Iolanda Ventura

THE INFLUENCE OF CONSTANTINE'S PHARMACOLOGY ON SALERNITAN AND LATE MEDIEVAL PHARMACOPOEIA This article offers a reconsideration of the textual development, the diffusion, and the influence of the two major pharmacological works translated from the Arabic by Constantine the African (11 th century), viz. the second book of the second section (the so-called Practica) of the Pantegni (originally written by c Alī ibn al-c Abbās al-Mağusī [fl. 10 th c.] and the Liber de gradibus (originally compiled by Ibn al-Jazzar [ca. 878-980]), by taking into account the manuscript tradition of the two works and the transformations experienced by the texts. The aim of the article is to show that an evaluation of the influence of Constantine's pharmacology on Salernitan, and, more generally, Late Medieval pharmacopoeia is possible when the textual development of the two texts and the epistemological changes connected to it are taken into account. Se non c'è dubbio che sono soprattutto i commerci e le mutate condizioni economiche a favorire i passaggi di piante attraverso le culture e, di conseguenza, l'evoluzione della fitoterapia (e della farmacoterapia in generale), va osservato che anche i testi hanno giocato un loro ruolo in questa evoluzione. Qui ci concentreremo

Starting from the two major authorities (auctoritates) of Ancient and Medieval pharmacology, Dioscorides and Galen, my paper provides an overview of the systems of classification of medicamina simplicia derived from plants, animals, metals, and precious stones as recorded in the Latin pharmacological literature from Late Antiquity until the middle of the 12th century, including its intellectual and philosophical background as it determines the rational criteria that regulate the acquisition of knowledge and the systematic ordering and structuring of such medicamina according to their nature, their effect, and their therapeutical properties. In three chronologically structured paragraphs, the paper first examines the two main pharmacological texts written during the Antiquity, viz. Dioscorides' De materia medica and Galen's De simplicium medicamentorum temperamentis et facultatibus. From there, it moves on to the main types of pharmacological collections produced in the Late Antiquity, the so-called Antibalomena, Dynamidia, and Quid pro quo lists. The period of transition from Late Antiquity to the first centuries of the Middle Ages was marked by the redaction of some well known herbals that will dominate over the Latin pharmacological literature until at least the end of the 12th century, viz. the spurious Alphabetum Galeni, the Herbarium attributed to the Pseudo-Apuleius, and the medical poem De viribus herbarum written by Odo of Meung, but better known under the title of 'Macer floridus'. The main contribution to the perception and classification of natural elements provided by those works lied in the criteria of structuring and ordering nature according to its relevance and use in medicine. In contrast, the Arabic-Latin pharmacological literature reaching the Western world thanks to Con-stantine the African's translations of Al-Majusi's Pantegni and Ibn al-Jazzar's Liber de gradibus provided medieval Latin medicine and pharmacology with a deeper and stronger theoretical background that gave contemporary physicians and medical authors belonging, among others, to the Medical School of Salerno, the chance to reason about the rational criteria and elements of recognition and classification of the nature of medicamina, their qualities, and their effects. The 'theoretical turn' initiated by Constantine's translations and further developed by the authors belonging to, or connected with, the Medical School of Salerno (Bartholomew of Salerno, Platearius, the Magister Salernus, John of Saint-Paul) played therefore a decisive role in the history of rational pharmacology, and will be the object of a long discussion in the third paragraph. My overview ends in the same section with what can be considered the most impressive and influential account of rational pharmacology pro-102 Iolanda Ventura duced and read during the Middle Ages, viz. the first treatise of the second book of Avicenna's Liber canonis, which represented, with the discussion of its long sections on the acquisition of pharmacological knowledge per experimentum and per ratioci-nationem, the most complete, the deepest, and the most problematic and debated pharmacological manual of the Late Middle Ages, whose reception and meaning in Medieval universities was exemplified, among others, by John of Saint-Amand and his pharmacological works.

Article published in: Classification from Antiquity to Modern Times, ed T. Pommerening and W. Bisang, Berlin-New York 2017

The papers was published in the volume "Expertus sum. L'expérience par les sens dans la philosophie naturelle médiévale. Actes du Colloque International de Pont-à-Mousson, 5-7 février 2009", ed. T. Benatouïl and I. Draelants, Firenze, SISMEL, 2011 (www.sismel.it). NB: the version uploaded here corresponds to the proofs I received and corrected. The published version features some slight (mostly orthographic) discrepancies with this one, and should be consulted anyway.

