Beschreibung:

PLATEARIUS, Johannes (fl.1090-1120), Practica brevis , in Latin, DECORATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [?Salerno, c.1200] 177 x 118mm. 60 leaves: 1-2 8, 3 7(of 8, viii a cancelled blank), 4 8, 5 6, 7-8 8, 9 7(of 8, viii a cancelled blank), catchwords on final versos and gatherings numbered in later medieval arabic numerals at head of first folios, apparently COMPLETE, 33 lines in a small gothic bookhand written in brown ink above-top-line between two pairs of verticals and on 33 horizontals ruled in plummet, ff.17-23 a palimpsest written in 'as' minuscule on leaves from a liturgical manuscript in Beneventan minuscule, except for ff.17-23 rubrics in red, one- and two-line initials alternately in red and blue stroked with the other colour, opening folio with ten-line initial with interlace and penwork decoration in red and blue and with penwork decoration in two margins (opening folio rubbed and stained affecting legibility and with a few wormholes and lower corner and outer margin restored, some staining or spotting throughout, lower margin and bottom line of text trimmed from f.47 and strips cut from the bottom of margins of 7 further leaves). White leather chemise over medieval beech boards (chemise a modern replacement). A MEDICAL MANUSCRIPT FROM SALERNO, WITH ONE GATHERING A PALIMPSEST WRITTEN OVER BENEVENTAN MINUSCULE PROVENANCE: 1. Gathering 3 was written independently of the rest of the manuscript, on reused parchment from an 11th- or 12th-century Homiliarium, with commentaries by Gregory the Great, Bede and Ambrose, and without following the same decorative scheme or rubrication. Nonetheless it does not appear very different in date, and comparison with the edition printed in Venice in 1497 shows no chapters to be missing. This palimpsest gathering is included in the later quire numbering. The earlier, partially erased Homiliarium text is written in Beneventan minuscule. The development of this script was particularly associated with the Benedictine Abbey of Montecassino and it continued in use in southern Italy from the 8th to the 13th century. Its presence beneath the medical text supports the suggestion made by the content, and by the style of the opening initial, that the manuscript was made in Salerno. It is likely that it was made for, and continued to be used by, a physician; there are marginal annotations in various hands providing further recipes and helpful headings. A large section of text has been erased below the explicit on f.60v. 2. Jesuits of Millstatt, Austria: erased inscription at head of f.1. In 1598 the Jesuits were granted the house of the military Order of St George in Millstatt. Originally a Benedictine house, founded in 1088, it had been given to the Order in 1469. The Jesuits were suppressed in 1773 and their considerable Millstatt Library was one of the founding collections of the Studienbibliothek, Klagenfurt, now the Universitätsbibliothek. Nearly all of their manuscripts had come from the Benedictines. CONTENT: Johannes Platearius, Practica brevis , preface and contents f.1-1v (Thorndike, 1963, 91), conditions and cures ff.1v-60v (Thorndike, 1963, 484). The family surnamed Platearius was the pre-eminent dynasty of physicians in Salerno during the period when the city, and the Scuola di Salerno, was recognised as the leading centre for both theoretical and practical medicine in the whole of western Europe. De Renzi identified the Johannes Platearius who was the author of the Practica brevis as the second of three members of the family of that name; he was the brother of Matteus, author of the Practica archimatthei , and father of another Matteus, author of the Circa Instans and the gloss on the Antidotario di Nicolò , and is believed by some to have been the son or husband of the legendary Trotula of Salerno, specialist in women's medicine: S. De Renzi, Collectio Salernitana , i, 1852, pp.180-183, 228-235 and Storia documentata della Scuola medica di Salerno , 1857, pp.240-244. Although De