Amatus Lusitanus. Curationum Medicinalium, Centuriae Quatuor.

AUCTION 50 | Thursday, February 24th, 2011 at 1:00

Fine Judaica: Hebrew Printed Books, Manuscripts, Graphic & Ceremonial Art Including: The Alfonso Cassuto Collection of Iberian Art

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Lot 318

(MEDICINE).

Amatus Lusitanus. Curationum Medicinalium, Centuriae Quatuor.

Printer's mark of Froben on title and final page. Richly historiated initials. Wide-margined copy replete with Latin marginalia in old hand. pp. (16), 406, (34). Some stains and marginal worming, corner repairs to final two leaves. Recent limp vellum with vellum ties. Folio. Adams A-915; Friedenwald, p. 36; Garrison and Morton, 3049.

Basle: Froben 1556

Est: $1,000 - $1,500

PRICE REALIZED $2,400

Amatus Lusitanus (1511-1568?) was born in Castello Branco, Portugal and studied medicine at the University of Salamanca. His reputation as physician and scholar came to the attention of Duke Hercules d'Este II who invited him to occupy the chair of medicine in Ferrara in 1540. After various European sojourns, Amatus relocated to Salonica, a city with a burgeoning Jewish community of Spanish and Portuguese Jewish emigrés who enjoyed the protection of the Ottoman Empire. See Harry Friedenwald, The Jews and Medicine I (1967) pp. 332-80; N. Berger (Ed.) Jews and Medicine (1995) pp. 89-97. In all, Amatus would produce seven "centuries" of medical case histories.