Niccolò da reggio's translations of galen and their reception in France

Early Science and Medicine

Volumn 11, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 275-301

  McVaugh, Michael R ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; BOOK; FRANCE; GREECE; HISTORY; PUBLICATION;

FRANCE; GREECE; HISTORY, ANCIENT; TEXTBOOKS; TRANSLATIONS;

EID: 39049174307     PISSN: 13837427     EISSN: 15733823     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/157338206778144400     Document Type: Article

References (81)

1. For Avicenna, Danielle Jacquart, "La reception du Canon d'Avicenne: Comparaison entre Montpellier et Paris au Xllle et XlVe siècles," Actes du 110e Congrèh national des sociétés savantes - Montpellier, 1985, 2 (Paris, 1985), 69-77.
2. for the "new Galen," Luis García Ballester, "Arnau de Vilanova (c. 1240-1311) y la reforma de los estudios médicos en Montpellier (1309): El Hipócrates y la introducción del nuevo Galeno," Dynamis 2 (1982), 97-158.
3. The most systematic account of Niccolo's translations is given by Lynn Thorndike, "Translations of Works of Galen from the Greek by Niccolo da Reggio (c. 1308-1345)," Byzantina Metabyzantina 1 (1946), 213-35.
4. Particular conclusions have to be modified in the light of Richard J. Durling, "Corrigenda et addenda to Diels' Galenica. I," Traditio 23 (1967), 463-76
5. and idem, "Corrigenda et addenda to Diels' Galenica. II," Traditio 37 (1981), 373-81.
6. Roberto Weiss, Medieval and Humanist Greek (Padua, 1977), 131.
7. Vivian Nutton, John Caius and the Manuscripts of Galen (Cambridge, 1987), 20.
8. Guy de Chauliac, Inventarium sive Chirurgia Magna, ed. Michael R. McVaugh (Leiden, 1997), 1:7.
9. Margaret Sinclair Ogden, "The Galenic Works Cited in Guy de Chauliac's Chirurgia magna," Journal of the History of Medicine 23 (1973), 24-33.
10. Guy de Chauliac, Inventarium, 2:6-10.
11. Durling, "Corrigenda" (1967), 464.
12. Francesco Lo Parco, "Niccolò da Reggio antesignano del Risorgimento dell'antichità ellenica nel secolo XIV," Atti. R. Accademia Arch. Lett. Bell. Arti, n. s., 2 (1910), 262-63.
13. Giuseppe Pezzi, "La vita e l'opera di maestro Nicolao da Reggio," Atti delta IX Biennale delta Marca e delta Studio Firmano per la Storia dell'arte Medica (Fermo, 1971), 231, makes the same assertion.
14. Galen on Prognosis, ed. Vivian Nutton; Corpus Medicorum Graecorum V 8, 1 (Berlin, 1979), 26-27, describes this manuscript in detail. For a recent survey of scholarship on Niccolò
15. see Carlos J. Larrain, "Galen, 'De motibus dubiis': Die lateinische Übersetzung des Niccolò da Reggio," Traditio 49 (1994), 171-233.
16. Marie-Therésè d'Alverny, "Pietro d'Abano, traducteur de Galien," Medioeuo 11 (1985), 19-64, at 45 n. 69.
17. reprinted in eadem, La transmission des textes philosophiques et scientifiques au Moyen Age, ed. Charles Burnett (Aldershot, 1994). I am grateful to Vivian Nutton for drawing my attention to her conclusion.
18. The two translations are published together in Larrain, "Galen." Larrain concludes that "Ob er [Niccolò] sie [Mark of Toledo's translation] gekannt hat, ist nicht zu entscheiden" (174). These facts are consistent with a tenuous hypothesis. BN 6865 was copied after 1345 (the date of Niccolò's De disnia translation, which it contains). If the manuscript did indeed originate as a collection of the short Galenic treatises available in the papal library, including Niccolò's translations available there, the fact that its copyist reproduced Mark's version of De motibus liquidis rather than Niccolò's suggests that the latter had not been sent to the pope with Niccolò's other Galenic texts. In that case it might postdate De disnia and be one of his last translations. But at this point this can only be speculation.
