Italy
447 entries published in Italy. 42 publication places.
1469
#89
Historia naturalis, libri XXXVII.
The most ancient Western encyclopedia extant, Pliny’s Historia contained essentially all that was known in his time concerning geography, mineralogy, anthropology, botany, zoology and meteorology. Books XX-XXXII deal …
1469
#9635
De officiis. Add: Paradoxa Stoicorum; Laelius, sive de amicitia; Cato maior, sive de senectute.
Of the 71 editions of Cicero's classical work on aging and death printed in the 15th century, Cato major de senectute, the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue cites 71, indicating the extreme popularity of Cicero's works…
1470
#13696
Rhetorica ad C. Herennium.
First description of the "method of loci," the memory technique as known as the "memory palace." Because of its wide use during the Middle Ages this text survives in hundreds of medieval manuscripts. Fourteen printed …
1471
#1789
Antidotarium. Add: Quid pro quo; Synonyma.
This work, which first circulated in manuscript in 1140, was the first formulary to be printed. It consists of 139 prescriptions and includes the original formula for the “anesthetic sponge” (spongia somnifera), the e…
1471
#10960
Opera medicinalia. Ed: Peregrinus Cavalcobovis, with a preface by Nicolaus Gupalatinus. Consisting of: Canones universales. De simplicibus. Grabadin. Practica.
This undated edition, which the ISTC im00508000 catalogues as "not before 18 May 1471", may be the earliest printed edition of the writings of the medieval Persian or Assyrian Nestorian Christian physician Yuhanna ibn…
1471
#11287
Liber servitoris de praeparatione medicinarum simplicium. Translated by Abraham Tortuosiensis. Edited by Simon a Cordo.
Book 28 on drugs from the Al-Tasrif, a 30-volume Arabic encyclopaedia on medicine and surgery, written ca. 1000 CE by Abulcasis. ISTC No. ia00014000. Digital facsimile from the Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttg…
1472
#2192
Opera medica, sive Practica cum textu noni ad Almansorem.
A commentary on Rhazes with notes and additions. For bibliographical and other details regarding this, the first large medical book to be printed, see the essay by Arnold C. Klebs in: Essays on the history of medicine…
1472
#2070
Conciliator differentiarum philosophorum et medicorum. Add: De venenis.
Includes the first printed book on toxicology; one of the more elegantly printed of medical incunabula, printed in folio format. For an English translation, see Ann. med. Hist., 1924, 6, 26-53. ISTC No. ip00431000. Di…
1472
#6315
De infantium aegritudinibus et remediis.
The first printed book dealing exclusively with pediatrics. This was also the first medical treatise, and probably also the first scientific treatise, to make its original appearance in printed form rather than having…
1472
#9400
Aristotle's De anima with the commentary of Averroes.
"Each paragraph of the text of Aristotle is printed in a new and an old translation, and is followed by the commentary of Averroes on the latter (BMC)" (ISTC No. IDia00969000). Because of the supreme position of Arist…
1473
#6788
Synonyma medicinae, seu clavis sanationis.
The first printed medical dictionary. It was originally published at Ferrara, 1471-2?, of which the only recorded copy is a fragment of 21 leaves in the Bodleian Library. ISTC No. is00526000. “The great work of Simon …
1473
#43
Canon medicinae [Latin] (Lib I-V) (Tr: Gerardus Cremonensis) (5 vols.)
![AVICENNA, [Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Al-Hasan ibn Ali ibn Sīnā] (980 – 1037)](/media/portraits/9572)
Avicenna is said to have written more than 100 books, most of which have perished. He wrote on the etiology of epilepsy and described diabetes, noticing the sweetish taste of the urine. His Canon is one of the most fa…
1473
#88
De rerum natura.
The work is a reasoned system of philosophy written in verse. Book V attempts an explanation of the origin of the universe and life, and the gradual advance of man from the savage state. All these topics are treated f…
1473
#12809
Liber Serapionis agregatus in medicinis simplicibus. Translatio Symois Januensis interprete Abraa iudeo tortuosiesi de arabico in latinu. Add: Galenus: De virtute centaureae.
