Ibn Butlan - Tacuinum Sanitatis - 1987

Tacuinum Sanitatis
Codex Vindobonensis series nova 2644
Austrian National Library, Vienna
Book Club Edition – Collection « Musée du Livre », Paris, 1987

2 folio volumes (approximately 35 × 24 cm), in publisher’s slipcases.

• Volume I – Fac-simile:
Complete color reproduction of the illuminated manuscript (about 108 folios / 216 pages).
Publisher’s binding in full natural Morroccan leather, spine with raised bands, boards decorated with blind fillets and cross-hatching in the medieval style.

• Volume II – Commentary:
155 pages.
Commentary by Franz Unterkircher.
Translation from German by Brigitte Vergne-Cain and Dominique Miermont.
Transcription of the Latin text, French adaptation by Geneviève Lebaut and Dutch adaptation by Bab Westerveld.
Half-basane binding, cloth-covered boards.

Condition: rubbing to the raised bands, spine lightened.

Tacuinum Sanitatis (« Tables of Health ») is one of the most famous medieval treatises on medicine and hygiene.
Written in the 11th century in Arabic by the Christian physician of Baghdad Ibn Butlân (Ububchasym de Baldach, who died around 1066), it was translated into Latin in the 13th century. The work presents, in tabular form, the health effects of nearly 280 elements of daily life: foods, drinks, plants, animals, seasons, physical activities, sleep, emotions, etc.
At the end of the 14th century, in Lombardy, the text was enriched with a cycle of sumptuous illustrations. The Vienna manuscript (Codex Vindobonensis series nova 2644), produced around 1390–1400, probably in the workshop of Giovannino de’ Grassi, is one of the finest preserved copies.
Each page features a large full-page miniature accompanied by a short text indicating the nature, qualities, benefits and possible dangers of the depicted element. The scenes of daily life (harvests, kitchens, markets, fieldwork, interior scenes…) make it an exceptional iconographic source on medieval life.