Albertus Magnus and others, 10 September 1490

ALBERTUS MAGNUS (c.1200–1280). Philosophia pauperum (version B) – AEGIDIUS COLUMNA (c.1243–1316). De regimine principum (excerpt) – ALBERTUS MAGNUS. De virtute intellectiva. Brescia: Baptista Farfengus, 10 September 1490.

First printed illustration of cerebral ventricles. Rendering the brain into distinct ventricles, as shown here in print for the first time, provided a means for attributing various cognitive faculties, or ‘inner senses’, to different locations in the brain. These inner senses included, as labelled on the three spheres in the woodcut: common sense (for processing information from the external senses), imagination (for rendering images based on our external perceptions) and memory (for storing and accessing these images). The Philosophia pauperum compiles Albertus’ discussions on natural philosophy which are strongly informed by Aristotelian thought and serves as a touchstone for medieval philosophies on the soul, mind and cognition. By explicitly connecting cerebral ventricles with their respective functions, this important image represents a desire across 15th-century intellectual communities to link philosophy with medicine, anatomy and physiology – and constitutes an early contribution to the dawn of neuroscience. HC(+Add) 504; BMC VII 985; CIBN A-164; GW 711; Goff A-296; Klebs 23.4; ISTC ia00296000.

Chancery quarto (202 × 142mm). 54 leaves. Rubricated with initials in red and blue, full-page woodcut on a7v, printer’s device at end, final page with impression of bb5r as in British Museum copy (woodcut and a few other leaves with margin strengthened at gutter, some brittleness/browning with a few leaves starting, minor marginal stain in b–c gatherings and a few other light stains elsewhere). Modern vellum, gilt title to spine. Provenance: a few early annotations – Prof. A. Bernardes de Oliveira of Sao Paulo, Brazil (bookplate).