![GALEN, [Κλαύδιος Γαληνός; Galen of Pergamon] (129 – 216)](/media/portraits/21)
"Serapion the Younger ... is called "the Younger" to distinguish him from Serapion the Elder, aka Yahya ibn Sarafyun, an earlier medical writer with whom he was often confused. Serapion the Younger's Simple Medicament…
1473
#13028
De balneis. Add: Francesco da Siena: Dicta de balneo Petrioli. Bonaventura de Castello: Recepta aquae balnei de Porrecta.
First printed edition of da Foligno's treatise on bathing together with the first printing with a definite date of Castelli's work. ISTC No. ig00133000. Remarkably the ISTC cites two different separate undated printin…
1474
#5552
La ciroxia vulgarmente fata.
![SALICETO, Guglielmo da [WILLIAM OF SALICETO] (1210 – 1277)](/media/portraits/6798)
Saliceto was Professor of Surgery at Bologna about 1268; his treatise on surgery, written about 1275, was the leading work on the subject in the 13th century. William broke with tradition by claiming that pus formatio…
1474
#5816
De oculis eorumque egritudinibus et curis.
The earliest printed book on ophthalmology. Grassi was the most celebrated ophthalmic surgeon of the Middle Ages. English translation by Casey A. Wood, 1929. ISTC No. ig00352000.
1474
#146
Historiae. Tr: Laurentius Valla. Ed: Benedictus Brognolus. Add: Benedictus Brognolus: Epistola ad Nicolaum Donatum.
Born in Asia Minor, Herodotus travelled through Greece, Asia Minor and North Africa. His Historiae includes careful observations on the nature and habits of various peoples, and he may be regarded as the founder of an…
1474
#7151
Liber pandectarum medicinae.
An encyclopedia of medicines, mostly derived from plants, completed about the year 1317. The medicines are arranged in alphabetical order. Two printed editions were issued in 1474. The first, issued in Naples, appeare…
1475
#9146
De conservatione sanitatis. With additions by Johannes Philippus de Lignamine.
This medieval guide to health and hygiene is sometimes misattributed to Hugo Benzi. It was one of the earliest medical or health texts to appear in print, and is unusual in that the printer, who was not a physician, i…
1475
#10733
De honesta voluptate et valetudine.
The first two editions of De honesta voluptate et valetudine, the first printed work on cookery, diet, and health, by Italian humanist and papal librarian Bartholomeo Platina (Sacchi) appeared at roughly the same time…
1476
#39
Liber nonus ad Almansorem (cum expositione Silani de Negris).
The Almansor, so named after the prince to whom it was addressed, was a popular textbook and one of the first general medical texts to be printed. Rhazes ranks with Hippocrates and Galen as one of the founders of clin…
1476
#4204
Summa conservationis et curationis. Chirurgia.
Contains (Cap. cxl) his classic account of renal edema: De duritie in renibus, an English translation of which is in Major, Classic descriptions of disease, 3rd ed., 1945, p. 527. ISTC no. is00032000.
1476
#52
Articella seu opus artis medicinae. Con: Johannitius: Isagoge ad tegni Galeni. Philaretus: De pulsibus; Theophilus Protospatharius: De urinis. Hippocrates: Aphorismi (comm: Galenus; tr: Constantinus Africanus); Prognostica (comm: Galenus); De regimine acutorum morborum (comm: Galenus; tr: Gerardus Cremonensis). Galenus: Liber Tegni, sive Ars medica (comm: Hali; tr: Gerardus Cremonensis).
![HIPPOCRATES, [Ἱπποκράτης; Hippocrates of Kos] (-460 – -370)](/media/portraits/50)
A collection of Greek, Roman and Byzantine texts on medicine, written in Latin, that was mainly used as medical school textbook or reference manual between the 13th and 16th centuries. The Articella grew around a synt…
1476
#274
De animalibus. Translated by Theodorus Gaza. Edited by Ludovicus Podocarthus.
