the African was the first major translator of Arabic medical writings into Latin and hence the most important figure in the revival of scientific medicine in  the West from the late eleventh century on. The only biographical data that can be firmly documented are his arrival in Salerno in 1077 and his death at the Italian Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino by 1098-1099 at the latest. (The death date of 1087 that is often cited in secondary accounts has no documentary foundation.) Peter the Deacon (d. after 1154), another monk at Monte Cassino, provides the earliest account of Constantine's life: he came originally, Peter claims, from Carthage, and traveled to ‘Babilonia' (Cairo), India, Ethiopia, and Egypt. Another telling of Constantine's activities by the mid-twelfth-century physician Matheus Ferrarius of Salerno claims that Constantine initially visited Italy and, finding the Latins impoverished in their medical literature, returned to Africa to gather books, though several were lost when he was shipwrecked on his return. A third, entirely different account (perhaps written by a partisan for the rival school of Montpellier) presents him as a fugitive from Spain who nearly killed his royal patient. Given his clear associations with the medical community of the Tunisian city of Qayrawan, it may well be that his origins lie there. Although clearly of African origin, Constantine's original religion remains unclear. Ferrarius explicitly refers to him as a ‘Saracen,' but it has been noted that Arabic-speaking Christian communities are documented in Tunisia. Ferrarius comments on Constantine's initial need to rely on a Muslim slave as his translator, while another twelfth-century Salernitan writer, Johannes de Sancto Paulo, ascribes Constantine's linguistic limitations in Latin to his African origin. Even Constantine's medical qualifications are not securely documented. Peter the Deacon never specifically calls him a physician (medicus) while Ferrarius claims he was a spice merchant. Peter the Deacon included in his biography of Constantine the earliest comprehensive list of his works. It includes such items as the De genecia (‘On gynecology') and Cyrurgia (‘Surgery') that were probably independently circulating excerpts of the translation of al-Majusi's Kamil as-sina'a at-tibbiya (‘The Whole Art of Medicine', in Latin the Pantegni). Omitted from the list (perhaps due to oversight) were the Isagoge (‘Introduction [to the Medical Art]') by Hunayn ibn Ishaq (Johannitius), the De stomacho (‘On the Stomach') and De melancholia (‘On Melancholy') by the Tunisian writer Ishaq ibn Imran (d. before 907), the De oblivione (‘On Forgetfulness') by Ibn al-Jazzar (d. 979/980), and a work on charms and amulets by Qusta ibn Luqa (d. early tenth century). In all, Constantine translated some two dozen different texts from Arabic into Latin. Although Constantine (or his early copyists at Monte Cassino) omitted the names of all his sources save for the Jew, Isaac Israeli (Isaac Judaeus, d. 932), thanks to increasing knowledge of the corpus of medieval Arabic medical writing it is possible to identify the sources for at least half of Constantine's oeuvre. Besides Hunayn, al-Majusi, and Qusta ibn Luqa, Constantine's sources were writers active in Tunisia, specifically Qayrawan, in the tenth century. Ibn al-Jazzar was Constantine's most important source, including not only his general work on medical pathology, the Viaticum, but also works on leprosy, sexual intercourse, and degrees of medicines. The predominance of North African texts suggests that Constantine did not, in fact, travel very far to assemble his treasure trove of works; Ibn al-Jazzar's work was available on Sicily itself where it was translated into Greek in the twelfth century. Very few of Constantine's works have yet been critically edited, so it is still difficult to pinpoint his unique stylistic characteristics as a translator. Indeed, it is still unclear how much of the Constantinian corpus is really by Constantine. Beside a peculiar text on impotence caused by magic (which is attested only in thirteenth-century manuscripts), there are several works associated with Constantine in medieval manuscripts or in Renaissance editions that are either spurious or of suspect authenticity. Particularly puzzling is the origin of the second major part of the Pantegni, the Practica (‘Practical Medicine'), which has been shown to be a pastiche from a variety of different sources, not a direct translation of al-Majusi's Arabic text. In terms of the larger significance of Constantine's translation project, two principal questions are pressing: how does it relate to work that went before him, and how was his work carried on after his death? There may have been other translators from Arabic in southern Italy either just before or contemporaneously with Constantine. There was also considerable translation activity going