19. This date appears to be that of the entry on fol. 215r referred to by Nutton, Galen on Prognosis, 27.
20. "Non enim quilibet omnes libros habere potest, et si haberet, tedium esset legere et divinitus omnia in mente retinere": Guy de Chauliac, Inventarium, 1: 1.
21. "Alcioris et perfections stili . . . quam translati de arabica lingua": ibid., 7.
22. Durling, "Corrigenda" (1967), 475, 471.
23. Ogden, "Galenic Works," 29, 32.
24. Chauliac, Inventarium, 1: 364.
25. The Renaissance numbering of the aphorisms does not always correspond to subsequent ones; for the convenience of the modern reader, I have chosen to follow the numbering in the Loeb edition by W. H. S.Jones, in Hippocrates (London, 1931), v. 4.
26. In contrast, he does say twice that the commentary is clearer in the Arabic version: explicitly ("clarius") in Inventarium, 1: 209 lines 36-38, implicitly ("licet intricatum sit commentum in Greca translacione") in ibid., 364 lines 34-35.
27. At ibid., 431 lines 11-16, Guy draws attention to one particular passage where the new translation of De simplici medicina from the Greek corrected a mistaken reading in the older Arabic-Latin version.
28. Michael McVaugh, "The Lost Latin Galen," in Vivian Nutton, ed., The Unknown Galen (London, 2002), 153-62. To the evidence presented there may be added the suggestive fact that Niccolò several times chose to finish Greek-Latin translations that had been begun by others but left incomplete: for example, De simplici medicina and the commentary on the Aphorisms. The Methodus medendi would be one more in this line.
29. Danielle Jacquart, "Hippocrate en frangais: Le Livre des Amphorismes de Martin de Saint-Gille (1362-1363)," in Danielle Jacquart, ed., Les votes de la science grècque: Etudes sur la transmission des textes de l'Antiquité au dix-neuvième siècle (Geneva, 1997), 289.
30. See also eadem, La médecine médiévale dans le cadreparisien (Paris, 1998), esp. 266-75.
31. Germaine Lafeuille, Les Amphorismes Ypocras (Cambridge, Mass., 1954), 39.
32. eadem, Les Commentaires de Martin de Saint-Gille sur les Amphorismes Ypocras (Geneva, 1964), 28.
33. rd ser., 49-52 (1968), 150-51.
34. Jacquart, "Hippocrate en frangais," 264-65.
35. See also Pearl Kibre, Hippocrates Latinus: Repertorium of Hippocratic Writings in the Latin Middle Ages (New York, 1985), 32-33.
36. "Translationem Constantini prosequar non quia melior sed quia communior, nam ipsa pessima est et defectiva et superflua quandoque, nam insanus monacus in transferendo peccavit quantitate et qualitate, tamen translatio Burgondionis Pisani melior est et ideo cum sententiam ponam imitabor eum et corrigam in positione sententie totum quod in alia erroneum invenitur et hoc invitus faciam, sed propter communitatem translationis Constantini hoc faciam, nam potius voluissem sequi Pisanum": quoted from Jacquart, "Hippocrate en frangais," 265.
37. I will be referring to the text in MS Vienna, ÖNB 2328, fols. 1-33 (hereafter VI 2328). The colophon of this manuscript reads "Expliciunt commenta Galieni nove traductionis supra librum Ypocratis Afforismorum translata a principio usque ad 'Tertianam veram' Parisius [!] a Burgundione Pisano et a 'Tertiana vera' usque ad finem Neapoli a Nicolao de Regio. Scripta a Magistro Nicolao de Karulo de deliceto in civitate Neapolis anno domini 1314 indictione 13 die lune 21 Januarii": Kibre, Hippocrates Latinus, p. 61.
38. Lafeuille, Commentaires, 31; Constantine's version (headed "translatio antiqua") is in Galeni in aforisomos Hippocratis [libri], Articella (Venice, 1523), fols. 89v, 90ra.