Includes Aristotle's De historia animalium, De partibus animalium, and De generatione animalium. Aristotle was the first scientist to gather empirical evidence about the biological world through observation. By his ca…
1477
#1791
De viribus herbarum carmen.
De viribus herbarum carmen has been attributed to Macer Floridus, a pseudonym of Odo of Meung, who lived in the Loire area of France towards the end of the eleventh century. Macer's unillustrated text described the me…
1477
#10725
Liber phsionomiae [and other works].
"Composed between 1209 and 1226, the first of the two primary texts discusses human generation — anatomy, physiology, astrology, sexual behavior, conception and the health of the fetus. The second part, the Physiognom…
1478
#361
Anatomia.
First dated printed edition of the first medieval book devoted solely to anatomy, written by Mondino for his students in 1316. An earlier, but undated edition, of which only 3 copies are recorded, appeared in Padua ab…
1478
#20
De medicina. Ed: Bartholomaeus Fontius.
De Medicina is the oldest Western medical document after the Hippocratic writings. Written about 30 CE, it remains the greatest medical treatise from ancient Rome, and the first Western history of medicine. Celsus’s s…
1478
#276
De animalibus. Edited by Fernandus Cordubensis (Fernando de Córdoba).
Albertus was a Dominican monk and the most eminent naturalist of the 13th century; his work on animals contained a good deal of personal observation. He was the first to comment on virtually all of the writings of Ari…
1478
#6934
De materia medica. Ed: Petrus de Abano. Comm: Petrus de Abano.
![DIOSCORIDES, Pedanius [Πεδάνιος Διοσκουρίδης] (40 – 90)](/media/portraits/2028)
The first printed edition of Dioscorides, translator unidentified. A Greek physician from Anazarbus in Cilicia (now Turkey), Dioscorides traveled to the Greek mainland, to Crete, Egypt and Petra. He is believed to hav…
1478
#7086
Halieutica, sive de piscatu. [Translated by Lorenzo Lippi, with recipes for cooking added by Lippi.]
The didactic poem on fish and fishing by Oppian of Anazarbus, a 2nd-century Greco-Roman poet, survived the Middle Ages essentially in its entirety, consisting of 3500 lines in Greek. The poem was dedicated to the empe…
1480
#8369
Practica, seu Lilium medicinae.
Includes descriptions of plague, tuberculosis, scabies, epilepsy, anthrax, and leprosy. ISTC No. ib00447000.
1480
#12984
Chirurgia. Edited by Matthaeus Moretus.
Argelata was a pupil of Guy de Chauliac, and professor at Bologna. He is supposed to have done the autopsy on Pope Alexander V, who died suddenly on May 3, 1410. ISTC No. ia00951000. Digital facsimile from U.S. Nation…
1481
#6313
Liber ad Almansorem sive Tractatus medicinae I-X. Add: Liber divisionum; De aegritudinibus juncturarum; De aegritudinibus puerorum; De secretis sive aphorismi; De sectionibus et ventosis; Synonyma. Galenus: De medicinis experimentatis. Mesue (the elder): Aphorismi. Hippocrates: secreta; Capsula eburnea; De humana natura; De aere et aqua et regionibus; De pharmaciis. Tabula de herbis medicis.
Rhazes was the first to devote an entire treatise to diseases of children. Although he lived so many years before the advent of printing, he was still regarded as an authority in the 15th century and his works were am…
c. 1481 –c. 1482
#6811
Herbarium Apulei.
The first printed herbal with illustrations was an illustrated edition of the Herbarium Apulei by Apuleius Platonicus or Pseudo-Apuleius, originally compiled circa 400 CE or earlier, and issued in Rome by the printer …
1481
#6929
De natura hominis. Add: De victu; De tuenda valetudine; Medicinae lex; Iusiurandum; Demonstratio quod artes sunt; Invectiva in obtrectatores medicinae. Tr: Andreas Brentius.