on from Greek into Latin, including the important work on urines and pulses by, respectively, Theophilus and Philaretus. The interactions between Muslims and Greek Christians on Sicily have not yet been sufficiently examined, nor the role of the latter in serving as linguistic and cultural intermediaries between the Muslim world and the Latin-speaking Christians of mainland southern Italy. Constantine had two pupils, both of them also monks at Monte Cassino: Johannes Afflacius (sometimes called Johannes Saracenus) and a former chaplain to the empress Agnes named Azo (or Adzo). Johannes was the dedicatee of five of translations, including the Viaticum itself. He also wrote his own original medical work, the Liber aureus (‘Golden Book'), and may have retranslated Ibn al-Jazzar's treatise on lovesickness. This was apparently the same Johannes who, together with a certain ‘Pisan rustic,' completed Constantine's Surgery in 1113-1114. Johannes is perhaps the most likely individual to have also completed the second half of Constantine's Pantegni, which makes use of the Liber aureus. As for Adzo, he was the dedicatee of Constantine's translation of Galen's commentary on the Hippocratic Aphorisms and reportedly polished Constantine's rough Latin prose. As the first major translator of Arabic medical texts into Latin, Constantine was by necessity an innovator in creating new medical and pharmaceutical terminology. He displays a fondness for the use of pseudo-classical terminology (like ‘Pantegni') though he also introduced many Arabic terms into Latin (like nucha for the spinal cord). Likewise, Constantine introduced from his Arabic sources new philosophical and nosological concepts, such as lovesickness (amor hereos), as formal disease categories. No doubt due to Monte Cassino's central position within the Benedictine order, Constantine's works enjoyed rapid dissemination throughout western Europe. His works are documented beyond the Alps as early as the 1130s (in England even earlier). William of Conches eagerly exploited the theoretical volume of the Pantegni and we can see Constantine's influence in other twelfth-century writers such as Hildegard of Bingen. Constantine's influence on the physicians of the ‘school' of Salerno was perhaps not as immediate as would be expected given Constantine's direct ties with the city (he had arrived there when he first came to Italy). If Constantine is indeed to be credited with the translation of Hunayn ibn Ishaq's Isagoge, then his most immediate impact was in providing this foundational text of the Salernitan medical curriculum. The early Salernitan writer Copho makes little direct use of the Constantinian corpus; his employment of Arabic terminology and materia medica (like sugar or the compound remedy, trifera saracenica) may well be due to influences coming directly from Muslim practitioners in Sicily or their Greek-speaking intermediaries. By the time of Johannes Platearius in the mid-century, however, the influence of the Viaticum is apparent, and Constantine's works on diets and urines would become increasingly influential as the century progressed. Constantine's works probably had their most powerful impact in the thirteenth century, when they were heavily exploited by the great mendicant encyclopedists, especially Bartholomaeus Anglicus and Thomas of Cantimpré. Also during this period, the Viaticum was subjected to several commentaries; aside from the Isagoge, it was probably the most widely circulated of all of Constantine's works. After the middle of the thirteenth century, however, the new Arabic medicine coming out of Spain (particularly Avicenna's massive Canon) began to eclipse the Constantinian corpus. Only a few vernacular translations of Constantine's works are known: his treatise on intercourse was translated into English in the mid-fifteenth century, that on melancholy into French. Constantine is cited in such literary works as the Romance of the Rose and Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales; in the latter, he appears both as a respected medical authority known well by the Doctor of Physick and, in the Merchant's Tale, as a ‘cursed monk' who wrote on coitus. Constantine's works appeared in print principally in two different Renaissance editions: a collection of works attributed to Isaac Judaeus (only some of the works are in fact Isaac's), and an Opera omnia that appeared in two volumes at Basel in 1536-1539. There are few translations into modern languages besides Italian” (M.H. Green, Constantine the African, in: “Medieval Science, Technology and Medicine: An Encyclopedia”, Th.F. Glick, S.J. Livesey and F. Wallis, eds., New York & London, 2005, pp. 145-147; see also Thorndike, I, pp. 742-759, D.B.I, XXX, pp. 320-324, and Choulant, pp. 253-256).

I: VD 16, C-4939; Adams, C-2549; Durling, 1015; II: VD 16, C-4940 and G-568; Adams, C-2550.

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