39. VI 2328, fol. 22va.
40. The four instances are as follows (Lafeuille, Commentaires, 28): 1. Et anelitus, difficulté ou force d'alener, car la translacion grecque a asmata qui vaut autant comme difficulté d'alener (comm. Aph. III.22) A-L: Autumno vero et estivorum multa et febres quartane et errantes et splenes et hydropes et ptisis et ulcerationes et strangurie et lienterie et sciades et squinantes et anhelitus et ilei et epilepsie et manie et melancholie. (Articella, fol. 54v) G-L: Autumpno vero estivalium multe febre quartane et planires id est erronee et splenes ydropes et prises et strangurie et lienterie et sciades et squinantie et asmata id est hanelitus hylei et epilensie et melancolia et maniaca. (VI 2328, fol. 13vb) 2. La seconde cause met le commentateur en la translacion grecque ou il dit que telz enfans ont acoustumé d'estre en la marris (comm. Aph. III.24) A-L: [the corresponding passage is omitted in Articella, fol. 55v] G-L: Recentes enim exeuntes a matrice infantes expavescunt transitum et ad continentem nos aerem unde eis timores fiunt. (VI 2328, fol. 14ra) 3. Une autre cause met le commentateur en la translacion grecque car il dit que ceste glaucité vient en cest aage d'une espece ou maniere d'effusion (comm. Aph. III.31) A-L: Glaucosis in usu sensuali ex siccitatis ultimitate. (Articella, fol. 60r) G-L: Glaucosis autem et propter ipsam ... immoderatam siccitatem et propterea quia habent speciem suffusionis. (VI 2328, fol. 14vb) 4. L'en pourroit dire que celle lettre [diuturniores] ... est superflue et non pas de la sentence d'Ypocras, car elle n'est point en sa translacion grecque (comm. Aph. IV.53) A-L: Quibus in dentibus in febribus lymositates fiunt fortiores et diuturniores fiunt febres. (Articella, fol. 75v) G-L: Quibuscumque in dentibus in febribus viscositates fiunt fortes fiunt febres. (VI 2328, fol. 19ra)
41. It is perhaps just possible that Martin could have acquired a knowledge of Greek-Latin translations (including Niccolo's), not at Avignon, but during his earlier medical training at Paris. We know that at least ten of Niccolò's versions were available there to be quoted by Pierre de Saint-Flour (a Parisian master by 1349), although there is no evidence that the Galenic commentary on the Aphorisms was among them. (See Appendix.) But it is far simpler to suppose that Martin was quoting from the copy already in the papal library than from one that he had brought with him from Paris.
42. Like Martin in passage 3 from n. 27 above, Chauliac quotes from the Greek-Latin version of Galen's comment on Aph. III.31 (Inventarium, 1: 377 lines 14-17).
43. Lafeuille, Commentaires, 72. Only two of these references are transcribed in Lafeuille's edition, at pp. 150 and 171, and in neither case have I been able to identify a parallel passage in Niccolò's Ad Glauconem, which I have consulted in MS Paris, BN lat. 6865, fols. 154vb-166va.
44. Lafeuille, Commentaires, 73-74.
45. Ibid., 174: "et est telle herisipille chaude et seche, pongnant et ardant, quant a couleur tendant a rouge couleur et clere, aussi comme fleugmon tend a rouge obscure et palle; et auscunefoiz telle herisippille peut estre causee de permiscion de sang avec colle de fleugme, si comme dit Galien ou quart de Terapeutique." This passage seems to me undoubtedly to refer to Meth. Med. XIV.l (K 10.946).
46. On this subject, see Danielle Jacquart, Le milieu médical en France du XVe au XVe siécle (Geneva, 1981), 111-12 ("parmi les universités frangaises, ce fut surtout celle de Montpellier qui pourvut la cour d'Avignon en médecins").
47. and Bernard Guillemain, La cour pontificale d'Avignon (1309-1376): Etude d'une societe (Paris, 1962), 376-82.
48. The copy of the Inventarium in MS Vatican, Palat. Lat. 1317, was copied in Montpellier in 1373: Chauliac, Inventarium, 1: xv-xvi.
