Petrus de Argellata, 12 September 1499

ARGELLATA, Petrus de (d. 1423). Chirurgia. Venice: [Printer of Argellata, Chirurgia (H 1639)] with Johann Hamman’s types, 12 September 1499.

A tall copy of the fourth edition, reprinting the third edition of 1497/98. An accomplished pupil of Guido de Cauliaco, Petrus de Argellata ‘was skilled in dentistry, used sutures and drainage-tubes in wounds, trephined the skull, incised the linea alba in post-mortem Caesarean section, and sometimes operated for hernia, stone, and fistula in ano’ (Garrison). His Chirurgia ‘contains a good deal of therapeutics and, as usual, a part is devoted to gynaecology and obstetrics. When Pope Alexander V died at Bologna in 1410, Argellata made a post-mortem examination which is described in his work’ (Sarton). Early annotations show close study of this copy, and are most abundant in the chapters on wounds. F.H. Garrison, An Introduction to the History of Medicine (Saunders, 1924). G. Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science (Carnegie Institution, 1947). HC(+Add)R 1639; H 1638; BMC V 588; BSB-Ink A-669; Bod-inc A-378; GW 2324; Goff A-954; Klebs 777.4; ISTC ia00954000.

Chancery folio (306 × 210mm). 131 leaves (of 132, without blank). Woodcut initials, occasional spaces with guide-letters (small wormholes mostly repaired at lower corner of quires e-g, faint marginal dampstains slightly heavier in gatherings l-n, occasional light stains). 18th-century sheep-backed boards (a little rubbed, tips showing). Provenance: extensive annotations in at least one early hand.