Mesue, 1581

MESUE, Johannes (ps.? MASAWAIH-al-MARDINI, fl. 10th century?). Opera de medicamentorum purgantium delectu, castigatione, & in usu, libri duo. Edited by Giovanni Costeo and Vincenzo Cogollo. Venice: Giunta, 1581.

First illustrated Giunta edition of “Mesue’s” famous group of treatises on pharmacology, combining ancient knowledge with contemporary Islamic medical innovations in medicinal botany and distillation. A large number of medical texts are attributed to an Arab author known in Western Europe as "Mesue the Younger," although it may be that many or all of them are actually products of the Latin West—influenced by Arabic science but created by Latin writers. This possibly pseudonymous figure is often confused with "Mesue the Elder," i.e. Yuhanna ibn Masawaih, a Nestorian physician who practiced in Abbasid Baghdad. A group of German scholars has dated the texts to the 13th century, and suggests perhaps an origin with the school of scholastic medicine at Bologna.

Whatever its origins, this body of work was a major conduit of Arabic knowledge into the Latin-speaking world and formed the basis for pharmaceutical education in the early modern period, inviting commentaries from the most learned physicians including Mondino and Jacobus Sylvius. This is the first illustrated Giunta edition. The majority of the woodcuts are simplified copies of the intermediate-sized woodblocks used to illustrate Mattioli's famous commentary on Dioscorides. Valgrisi had reused the Mattioli images in his 1562 edition of Mesue, perhaps inspiring Giunta to have the copies made for their edition. Durling 3131; Adams Y-10. See Paula De Vos, "The Prince of Medicine: Yuhanna ibn Masawayh and the foundations of the Western pharmaceutical tradition," in Isis 104 (2013), pp. 667-712.

Two parts in one, folio (322 x 220mm). Woodcut Giunta device on title and part title, woodcut illustrations in first part (title reinserted, pale dampstaining, some leaves toned, marginal wormtrack at end). Contemporary limp vellum, with manuscript legal text on vellum used at guard at front (caps damaged, some cracks in joints).