49. Ernest Wickersheimer, Dictionnaire biographique des médecins en France au moyen âge (Paris, 1936), 494-95.
50. Supplément, ed. Danielle Jacquart (Geneva, 1979), 187.
51. Further references can be found in Guillaume Canovas, "Le Tractatus medicus de Jean de Tournemire: Une oeuvre originale?" in Daniel Le Blévec, ed., L'Université de Médecine de Montpellier et son rayonnement (XIIP-XV" siécles) (Turnhout, 2004), 75-101.
52. There can be no doubt at all that Tournemire was quoting directly from the Galenic text. "Soluit Ga. libro suo de flebotomia doc. prima summa prima capitulo 3° de quantitate flebotomie circa finem capituli, dicens nequaquam igitur est possibile inquoque [sic] unam determinare evacuationis mensuram quia quosdam vidit a quibus sufficienter auferebat vi. lib. sanguinis et nulla sequebatur malignatio virtutis": Johannes de Tornamira, Clarificatorium, cap. "de sanguine a naribus fluente"; MS Vatican City, Palat. Lat. 1331 (hereafter Vpal 1331), fol. 35va. Cf. Galeni Opera (1490), 1.124vb: "Nequaquam igitur possibile est per scriptionem in unoquoque predictorum unam determinare evacuationis mensuram ut enim in quibusdam quid est sufficienter auferens .vi. libras sanguinis; febrem confestim extingui et nullam assequi malignationem virtutis." The reference to De spermate in Clarificatorium, cap. "de provocatione menstruorum"; Vpal 1331, fol. 102vb, is vaguer, and I have not been able to identify it with a specific passage in Galen's text. In any case, it seems likely that Tournemire has Niccolò's translation of Galen in mind rather than the pseudo-Galenic De spermate, for what is in question here is the idea that male sperm has the nature of "form" and female sperm the nature of "matter"; this theme is discussed in Niccolò's translation (inc. "Que est utilitas"; see De semine 1.3, in Galeni Opera, vol. 1, cols. 1257-58 [Basel, 1549]), but not in the very different pseudo-Galenic De spermate (inc., "Sperma hominis descendit," which I have consulted in Galeni Opera, vol. 8, cols. 135-55 [Basel, 1549]).
53. Clarificatorium, cap. "de yctericia", Vpal 1331, fols. 66ra-69ra (ed. Lyons, 1490, fols. 84v-88v); and cap. "de asmate," Vpal 1331, fols. 47va-49va (ed. Lyons, 1490, cap. 56, "fol. 54" va, erroneously, in this edition).
54. This point has already been made by Nutton, John Caius: "They were produced at the end of a long line of Galenic translations and had to compete with other texts and translations already included in the curricula of the leading medical universities" (pp. 20-21).
55. The same in Saint-Flour; see Appendix.
56. Avicenna, Liber canonis (Venice, 1507; rpt. Hildesheim, 1964), III.19.2; fols. 346v-351v.
57. "Urina tunc exire prohibetur dum vesica earn expellere nequit aut dum ilia via per quam ipsa penetrat clauditur; et hec duo stranguiria nominantur": Galieni Opera 2.152rb (K 7.248).
58. "Semper sequi stranguria, quibus solutis et stranguria cessabit": Articella, fol. 84r (K17b.778).
59. "Stranguria est parva et sepissima mictura que aliquando fit ex defectione virtutis contentive in vesica, aliquando ex acuta urina": Articella, fol. 98v (K 17b. 885-86).
60. "Stranguria est cum urina guttatim et velociter exeat": Articella, fol. 133v (K 18a.153).
61. The Hippocratic aphorism says that "Those who, after strangury, are attacked by ileus, die in seven days, unless fever supervenes and there is an abundant flow of urine" (tr. W. H. S. Jones; Loeb ed., 4: 189), but without explaining what "strangury" is. Constantine appears to have assumed automatically that Galen's remark was intended as a gloss on the Hippocratic term and to have translated accordingly - "Ego autem vidi meo tempore de stranguria multos ad mortem devenisse, et multos inde mortuos esse, quorum vesica visui apparebat plena extensa dolorosa": Articella, fols. 117v-118 (K 18a.69).
