Auction 50 · Lot 318

Amatus Lusitanus. Curationum Medicinalium, Centuriae Quatuor.

Estimate: $1,000–$1,500
Hammer price: $2,400

Historical auction record. Hammer prices exclude buyer’s premium and taxes.

author

(MEDICINE).

printer

Froben

Place

Basle

Publication

1556

Description

Printer's mark of Froben on title and final page. Richly historiated initials. Wide-margined copy replete with Latin marginalia in old hand.

references

Adams A-915; Friedenwald, p. 36; Garrison and Morton, 3049.

summary

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.

pp. (16), 406, (34). Some stains and marginal worming, corner repairs to final two leaves. Recent limp vellum with vellum ties. Folio.

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