Celsus, Aurelius Cornelius: De medicina.
Edited by Bartholomaeus Fontius.
Florence: Nicolaus Laurentii, Alamanus, 1478.
Fol. & 4to. [pi]6 a4 b-i6 l-z6 &6 aa-gg6 hh4 A8. [196] leaves, the last blank.
ISTC ic00364000; GW 6456; Goff C364; BMC VI 627 (IB. 27079); Bod-inc C-160; CIBN C-207; BSB-Ink C-207; Hargreaves 34.
| GIP number: | C27 |
| Shelf-mark: | Sp Coll Hunterian Be.3.17 (see main library entry for this item) |
| Note: | Leaf [pi]1, which contains the letter from Bartholomaeus Fontius to Franciscus Saxettus, is loosely inserted and measures 260 x 193 mm (extracted from another copy?). |
| Variants: | Headline on o5r correctly reads “.QVINTVS”, not “.QVARTVS” (corresponding to BMC’s third copy); two settings are known of 12 bifolios - the setting of the Hunterian copy follows that of Hargreaves 34 (i.e. the copy in the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh). |
| Provenance: | Sforza family, Milan: below the incipit on [pi]2r is a scroll painted in brown containing in heavily worn gilt lettering the Sforza motto “MERITO ET TEMPORE”. Unidentified owner: unidentified painted coat of arms on [pi]2r (azure, a fess or, in base a rose gules barbed and seeded proper, in chief there are slight traces of a now almost illegible symbol - perhaps two griffins - together with traces of what might be the letter “P”). Robert Nesbitt (d.1761), physician; lot 1597 (misprinted 1599) 'Aur. Corn. Celsus de Medicina, in corio turc.' in 'A catalogue of the large and valuable library of Robert Nesbitt, M.D. ...' (London: 1761). William Hunter (1718-1783), physician and anatomist: purchased by Hunter at the Nesbitt sale for £5.10.0 according to the copy of the sale catalogue (sparsely annotated with buyers’ names) in Harvard University Library. University of Glasgow: Hunterian bequest 1807; Hunterian Museum bookplate and book label on front pastedown, with former shelfmark “Z.7.16”. |
| Note: | Hunter appears to have purchased for £2.12.6 a second copy of this edition from the London bookseller, Peter Molini, 29 June 1772; see Molini’s bill to Hunter (University of Glasgow, Hunter Papers H219); that copy, described by Molini as “bound in parch[ment]”, is no longer in the Hunterian Library. |
| Binding: | England, 18th-century gold-tooled reddish-brown sheep; covers decorated with a frame of triple gold fillets, at whose inner corners are corner-pieces made up of several separate tools, and a lozenge-shaped centre-piece also composed of separate tools; gold-tooled spine; edges and turn-ins decorated with an alternate sun and anthemion roll; marbled endpapers; gilt-edged leaves; green silk bookmark. Size: 283 x 210 mm. |
| Leaf size: | 272 x 204 mm. |
| Annotations: | Occasional 16th-century(?) marginal annotations (most of which have been heavily bleached and are now largely illegible); marginal references to Fallopius on &5v and &6r; 18th-century price “3.3.0” in ink on first front flyleaf. |
| Decoration: | Six-line historiated initial “U” on [pi]2r depicting a seated physician in a pink robe and cap holding aloft a urine flask, the initial in gold; the four margins of [pi]2r decorated with a floral border which includes roses, strawberries and blackberries, and in the lower border is a painted coat of arms (see Provenance above); opening initials of books 2-8 supplied in red and blue with reserved white; other initials and paragraph marks throughout supplied in red or blue. |
| Imperfections: | Wanting the blank leaf A8. |