62. Burgundio of Pisa's Translation of Galen's "De interioribus," ed. Richard J. Durling (Stuttgart, 1992), 1: 165 lines 6-8 (K 8.406).
63. Galieni Opera 2.136vb.
64. Galieni Opera 2.114rb.
65. De interioribus, ed. Durling, 1: 51 lines 23-24 (K8.9).
66. "Intelligendum quod urina aut emittitur involuntarie aut retinetur involutarie. ... Si autem emittatur involuntarie hoc est duobus modis, quoniam aut emittitur in nimia quantitate et consumitur corpus, et ista est diabetica . . . , et si emittatur involuntarie sed paulatine et guttatim sic est stranguria. . . . Dissuria est vel interpretatur involuntaria retentio urine, scilicet cum aliquis appetit mingere et non potest aut quando non potest nec appetit": Bernard Gordon, Lilium medicine VII.14, 16 (Venice, 1498; fols. 86rb, va).
67. "Quando urina non potest expelli nisi per intervalla et per tempora ... communiter tunc dicitur dissuria, scilicet quando homo non potest mingere sed bene vult; ... quando [nullo] modo potest expelli ... vocatur communiter suria; sed ... quando urina inconvenienter expellitur scilicet involuntarie et guttatim ... dicitur communiter stranguria": Gerard of Solo, Expositio in nonum librum Almansoris, cap. 77; in Gerard of Solo, Intro ductorium iuvenum (Venice, 1505), fol. 73ra.
68. "Retenta urina ultra velle in toto, tunc accio expulsive vesice est ablata; in parte, tunc accio corrupta. Iste due male acciones vesice, et etiam si accio eius solum diminuta fuerit, vocantur proprie stranguria (6 De morbo capitulo penultimo, et primo De interioribus capitulo primo, 6° De interioribus capitulo 3°). Moderni in psalteriis suis appellant surrigiam [MS Wroclaw: surriam] quando urina ex toto strangulatur vel retinetur ultra velle, dicentes Stranguit guttatim, sur nil, dissurque per horas. Galienus autem in locis dictis ubi ex intento tractat de passionibus vesice, nunquam posuit surrigiam [MS Wroclaw: surriam] sed stranguriam et dissurriam, que dissuria proprie est parva et sepissima mictura libera, cum hoc vult Rasis in suo Continente et Galienus 6 De interioribus capitulo 3°, quia magna et libera dicitur dyarria [MS Wroclaw: dissuria] urine vel dyabetica passio. Verum aliquando Galienus in locucionibus suis capit unum pro alio et capit stranguriam pro dissurria; appellat talem parvam liberam et sepissimam micturam stranguriam: 5° Amphorismorum, commento illius canone, In ano flegmonem paciente. Sicud capit aliquando dissurriam pro guttatim et quasi insensibili et involuntaria mictura (primo de interioribus capitulo primo circa finem), que proprie appellator distillatio urine ex paralisi lacertorum colli vesice, qui lacerti ex officio claudunt collum vesice quibus remollitis seu paraliticatis non possunt in illam accionem; ideo guttatim et quasi continue mingunt, quia sicud in vesica congregatur exit involuntarie ex nocumento contentive ipsius": Johannes de Tornamira, Clarificatorium, cap. "de difficultate mingendi"; Vpal 1331, fol. 82va, with variants from MS Wroclaw, III.F.7, fol. 186ra-b, and the edition of Lyons, 1490, fol. 108r-v.
69. Later in the Clarificatorium Tornamira amplified this definition of "stranguria" and explained what he understood by such "defective" urination: "Minctura magna et frequens proprie dyabetica appellator, nam frequens et modica si sit cum offensione et dolore appellator stranguria; si autem sit libera licet aliquando cum ardore proprie dissuria appellator, ut declaratum est superius, capitulo de stranguria": Clarificatorium, "de hiis qui non possunt retinere urinam"; Vpal 1331, fol. 94vb.
