(Abu Ali al-Hussein ibn Abdallah ibn Sina). Canon [Medical Encyclopedia]. Translated from Arabic to Hebrew by Nathan of Cento (HaMe'ati)

AUCTION 26 | Monday, November 22nd, 2004 at 1:00

Exceptional Printed Books, Sixty-Five Hebrew Incunabula: The Elkan Nathan Adler-Wineman Family Collection

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Lot 41

AVICENNA

(Abu Ali al-Hussein ibn Abdallah ibn Sina). Canon [Medical Encyclopedia]. Translated from Arabic to Hebrew by Nathan of Cento (HaMe'ati)

FIRST EDITION. Five volumes. Double columns. Marginalia in many hands over the centuries including Arabic, Hebrew in a Sephardic hand, Latin and English. Deaccession stamps ff. 446 of (475). Vol. I: ff. 62. (In addition, first 5 leaves supplied in facsimile.) Vol. II: ff. 58. Vol. III: ff.192. Vol. IV: ff. 96. Vol. V: ff. 38. Vol. I missing first 5 leaves and f.1.8 (62 of 68). Vol. II missing first 16 leaves and ff. 2.6, 3.1 (58 of 76). Vol. III complete (192 leaves). Vol. IV complete (96 leaves). Vol. V missing last 5 leaves (38 of 43 leaves). Several leaves laid to size; occasional loss of text, stained in places, marginal repairs with some loss. Vol. I, first 21 leaves loose. Vol. V, final 4 leaves browned. Modern boards. Folio Vinograd, Naples 26; Goff 4; Goldstein 74; Offenberg 6; Steinschneider, p. 767, no. 4486-1; Thes. A71; Wineman Cat. 41; Friedenwald, p. 45. Not in Cambridge University

Naples: Azriel ben Joseph Aschkenazi Gunzenhauser 1491-92

Est: $40,000 - $50,000

THE ONLY 15th-CENTURY MEDICAL BOOK IN HEBREW. Ibn Sina, or Avicenna as he was referred to in the West (980-1037), was one of the greatest physicians and philosophers of the Muslim world. In the latter realm he would exert a profound influence on Maimonides. Avicenna wrote a work on cardiology, al-Adwiya al-Qalbiyya (“On Remedies for the Heart”), but by far, his most important contribution to the field of medicine is this work: Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb (“Canon of Medicine”), which was translated into Hebrew by Nathan HaMe'ati in 1279. In this truly encyclopedic volume, Avicenna drew on the earlier writings of the Greeks Hippocrates and Galen, and upon his own empirical observations. The five parts of the Canon were published in Naples in 1491-92 as a set of three volumes. The contents range from common ailments to life-threatening diseases, and provide an extensive pharmacopeia. The Canon remained one of the basic works in European medical schools until the beginning of the 16th-century. See S.M. Afnan, Avicenna, His Life and Works(1958); N. Berger ed., Jews and Medicine (1995), p. 56; EJ, Vol. III, cols. 955-960 The Canon is somewhat notorious among bibliographers due to the difficuly in presenting a precise collation of the work. No consensus seems to exist