Published in: Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum. Texte Latin et Réception vernaculaire / Lateinischer Text und volkssprachige Rezeption, ed. B. Van den Abeele and H. Meyer, Turnhout, Brepols, 2005 (De diversis artibus, 74; N.S., 37)

RESUMEN: El trabajo de edición crítica de una obra científica de época medieval no es una labor exenta de dificultades, dado el carácter abierto de la mayoría de estos textos, la imposibilidad de identificar a los autores de los mismos o los problemas que plantea el léxico científico. Sin embargo, si este trabajo pretende la edición crítica de una obra como el Circa instans, texto farmacológico adscrito a la Escuela Médica de Salerno, cuya tradición textual supera los 200 manuscritos, la tarea se complica sobremanera. En el presente artículo la autora hace un recorrido por los principales problemas, externos e internos, que conlleva la edición crítica de la obra: se repasa el status quaestionis relativo a las diferentes versiones transmitidas por los manuscritos; se estudia la tipología de la difusión manuscrita de la obra en lengua latina y de las características de los manuscritos y corpora textuales; se analizan los criterios usados hasta el momento para la agrupación de manuscritos, estudiando la macroestructura y microestructura del texto; y se hacen algunas consideraciones metodológicas de cara a la preparación de la edición del Circa instans, como la búsqueda e identificación de sus fuentes y el estudio de la lengua de su autor. Finalmente, el trabajo concluye con un apéndice en el que se recoge una propuesta de edición crítica del prólogo de la obra con la colación provisional de 10 testimonios. ABSTRACT: The critical edition of a medieval scientific work is a task not without its difficulties, in view of the open character of the majority of these texts, the impossibility to identify their authors, or the problems posed by the scientific lexis. However, since this paper aims at the critical edition of a work such as Circa instans, a pharmacological text by the Salerno Medical School, whose textual tradition presents over 200 manuscripts, the task is especially complicated. The present paper deals with the main problems, both external and internal, of the critical edition of the work: focusing on the status questionis about the different versions transmitted in the manuscripts; studying the typology of the manuscript diffusion in Latin and the characteristics of the manuscripts and textual corpuses; analysing the criteria which have been used for the grouping of the manuscripts; studying both the macrostructure and the microstructure of the text; and making methodological considerations as regards the preparation of the edition of Circa instans, such as the research of its sources and the study of the author's language. Finally, the paper concludes with an appendix presenting a proposal for a critical edition of the prologue of the work with the provisional collation of ten texts from the textual tradition.

The Disputationes Universitariae. An Instrument for the History of Medicine? Considerations on Academic Miscellany Writings My article proposes to use the medical disputationes written in German and Dutch universities as a point of departure toward a better understanding of the history of Early Modern medicine, and the development of a medical debate between the 17 th and the 18 th century. With that in mind, I do not examine one or more selected writings in order to discern their sources, content, or theoretical background, but three large, miscellaneous volumes preserved in the Herzog-August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel and in the University Library of Freiburg in Breisgau, with the aim to outline the «portrait» of medical culture featured by them, and the criteria of their internal organization.

Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture and its sister monograph series, Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture, were originally inspired by themes drawn from the annual International Congress on Medieval studies at Kalamazoo and provide a home for high-quality research in the humanities. Our authors address topics from the late antique, medieval, and early modern periods, using literary, historical, and material sources. Books in these series employ innovative and interdisciplinary approaches to explore what it has meant to be human through the ages. This collection of essays examines how the paratextual apparatus of medieval manuscripts both inscribes and expresses power relations between the producers and consumers of knowledge in this important period of intellectual history. It seeks to defi ne which paratextual features-annotations , commentaries, corrections, diagrams, glosses, images, prologues, rubrics, and titles-are common to manuscripts from different branches of medieval knowledge and how they function in any particular discipline. It reveals how these visual expressions of power that organize and compile thought on the written page are consciously applied, negotiated or resisted by authors, scribes, artists, patrons and readers. This collection, which brings together scholars from the history of the book, law, science, medicine, literature, art, and philosophy, interrogates the role played by paratexts in establishing authority, constructing bodies of knowledge, promoting education, shaping reader response, and preserving or subverting tradition in medieval manuscript culture.
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