70. Tornamira explains that he had adopted the term from Serapion and Rhazes: "Si autem urina guttatim et involuntarie exeat distillando involuntarie per virgam prout in vesica congregatur, appellator largo modo dissuria, ut ponit Ga. primo de interioribus, capitulo primo in fine; Serapio autem 4° sue practice appellat distillationem urine, similiter Rasis in suis divisionibus et in suo continente, capitulo de passionibus vesice": ibid. Cf., for example, Rhazes, Liber divisionum, cap. 73: "De distillatione urine. Accidit exitus urine involuntarius paulatim ..." (Venice, 1497; fol. 70va). Presumably Tornamira knew that the same term is employed by Avicenna, Canon III.19.2.10, fols. 348vb-349ra.
71. "Hie Constantinus monachus - qui transtulit libros de morbo, de interioribus, commenta amphorismorum, pronosticorum, regimenti, de arabico in latinum - dedit nobis istos libros /mg.: al' labores; MS Wroclaw: labores; ed.: labes] et plures consimiles ex suis locucionibus, ex quibus Gordonius male et improprie locutus est in materia": Clarificatorium, cap. "De difficultate mingendi"; Vpal 1331, fol. 82va; MS Wroclaw III.F.7, fol. 186rb; ed. 1490, fol. 108va.
72. "Ga. in commento eiusdem can.: nam fit quia contentiva vesice deficit in accione sua ... ratione apostematis ... vel ... ratione male complexionis": Clarificatorium, cap. "De difficultate mingendi"; Vpal 1331, fol. 85vb. Cf. Articella, fol. 98v: "Stranguria ... aliquando fit ex defectione virtutis contentive in vesica, aliquando ex acuta urina. Contentiva deficit causa male complexionis vel apostematis." The corresponding passage in Niccolo's translation reads very differently: "Et fit aliquando quid ex imbecillitate retentem virtutis in vexica, est autem quando [read aliquando] ex acredine urinarum. Sed imbecillitas qui propter discrasiam fit vel aliquem tumorum" (VI 2328, fol. 24v).
73. VI 2328, fol. 32ra; K 18a.153.
74. Clarificatorium, Vpal 1331, fol. lva.
75. Jacquart, La méderine médiévale, identifies a similar development of the Parisian medical faculty in the fourteenth century.
76. "Quandoque fit alia passio que dicitur dissuria et est dicta ab effectu quod urina retinetur per multas horas et post sequitur expulsio et fit a frigore vel lapide vel humore grosso. Si autem distilletur urina guttatim dicitur stranguria. Si autem nihil exeat dicitur surria vel scurria et periculum infert": Johannes Jacobi, Secretarium practice, MS Paris, BN 6957, fol. 81v.
77. Nutton, John Caius, 30 n. 9.
78. Ernest Wickersheimer, Commentaires de laFaculté de Médecine de VUniversité de Paris, 1395-1516 (Paris, 1915), 252.
79. Some of these references were published by Julius Leopold Pagel, Die Concordantiae des Johannes de Sancto Amando (Berlin, 1894), pp. xl-xlii. The others are drawn from my examination of the text in MS Paris, BN lat. 14734.
80. This entry in the inventory conflates two titles: "Liber qui dicitur medietas introductivus," which was translated by Niccolò and to which Saint-Flour does not refer, and "De sententiis medicorum et credulitate seu fide," which is not one of Niccolò's translations and to which Saint-Flour refers both as De sententiis medicorum ("cor") and as De credulitate ("Deus").
81. The quotation from "Aph. VI.30" (= VI.31 Loeb) given by Pagel - "Consuetudo calefactionis est dolorem aliquantulum mitigare et postmodum alios humores dissolvere" - proves to be from Constantine's version of Galen's commentary, not Niccolò's: cf. Articella, fol. 113va: "Consuetudo enim est calefactionis dolorem mitigare aliquandiu et post alios humores ad dolentia loca adducere, quia virtute humores primos dissoluente dissoluuntur."