Medicine and Humanism in Late Medieval Italy: The Carrara Herbal in Padua

266 Pages·2016·6.217 MB·English

by  Sarah R. Kyle

Medicine and humanism
in late medieval Italy
T his book is the fi rst study to consider the extraordinary manuscript now known as
the Carrara Herbal (British Library, Egerton 2020) within the complex network of
medical, artistic and intellectual traditions from which it emerged. The manuscript
contains an illustrated, vernacular copy of the thirteenth-century pharmacopeia by
Ibn Sarābī, an Arabic-speaking Christian physician working in al-Andalus known
in the West as Serapion the Younger. By 1290, Serapion’s treatise was available
in Latin translation and circulated widely in medical schools across the Italian
peninsula.
Commissioned in the late fourteenth century by the prince of Padua, Fran-
cesco II ‘il Novello’ da Carrara (r. 1390–1405), the Carrara Herbal attests to the
growing presence of Arabic medicine both inside and outside of the University.
Its contents speak to the Carrara family’s historic role as patrons and protectors
of the Studium, yet its form – a luxury book in Paduan dialect adorned with fam-
ily heraldry and stylistically diverse representations of plants – locates it in court
culture. In particular, the manuscript’s form connects Serapion’s treatise to pat-
terns of book collection and rhetorics of self-making encouraged by humanists and
practiced by Francesco’s ancestors.
Beginning with Petrarch (1304–74) and continuing with Pier Paolo Vergerio
(ca. 1369–1444), humanists held privileged positions in the Carrara court, and
humanist culture vied with the University’s successes for leading roles in Carrara
self-promotion. With the other illustrated books in the prince’s collection, the
Herbal negotiated these traditional arenas of family patronage and brought them
into confl uence, promoting Francesco as an ideal ‘physician prince’ capable of
ensuring the moral and physical health of Padua. Considered in this way, the
Carrara Herbal is the product of an intersection between the Pan-Mediterranean
transmission of medical knowledge and the rise of humanism in the Italian courts,
an intersection typically attributed to the later Renaissance.
Sarah R. Kyle is an associate professor of humanities at the University of Central
Oklahoma, USA.
Medicine in the Medieval Mediterranean
Series Editor
Alain Touwaide
Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions, Washington, DC, USA
Editorial Board
Vivian Nutton
Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University
College, London, UK
Paul Canart
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vatican City
Marie-Hélène Congourdeau
Centre d’Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance, Paris, France
Dimitri Gutas
Yale University, USA
Medicine in the Medieval Mediterranean is a series devoted to all aspects of
medicine in the Mediterranean area during the Middle Ages, from the 3rd/4th
centuries to the 16th. Though with a focus on Greek medicine, diffused through
the whole Mediterranean world and especially developed in Byzantium, it also
includes the contributions of the cultures that were present or emerged in the area
during the Middle Ages and after, and which interacted with Byzantium: the Latin
West and early vernacular languages, the Syrian and Arabic worlds, Armenian,
Georgian and Coptic groups, Jewish and Slavic cultures and Turkish peoples,
particularly the Ottomans.
Medicine is understood in a broad sense: not only medical theory, but also
the health conditions of people, nosology and epidemiology, diet and therapy,
practice and teaching, doctors and hospitals, the economy of health, and the non-
conventional forms of medicine from faith to magic, that is, all the spectrum of
activities dealing with human health.
The series includes texts and studies. It will bring to light previously unknown,
overlooked or poorly known documents interpreted with the most appropriate
methods, and publish the results of cutting-edge research, so providing a wide
range of scholarly and scientifi c fi elds with new data for further explorations.
Medicine and humanism
in late medieval Italy
The Carrara Herbal in Padua
Sarah R. Kyle
University of Central Oklahoma
First published 2017
