Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge Libraries

A catalogue of Western manuscripts and papyri at Cambridge University Library, the Fitzwilliam Museum and selected Cambridge colleges

Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 400/729

Alexander of Tralles, Practica, and other medical texts

Contents

Introduction: Most of this 13th-century manuscript comprises a copy of the Latin translation of the Greek medical text, Theraupetica, which was written by Alexander of Tralles perhaps around the second quarter or middle of the 6th century. The identity of the translator or translators is not known, nor the period in which it was produced, though it must have been before the turn of the 8th-9th century, the date of the earliest surviving manuscript copy (now Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France, MS lat. 9332 ). It has been suggested that the translation was made shortly after the composition of the Greek original, in Ravenna or Rome, which were important centres in the production of medical literature. As D.R. Langslow (2006) has pointed out, firmer conclusions could be drawn if it were possible to establish 'close linguistic links' between the Latin version of the Theraupetica and the Latin translation of Oribasius's medical works, which is now widely accepted to have been produced in Ravenna - but further work remains to be done. Alexander's medical analysis and advice is organised according to human body, in head-to-toe order. The Latin text is divided into three sections, dealing first with ailments of the head, from hair-loss to issues with the face and teeth, then problems of the lungs, coughing and diseases of the liver and gout, and finally fevers in general. The two versions are broadly similar and of similar length overall, however there are some differences between the Greek original and the Latin translation, arising from both the addition of new material and the omission of some parts of the Greek text. Tuija Ainonen| Project Cataloguer| Curious Cures in Cambridge Libraries

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: Parchment (HFFH)
Extent: Codex: i + 1 | 2 | 91 | 2 + i leaves.
Foliation:

17th-/18th-century foliation

[i] + 1 | 2-3 | 4-94 | 95-96 + [ii]

Foliated in red crayon in Hindu-Arabic numerals in the upper outer corner of each recto.

Collation

Quires of mostly eight leaves arranged as follows:

  • Quires 1-88 (ff. 4-67)
  • Quire 910 (ff. 68-77)
  • Quire 108 (ff. 78-85)
  • Quire 1110-1 (ff. 86-94: 4th leaf cancelled)

1-88 910 108 1110-1 (4th cancelled)

Condition

Minor rodent damage to the tail edge of the quires.

Additions

Quire signatures ('1-11') in the bottom right-hand corner of the recto side of the first leaf of each quire, written in pencil by a hand of the 19th/20th century.

Binding

19th-century binding. Fully bound in calf over paste- or mill- boards with matching decoration in blind to front and rear covers. Covers are each decorated with two concentric triple-fillet frames, the outer frame set at the perimeter of the boards, and the inner frame inset by 20 mm. Each corner of the inner frame is joined to the nearest corner of the outer frame with a triple fillet. Decorative arcade-and-fleur-de-lis roll applied in blind to head, fore, and tail edges of the covers.

Five raised bands on the spine. Spine is capped at head and tail by the cover material and no head or tail bands are visible. Spine compartments are decorated along their upper and lower perimeters with a triple fillet. Title label applied in black leather with the title ‘ALEX. TRALLIANI ET 3. ALII TRACTATUS’ tooled in gold. Two small printed paper labels affixed to spine 729 and 400.

Paper pastedowns, both blank.

Dimensions: 250 x 180 x 32 mm (L x W x D)

Folio 1, a fragment, was probably once used as a pastedown in an older binding, although it seems to have been displaced from its earlier codicological position. There are four sets of three sewing holes along the present inner edge of f. 1, two small semi-rectangular patches of abrasion and damage along its outer edge, and there is significant adhesive residue on f. 1v; the position and location of these features suggests that the leaf was once used as the rear pastedown in an earlier binding, or perhaps as the lining for a spine.

History

Provenance and Acquisition

At Gonville and Caius College by 1600, when it was recorded as no. 99 in the Ecloga Oxonio-Cantabrigiensis by Thomas James (1600); this designation was recorded in ink in the upper margin of f. 4v.

Part 1: Commentary on a legal text (fragment) [Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 400/729, f. 1]

Contents

Language(s): Latin

1. 1r-1v
Commentary on a legal text
Incipit: || 1r desque … post factum protestationem
Explicit: 1v de opere de m…fiendo et ei idem non reciperet sat...(?) uel recipere ipso uir ||

Fragment from another manuscript that was used as the lower pastedown of an earlier binding.

Text contains an unidentified lecture (‘Ecce secunda lectura huius’) and commentary on a legal text, possibly on Justinian, Dig. 39.1.5 (‘Si quis ipsi pretori’, ‘si nuntiavit postea’).

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: Parchment
Extent: Fragment, a portion of a larger single leaf cut down for use as a pastedown in a binding. The leaf has been lifted and both sides of the leaf are accessible. 1 leaf. 165 × 235 mm.

Layout

Written space 150 × 180 mm. Top half of the leaf; 2 columns, 40 lines, with unclear ruling pattern.

Hand(s)

Written in a typical cursiva antiquior with some anglicana features.

History

Origin: Late 13th century. ; ?England.

Part 2: Derivationes (fragment) [Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 400/729, ff. 2-3, 95-96 ]

Contents

Language(s): Latin

1. 2r-3v and 95r-96v
Derivationes Uguccione da Pisa
Incipit: || 2r Ge grece proprie germani uel germane dicuntur qui
Explicit: 96v Manum ... ideo immanis invenitur pro magnus grandis.

Short excerpts of definitions of words, in no apparent order.

The first 7 lines of text on the leaf are difficult to read due to damage to the leaf.

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: Parchment
Extent: Fragment, two folded bifolia, one inserted at either end of the main Part of the manuscript (ff. 2-3 and 95-96). 4 leaves deriving from two folded bifolia. 225 × 170-175 mm.

