Landmark first Arabic edition of Ibn Sina/Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine, the most influential islamic medical textbook of the medieval world and the standard authority for medical teaching and practice across East and West for centuries.
Exceptionally rare complete copy, with all five books and the supplementary text.
A remarkably pure, unsophisticated copy, preserved with full margins throughout: there is no trace of any other surviving copy with such intact margins.
"The epitome of all precedent development, the final codification of Greco-Arabic medicine" (Max Neuberger)
Written around the year 1012, the Canon medicinae is a compendium of practical medicine immensely ahead of its time. Bringing together Greek and Muslim knowledge from the period as well as inherited from Aristotle, Hippocrates and Galen, this encyclopedia also contains original and highly significant observations made by Ibn Sina/Avicenna himself: the author notably identified the transmission of disease through water, established the contagious nature of certain pathologies such as tuberculosis and dysentery, recognized the hereditary character of certain conditions, described several skin diseases, compiled a list of 750 medicines alongside numerous recipes, and was the first to establish the properties of alcohol.
"A compendium of Greek and Muslin medical knowledge of Avicenna's time (...) It was still printed in the seventeenth century" (PMM)
This copy belongs to the first Arabic edition of this encyclopedic work, which initially circulated in manuscript form before being translated and repeatedly printed in Latin, thereby ensuring its wide dissemination throughout the West. The editio princeps, published in Latin, appeared in Milan in 1473, and was soon followed by an undated Strasbourg edition and another issued in Padua in 1476. More than a century would pass before the first edition restoring the original Arabic text was published: it is the present edition. This long delay was largely due to the technical challenges and considerable expense involved in producing Arabic typographical types: “The first Arabic printing appeared in 1593 and there were many editions of, and commentaries on, the Latin translation (...) Through these printings Avicenna's work transmitted to the West the ideas of the great Greek writers and also introduced ideas of his own which in some respects superseded them” (Printing and the Mind of Man).
In both East and West, the Canon medicinae became the standard reference work for the teaching and practice of medicine for several centuries: N. G. Sirasi mentions "[the] continued use of this medieval Islamic medical encyclopedia, in Latin translation, as a textbook or reference work in western European universities after the end of the Middle Ages" (Avicenna in Renaissance Italy). The superiority of the text to works written much later is now widely acknowledged, as demonstrated by John Urquhart, Professor of Biopharmaceutical Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, when addressing the following dilemma: "If the year were 1900 and you were marooned and in need of a guide for practical medicine, which book would you want by your side?" Faced with the choice between Avicenna’s Canon and Osler’s Principles, published in 1892, John Urquhart did not hesitate: "My choice was Ibn Sina" (How Islam changed medicine). He explained this choice, which may seem surprising at first glance but in fact demonstrates the foundational character of the Canon for the practice of modern medicine: "Ibn Sina gives an integrated view of surgery and medicine (...) Ibn Sina, for example, tells how to judge the margin of healthy tissue to take with an amputation" (ibid).
"His encyclopedic text, containing about one million words, influenced generations of physicians and pharmacists" (One hundred books famous in medicine)
A philosopher, physician, poet, courtier and politician, Avicenna, whose real name was Ibn Sina, was one of the most important thinkers of the Arab world. His influence would prove immense, extending even into the Western world. Endowed with an extraordinary memory, he learned medicine at the age of sixteen and soon began teaching at the hospital, attracting physicians from abroad to his lessons. He was called upon to treat several important figures, including the Emir of Bukhara, which granted him access to a vast library and enabled him to pursue the study of philosophy. Moving from one princely court to another amid political conflicts, Ibn Sina/Avicenna simultaneously pursued political and medical careers while writing his scientific and philosophical works.
"Avicenna, an Arabian philosopher, physician, poet, courtier and politician, had perhaps a wider influence in the eastern and western hemispheres than any other Islamic thinker." (PMM)
Founded by Ferdinand de Medici (1549-1609) in order to gain favor with Pope Gregory XIII, the Typographia Medicea was a unique example of a Western press printing books in Arabic and Syriac in Rome. It took the workshop six years to publish its first work, an Arabic edition of the Gospels, in 1590: “For Europe’s most powerful individuals, it was a prestigious engagement to support the innovative technology of printing in Arabic and Syriac, as well as the pioneering philological work that accompanied it” (Ferdinando de’ Medici and the Typographia Medicea). Published three years later, the Kitab Al Qanûn ranks among the most ambitious achievements of the Medici Press. At the forefront of innovation, the publishing house produced works entirely in Arabic as well as bilingual Latin-Arabic editions, using Arabic types designed by Robert Granjon, a typographer contemporary of Garamond. Faced with the lengthy and costly nature of the enterprise, Ferdinand, by then Grand Duke of Tuscany, gradually disengaged himself and sold his shares to the press's director, the polyglot Giovanni Battista Raimondi.
Only three other copies have appeared at auction over the past twenty years, all either incomplete or presenting major defects. No other known copy appears to have preserved its original margins in their entirety.
USTC, no. 811611; Adams, no. 2322; PMM, no. 11 (for the Latin edition printed at Strasbourg; mentions the present edition as the first in Arabic); Heirs of Hippocrates, no. 39 (for the first edition printed in France); H. Norman, One hundred books famous in medicine, no. 7 (Milan and Strasbourg editions); N. G. Sirasi, Avicenna in Renaissance Italy; C. Reimann, "Ferdinando de’ Medici and the Typographia Medicea" in Print and Power in Early Modern Europe (1500–1800), pp. 221-238; Urquhart, J., “How Islam changed medicine: Ibn Sina (Avicenna) saw medicine and surgery as one” in BMJ (Clinical research ed.) vol. 332, 7533; Nasser, M., Tibi, A. & Savage-Smith, E., "Ibn Sina's Canon of Medicine: 11th century rules for assessing the effects of drugs" in Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 102(2), pp. 78-80.
2 vols., folio (350 x 235 mm), comprising 5 books (continuous pagination for Books I-III, then IV and V), an index, and the 85-page supplement. First Arabic edition: text printed in Arabic type, Arabic title-page with the printer’s address in Latin. 1950s binding: brown half leather over corners, untrimmed pages (scattered foxing, some leaves browned, minor wormtrack in the upper margin of the first 10 leaves, erased inscriptions and restorations to the title page, occasional waterstaining particularly at the beginning of vol. 2; rubbed binding, split hinges with lacks of leather on the spine).
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Rousseurs éparses, certains feuillets brunis, infime galerie de ver en marge supérieure des 10 premiers feuillets, inscriptions grattées et restaurations au titre, quelques mouillures notamment en début d'ouvrage au vol. 2, reliure frottée, mors fendus avec manques de cuir au dos.
Scattered foxing, some leaves browned, minor wormtrack in the upper margin of the first 10 leaves, erased inscriptions and restorations to the title page, occasional waterstaining particularly at the beginning of vol. 2; rubbed binding, split hinges with lacks of leather on the spine.
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