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2017 Sarah R. Kyle
The right of Sarah R. Kyle to be identifi ed as the author of this work has
been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
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ISBN: 978-1-4724-4652-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-27691-5 (ebk)
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Contents
List of illustrations viii
Acknowledgements xii
Introduction: Medicine and metaphor at the Carrara court 1
1 The Carrara Herbal and the traditions of illustrated
books of m ateria medica 23
2 The healthy pleasures of reading the C arrara Herbal 67
3 The ‘physician prince’ and his book 88
4 Portraits of the Carrara 116
5 Physiognomy in late medieval Padua 149
6 Embodiments of virtue in Francesco Novello’s library 169
Conclusion 188
Appendix 193
Bibliography 196
Index 225
Plates
Illustrations
Colour plates
1 Frontispiece with Carrara heraldry and citron (Citrus medica, L.,
citron tree)
Carrara Herbal
London, British Library, Egerton 2020, f. 4r
35 × 24 cm, gouache on vellum, Padua, ca. 1390–1400
2 Meliloto (Lotus corniculatus L., bird’s foot trefoil)
Carrara Herbal
London, British Library, Egerton 2020, f. 15r
35 × 24 cm, gouache on vellum, Padua, ca. 1390–1400
3 Author portrait of Manfred de Monte Imperiale
Lippo Vanni or Roberto d’Oderisio, Tractatus de herbis
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 6823, f. 1r
34.5 × 24.7 cm, Southern Italy, ca. 1330–1340
4 Formento (Hordeum hexastichum L., six-row barley)
Carrara Herbal
London, British Library, Egerton 2020, f. 21r
35 × 24 cm, gouache on vellum, Padua, ca. 1390–1400
5 Carrara emblems
Stanza Terrena B (formerly Anticamera dei Cimieri)
Padua, Accademia Galileiana di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti
Fresco, Padua, ca. 1340–1343
6 Domenico Campagnola and Stefano dall’ Arzere, Sala dei Giganti
(formerly Sala virorum illustrium)
Padua, University of Padua, Palazzo Liviano
Fresco, Padua, ca. 1540
7 Personal arms of Ubertino da Carrara
Liber cimeriorum dominorum de Carraria
Padua, Biblioteca Civica, B.P. 124, XXII, f. 16r
27 × 20 cm, Padua, ca. 1390
8 Scene of the execution of Giacomo da Carrara in 1240
Gesta magnifi ca domus Carrariensibus
Illustrations ix
Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, lat. X, 381 (coll. 2802), f. 2r
Folio 58 × 43 cm, Padua, ca. 1390
9 Scene of the election of Giacomo ‘il Grande’ da Carrara in 1318
Gesta magnifi ca domus Carrariensibus
Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, lat. X, 381 (coll. 2802), f. 2r
Folio 58 × 43 cm, Padua, ca. 1390
10 After Altichiero (?), portrait of Giacomo ‘il Grande’ da Carrara
Liber de principibus Carrariensibus
Padua, Biblioteca Civica, B.P. 158, f. 4v
Folio 34.2 × 24.8 cm, Padua, ca. 1402
Black and white fi gures in text
1.1 Malbavisco ( Althaea offi cinalis L. and Lavatera thuringiaca
L., genera of marshmallow) 25
Carrara Herbal
London, British Library, Egerton 2020, f. 52v
35 × 24 cm, gouache on vellum, Padua, ca. 1390–1400
1.2 Sponga marina ( Euspongia offi cinalis L., marine sponge) 27
Carrara Herbal
London, British Library, Egerton 2020, f. 14r
35 × 24 cm, gouache on vellum, Padua, ca. 1390–1400
1.3 Pino ( Pinus pinea L., Italian stone pine tree) 29
Carrara Herbal
London, British Library, Egerton 2020, f. 41r
35 × 24 cm, gouache on vellum, Padua, ca. 1390–1400
1.4 Portraits of Epinoia (Knowledge), Dioscorides and Painter 34
De materia medica
Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, m edicus graecus 1, f. 5v
37.6 × 31.2 cm, Constantinople, ca. 512/13 CE
1.5 Bird and grasshopper with water dock (?) (R umex aquaticus L.) 39
‘Abdallâh ibn al-Fadl, D e materia medica
Istanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Ayasofi a 3703, f. 3b
33 × 24 cm, Baghdad (?), 1224
1.6 Physicians preparing medicine 41
‘Abdallâh ibn al-Fadl, D e materia medica
Istanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Ayasofi a 3703, f. 2b
33 × 24 cm, Baghdad (?), 1224
1.7 V erminatia (V erbena offi cinalis L., vervain) as treatment for
rabid-dog bite 44
Herbarium Apuleii Platonici
Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, plut. 73.16, f. 34v
17.5 × 11.4 cm, Southern Italy, ca. 1220–1250