Galeno - Galeni Operum Omnium Sectio Secunda - 1542

Nail-bound binding in full parchment, somewhat worn and with worm holes. “Sectio 2” manuscript on the back. Dry-stamped ornaments at the edges.

1 blank sheet, [44], 1023, 1 blank sheet

Second section of the complete works of the famous ancient physician Claudius Galen, within the historic Renaissance Latin editions printed in the sixteenth century. The Farri brothers edition (here presented) is historically significant because it sits in the midst of Galen’s humanist “rebirth.” Indeed, in 1525 Venice had already printed Aldus Manutius’s first Greek editio princeps. The Farrea workshop, in 1542, incorporates these philological corrections: the editor Agostino Ricchi adds extremely rich annotations and variants in the margins of the text (“adnotationes luculentissimae singulis locis in margine appositae”), drawn from direct comparison with old Greek manuscripts to correct the frequent errors of medieval translations.

Galen (in ancient Greek Γαληνός?, Galēnós; in Latin Claudius Galenus; Pergamum, 129[1] – roughly 216 in Misilmeri) was an ancient Greek physician, with Roman citizenship, whose views dominated Western medicine for thirteen centuries, until the Renaissance, when they began to be questioned slowly and with great caution, for example by Vesalius. From his name derives galenical (galenica), the pharmacist’s art of preparing medicines.

Beautiful typographic printer’s mark on the title page repeated at the end of the volume. Initial capitals finely engraved throughout the volume. Numerous handwritten marginal notes on white margins throughout the volume. Ex libris affixed to the first flyleaf. A small, negligible stain at the upper margin of the first 50 pages. Worm holes on the first blank sheet, one of which continues to the upper inner margin of the first six pages without ever compromising the text. Marginal browning only. Overall a good, usable copy. Complete and rare.