ALTOMARE, Donato Antonio. De medendis humani corporis malis, ars medica.
Venice, Apud Ioanni Antonio de Maria, 1570.
£ 1000
4to, pp. (viii) 571 (i), †4 A-2N8. Roman letter, a little italic. T-p vignette with an angel holding a lily in his left hand, within a shield decorated with putti, caryatids and floral elements; motto: “Hi sunt administratorii spiritus – Humilis sicut lilium germinabit”. T-p with ownership inscription: “Cav. re(?) Paolo Pinto(?) Galletti 1815”. Historiated initials, capital spaces with guide-letters. Occasional ink emendations. A few quires browned, a few preliminary leaves lightly dampstained. An excellent copy in contemporary limp vellum with remains of laces.
Fourth edition of this medical treatise enumerating best remedies for the sake of human health. It includes a dedicatory letter to Pope Paul IIII and an introductory letter addressed to the author by Jacopo Rossi, a physician who was pupil of Donato Antonio Altomare. The latter was a doctor, philosopher and apothecary born in Naples in 1506 and passed away not long after 1562 (1566?). He studied law and then began to engage with medicine in the footsteps of the Hippocratic and Galenic tradition, whose accent was on the practical and philosophical aspects on the discipline.
Durling 199.