GÓMEZ PEREIRA, Juan. Novae veraeque medicinae, experimentis et evidentibus rationibus comprobatae, prima pars.
Medina del Campo, Franciscus a Canto, 1558.
£ 1,850
Folio. (viii) 916 (ii), ¶4 A-2N6 2O8 2P6, lacking title page, replaced by a half-page with ms. title. Roman letter, a little Italic. Double-column text, pages ruled in red ink, decorated initials, several of which are hand-coloured by an early hand. Paper repairs and patches covering marginalia on H5, 2M6, 2N2 and 3, and 2P2 and 3. General light browning due to paper aging, occasional staining. Rebacked, in an early gilt-ruled panelled calf binding, angular gilt fleurons, both covers with large red morocco octagonal panels: armorial of Michael Wodhull (1740-1816) on front cover and oval decoration on rear cover, a.e.g.
Gómez Pereira was born in 1500 in Medina del Campo. He studied Medicine at the prestigious University of Salamanca. He was deeply influenced by professor Juan Martínez Guijarro, who later became Cardinal Silíceo. Siliceo had been a disciple in Paris of the natural philosophers Juan de Celaya and Juan Dullaert who introduced him to the works of the Merton College’s physicians. Throughout the fourteenth century, they carried out important observations about the movement of bodies, their velocities and acceleration. The work of the Oxford physicists inspired the theoretical approach of Pereira when describing his model of animal behaviour. The physician lived and practiced medicine in Medina del Campo. His professional prestige caused him to be summoned to court to serve Charles of Austria, the controversial and ill-fated heir of Philip II. The philosophical treatise Antoniana Margarita (1554) was his masterpiece. In 1558, he published the present book, which is a very rare specifically medical work, which illustrates a new theory on the origin of fever. Pereira probably died after 1558.
A. Clarke, A Bibliographical Dictionary, London 1804, Vol. V, p. 180: “very rare”; CCPB no. CCPB000020288-6; Pérez Pastor, Medina del Campo, no. 135; Sánchez, Bibliografia aragonesa, vol. 2 pp. 173; Porbase, no. 226474.