Untitled - Monoskop

MEDICINE; GEOGRAPHY; MATHEMATICS
his Micropaedia epistolaris (CP 1516, 2). Volcyr de Serouville brought out a sort
of courtesy book, suitably pious, for 'deux jeunes princes de renom'
(CH 1523, 5), and Guillaume Eustace published the first edition of the
medieval classic educational treatise of the Chevalier de La Tour Landry
(CH 1508, 2 (15)).
MEDICINE AND SURGERY, GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL,
MATHEMATICS
Medicine had inaugurated the granting of privileges in France. The 'Canon of
Avicenna' with the commentary of Jacques Despars (d. 1458), who had been
a leading light in the Paris Faculty of Medicine and a generous benefactor to
the Faculty, was printed under privilege from his manuscript in 1498
(CH 1498, i). While the Faculty was active in the sixteenth century in
teaching and research, however, little new work in the subject was published.
Medicine and surgery together make up only 3 per cent of all books published
and man of letters
with privilege in this period. The Lyon physician
Symphorien Champier, among his numerous writings, contributed a preface
to the mgdical works of Ishaq Israeli ben Salomon (CH 1515, 10) when they
were printed for the first time, and edited a later edition of Avicenna
(CP 1518, 5). A few well-known works by Italian physicians were published
in France under privilege. Thus the Tractatus deformatione corporis humani in utero
by Aegidius Colonna Romanus, edited by Johannes Benedictus Moncettus de
Castellione Aretino, obtained a privilege (CP 1515, i); the editor evidently
had connections with England, for he dedicated the work to Henry VIII (9
February 1515) and addressed another preface to Henry Hornby, who had
been secretary, chancellor and dean of the chapel to the Lady Margaret
Beaufort. 1
Etienne Chenu of Toulouse (PA 1517, 5) and Gabriel Tarregua of
Bordeaux (CH 1520, 10 and CH 1524, 3) were doctors who themselves were
granted privileges for their medical works. Two studies were specially
dedicated to the plague, those of Riva di San Nazzaro of Avignon (CP 1522, 3)
and Lucena of Toulouse (PA 1523, 3), perhaps prompted by the epidemic of
1522.
The study of medicine could not be undertaken at this period without a
knowledge of Latin. Such knowledge was not expected of surgeons. They
required books in the vernacular. Dr Jean Falcon obtained a privilege for his
commentaries in French on the Guidon, a standard work on surgery by Guido
de Cauliaco (CH 1515, iA, and revised edition PA 1520, 2 (2)). And a
translation into French of Joannes de Vigo, under the title La pratique de cirurgie
(CH 1525, i) put another important work within the reach of surgeons who
knew only their native language.
' On
Hornby, see A. B. Emden, Biographical register of the University of Cambridge to 7500
(Cambridge, 1963), pp. 313-14.