Girolamo Mercuriale or Hieronymus Mercurialis - De Arte Gymnastica Libri Sex (Six Books On The Art of Gymnastics) - 1601

1601 ILLUSTRATED BOOK by Girolamo Mercuriale or Hieronymus Mercurialis (1530-1606). This is the first book on sports medicine, gymnastics, physical fitness, hygiene, wellness, medicine, the use of sport, diet, and natural methods for the prevention and treatment of various pathologies. Illustrated with 26 beautiful full-page engravings (height 238 x width 188 mm), Mercuriale or Mercurialis was a philologist and physician, most famous for this work "De Arte Gymnastica". He studied at universities in Venice, Bologna, and Padova. He then spent several years in Rome, where he discovered and consulted the great Greek and Roman classical authors and learned about the lifestyle, diet, sports, and training of gladiators, soldiers, and citizens of the Roman Empire, which he transferred into this work. This book brought Mercuriale fame, after having been the doctor of Pope Pius IV for 7 years, he was then called to Vienna to treat the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II. Among his many disciples was the Swiss botanist Gaspard Bauhin and Polish physician Jan Chrościejewski. As the title suggests, this work is dedicated to the Emperor Maximilian II, binding, pages and illustrations in very good condition, references; World Cat OCLC n°1179260460; USTC n°4035174; Garrison- Morton 1986.1; Brunet III 1646; Heirs of Hippocrates 223; Adams M1320; Wellcome I 4224; Graesse IV 495; Early European Books (Proquest) Reference: hin-wel-all-00009843-001; OPAC SBN n°UFIE 000735; Agasse, Jean Michel (2006), Girolamo Mercuriale: De arte gymnastica. Paris; Arcangeli, Alessandro and Vivian Nutton (2007),Girolamo Mercuriale. Florence.

The book illustrates sports practiced in ancient times to increase strength, team spirit and discipline, such as boxing, ball sports, swimming, wrestling, gymnastics, weightlifting and discus throwing. Mercuriale recommends sports and gymnastics for women too, a real novelty for the times. Special attention is given to personal hygiene, relaxation, and the elimination of toxins through lengthy saunas and thermal baths, which the Romans regularly visited. The process was lengthy, and the baths included libraries where people could read and spacious rooms for conversation. Hygiene and the quality of services offered at Roman baths were extremely high, thanks to large aqueducts. There were pools with water of varying temperatures for good blood circulation. The pipes carrying the water were made of lead and soldered to bronze faucets with hot and cold water mixers. This was never achieved in the Middle Ages, where the plumbing system was of poor quality and made of wood, and where nudity and excessive washing were considered demonic vices. The evocative and detailed woodcuts are by Cristoforo Coriolano, a German artist from Nuremberg who changed his original surname from Lederer to Coriolano. He opened a studio in Venice, producing engravings and illustrations, such as portraits for Giorgio Vasari's books and scientific and natural history illustrations for Ulisse Aldrovandi. His sons Giovanni Battista Coriolano and Bartolommeo Coriolano became eminent engravers in the Baroque period. Cristoforo Coriolano engraved the works based on drawings by Pirro Ligorio, an Italian architect, painter, and antique dealer.

TITLE: Hieronymi Mercurialis De Arte Gymnastica Libri Sex, in quibus exercitationum omnium vetustarum genera, loca, modi, facultates, & quidquid denique ad corporis humani exercitationes pertinet, diligenter explicatur...(Girolamo Mercuriale's On The Art of Gymnastics, Six Books, in which the types, places, methods, faculties, and, in short, whatever pertains to the exercises of the human body, of all ancient exercises, are carefully explained...)
AUTHORS: Girolamo Mercuriale or Hieronymus Mercurialis (1530-1606), engravings by Cristoforo Coriolano or Cristoforo Lederer after drawings by Pirro Ligorio an Italian architect, painter and antique dealer
PUBLISHER: Apud Iuntas [Lucantonio Giunta publisher], printed in Venice
DATE: MDCI (1601), text in Latin with occasional Greek. Compared to the first illustrated edition of 1573, this edition has two more illustrations and more pages.

DESCRIPTION: In 4to size, height 238 x width 188 mm (9.4 by 7.4 inches). Pages [16], 308 [i.e. 326], [2], [26]. Printer's device and date on the title page and at the end of the volume, 26 beautiful full-page woodcut illustrations in the text, a wormhole in the white margin on approximately 33 pages without affecting the text or illustrations, which are intact. Clean, well-engraved pages, illustrations with virtually no stains or oxidation, the few concentrated on the white margins at the bottom. Modern binding in perfect condition with gilded titles on the spine. Numerous errors in pagination, but COMPLETE ILLUSTRATED EDITION.

AUTHOR:Girolamo Mercuriale or Mercuriali also known as Hieronymus Mercurialis (1530-1606) was an Italian philologist and physician, most famous for his work De Arte Gymnastica. Born in the city of Forlì, the son of Giovanni Mercuriali, also a doctor, he was educated at Bologna, Padua and Venice, where he received his doctorate in 1555. Settling in Forli, he was sent on a political mission to Rome, where he made favorable contacts and had free access to the great libraries where, with sweeping enthusiasm, he studied the classical and medical literature of the Greeks and Romans. His studies of the attitudes of the ancients toward diet, exercise, and hygiene and the use of natural methods for the cure of disease culminated in the publication of his De Arte Gymnastica. During this time, he translated the works of Hippocrates, and, armed with this knowledge, wrote De morbis cutaneis (1572), considered the first scientific tract on skin diseases; De morbis muliebribus ("On the diseases of women") (1582); De morbis puerorum ("On the diseases of children") (1583); De oculorum et aurium affectibus ("On the afflictions of eyes and ears"); and "Censura e dispositio operum Hippocratis" (Venice, 1583). Among his many disciples was the Swiss botanist Gaspard Bauhin and Polish physician Jan Chrościejewski, the author of De morbis puerorum (1583).

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