The writings of Hippocrates began to appear in print in the 1480s, and only a few of the works attributed to Hippocrates were printed in the 15th century. Though the date of this edition is unstated within the book it…
1481
#13888
De regimine sanitatis ad Soldanum Babyloniae.
Maimonides wrote De regimine sanitatis in the 1190s in Arabic as a private manual of health for the Sultan Al-Afdal, son of Saladin. It was translated from Arabic into Hebrew in 1244 by Moses ibn Tibbon, and the Hebre…
1482
#48
Colliget.
The Kitab-al-Kullyat or Colliget (Book of Universals) was an “attempt to found a system of medicine upon the neo-Platonic modification of Aristotle’s philosophy” (Garrison, p. 132). Averroës was the greatest Arab comm…
1482
#9142
Consilia ad diversas aegritudines. Ed: Laurentius de Gozadinis.
ISTC No. ih00538000.
1483
#1757.9
Jusiurandum IN: Nicholaus Perottus, De generibus metrorum.
One of the two earliest dated printings of the Hippocratic Oath. Digital facsimile from the Dombibliothek Freising at this link. ISTC No. ip00298000. It is possible that an undated edition attributed to 1481 (Entry No…
1483
#1783
De historia et causis plantarum. Edited, with a table, by Georgius Merula. Translated by Theodorus Gaza.
A student of Aristotle, Theophrastus succeeded his teacher as head of the Athens Peripatetic School. This is the earliest work of scientific botany, a subject not addressed in any of the writings of Aristotle. Theophr…
1483
#6813
De divisione librorum Galeni IN: Articella seu Opus artis medicinae.
Considering the central importance of Galen's writings in medicine from the time he wrote well through the sixteenth and even the seventeenth century, and the need for physicians to make sense of such a large number o…
1483
#8341
De urinis by Gilles de Corbeil, with commentary by Gentilis de Fulgineo. Edited by Venantius Mutius.
Gilles de Corbeil's medical poem De urinis was based on writings by Theophilus Protospatharius by way of the Articella. Poems such as this were intended as mnemonic aids for students, and they tended to be widely used…
1483
#9399
Opera. With the commentary of Averroes. Edited by Nicoletus Vernia. 8 parts.
![SCOT, Michael [Michael Scotus] (1175 – 1232)](/media/portraits/12461)
First edition of the collected works of Aristotle with the commentaries of Averroes, by which Aristotle was mainly studied during the Middle Ages. The purpose of Vernia's edition was to provide an accurate edition of …
1485
#14113
De balneis et thermis naturalibus omnibus Italiae.
The second printed book on balneology. Savonarola took a skeptical approach to the subject, relying on his own observations and rejecting the notion that baths owed their virtues to occult or supernatural properties. …
1486
#40
Rhazes: Liber Elhavi sive Ars medicinae. Translated by Feragius Salernitanus. Edited by Joannes Bugatus.
The Al-Hawi, or Continens, a great encyclopedia of medicine. The above first Latin translation by Feragius Salernitanus is the largest and heaviest of the medical incunabula. The original manuscript was in Arabic. IST…
1487
#1589
Frontinus: De aquaeductibus. Edited by Pomponius Laetus and Johannes Sulpitius Verulanus.
De aquaeductibus, or De aquis urbis Romae was written about 100 CE by the Roman senator Frontinus. Its title is sometimes translated as The Aquaducts of Rome, and most recently by Rodgers as On the Water-Management of…
1487
#1961
De particularibus diaetis.
The first separately printed treatise on diet was written by the Egyptian-Jewish physician and philosopher Isaac Judaeus who lived from about 832 to 932 CE. He was also known as Isaac Israeli ben Solomon and Abu Ya'qu…
1488
#9398
Compendium aromatariorum.
ISTC No. is00020000. Also issued in Bologna: [Henricus de Harlem and Johannes Walbeck, for] Benedictus Hectoris, 12 Mar. 1488. ISTC No. is00019000. Digital facsimile of the Bologna edition from BnF Gallica at this link.