Collation

Two folded bifolia, one placed at the beginning and one placed the end of the manuscript.

Layout

225 × 170 mm. Written in long uneven lines from margin to margin, no ruling visible.

Hand(s)

Written by multiple scribes in the anglicana form of cursiva antiquior.

History

Origin: Second half of the 13th century. ; England.

Part 3: Medical texts [Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 400/729, ff. 4-94]

Contents

Language(s): Latin

1. 4v-83v
Therapeutica Alexander of Tralles
Rubric: 5r Incipit primus liber alexandri yatros sophiste
Incipit: 5v C⟨ontigit⟩ hec duplex passio cadentibus capillis
Explicit: 83v mellis dispumati quod sufficit. Da unciam dimidiam.
Final rubric: 83v Explicit liber alexandri yatros sophiste

1) Folio 4r blank

2) The Therapeutica is divided into three books: capitula list (147 unnumbered items) to Book 1 on ff. 4v-5r, capitula list (75 unnumbered items) to Book 2 on ff. 34v-35r, and capitula list to Book 3 (62 unnumbered items) on ff. 75v-76r

eTK 0509J (t0099920000)
D. R. Langslow, The Latin Alexander Trallianus: The Text and Transmission of a Late Latin Medical Book, Journal of Roman Studies Monographs 10 (London, 2006), esp. pp. 41-42
2. 83v-90v
De chirurgia
Rubric: 83v Incipit Liber cyrurgie
Incipit: 84r Quamquam de iure et proprietate huius uocabuli scilicet cyrurgia
Explicit: 90v et cum hoc ungento pedes inunge.
Final rubric: 90v Explicit liber cyrurgie
eTK 1161A (t0222670000)
3. 90v-93r
Phlebotomia
Rubric: 90v Incipit liber flebotomie
Incipit: 90v Quoniam quidem operatio medicine tribus modis constat
Explicit: 93r uix aut nuncquam curari poterit.
Final rubric: 93r Explicit Liber flebo⟨to⟩mie
eTK 1297I (t0249130000)
4. 93rv
De theriaca
Incipit: 93r Iuuamen tyriace multiplex est
Explicit: 93v coxit enim eum usque terciam viii

According to Langslow this text is in: 'another, slightly later hand'.

Folio 94 trimmed (175 x 100 mm) and blank.

eTK 0802K (t0154740000)
D. R. Langslow, The Latin Alexander Trallianus: The Text and Transmission of a Late Latin Medical Book, Journal of Roman Studies Monographs 10 (London, 2006), esp. p. 41

Physical Description

Secundo Folio: Capitula list: 5r humor flegmonem facit |
Secundo Folio: Main text: 6r -narum cinis
Form: codex
Support: Parchment (HFFH).
Extent: Codex: 91 leaves. 235 × 170 mm.

Collation

This Part is mostly comprised of quires of eight leaves, with two quires of ten leaves. The stub after f. 88 is from a cancelled leaf, comparison of the text with that found in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Digby 79 revealing no gap between ff. 88v and 89r.

  • Quires 1-88 (ff. 4-67)
  • Quire 910 (ff. 68-77)
  • Quire 108 (ff. 78-85)
  • Quire 1110-1 (4th leaf (after f. 88) cancelled; ff. 86-94)

1-88 910 108 1110-1

No leaf signatures particular to this Part.

Quires are numbered in ink in Roman majuscules in the centre of the lower margin of the last verso of Quires 1-7: ff. 11v, 19v, 27v, 35v, 43v, 51v, and 59v.

 No catchwords particular to this Part.

Condition

Folio 94 reduced, now c. 175 x 100 mm.

Layout

Written space 180-185 × 125-135 mm. Ruled in leadpoint frame and lines, ruling often faint with single vertical bounding lines extending the full height of the page, and the first, second, thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh horizontal lines extending the full width of the page. Mainly in single columns, except for ff. 4v-5r (chapter list) and 84r-93v, which have two columns. Typical leaves have 36-37 lines to the page, written above top line. Pricked in the outer margins.

Hand(s)

Written in protogothic minuscule.

Decoration

Seven- to ten-line initials in gold, red, green and blue with foliate motifs at the beginning of each text (ff. 5v, 35r, 76r, 84r, 90v).

Two- to four-line 'arabesque' and coloured initials in alternating red, green, yellow and blue until f. 54v, after that in alternating red and green; some simple, some decorated with fronds and dots in red, green and yellow.

Chapter headings and section divisions in red.

Binding

Potential traces of former binding on f. 4r: Perforation in the four corners of the parchment, and a central hole that shows signs of oxidisation.

History

Origin: Late 12th century or early 13th century. ; England.

Additional Information

Record Sources

This catalogue entry draws on M. R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Gonville and Caius College, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1907-1908) vol. 2, pp. 464-65.

Availability

Visitors to Gonville and Caius College who wish to consult Lower Library material are required to apply to the Library in advance of their visit. For information on eligibility and admission procedures see: Gonville and Caius College: Library Information.

Bibliography

    On early Salernitan surgery and especially the "Bamberg surgery" with an account of a previously undescribed manuscript in the possession of Dr. Harvey Cushing Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine, Corner, George W. (5, 1-32, 1937, https://www.jstor.org/stable/44438167) Inventarium sive chirurgia magna Studies in ancient medicine, de Chauliac, Guy (Leiden, Brill, 1997) The Latin Alexander Trallianus: the text and transmission of a late Latin medical book Journal of Roman studies monographs, Langslow, D.R. (London, Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, 2006)

Funding of Cataloguing

Wellcome

Digital Images

Cambridge Digital Library

Abbreviations

View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.

Study at Cambridge

About the University

Research at Cambridge