Rhazes Liber ad Almansorem 1497

A medical treatise in ten discourses supposed to have been written in honor of a Samanide prince by the name of al-Mansur.

[Venetiis : Per Bonetum Locatellum, 1497].
Publisher (initial place): Italy
Extent: 112, 48 fol ; 33 cm.
1497 Illuminated initials.
Colophon?: Explicit ... expensis ... Octaviani Scoti ... per Bonetum Lacatellum, 1497.
Lane Catalog Record

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Rhazes' Liber ad Almansorem table of contents.

This edition of Rhazes' Liber ad Almansorem also contains more than twenty other medical tracts widely read at the time, including tracts by Maimonides, Hippocrates, and Avenzoar. Issued in Venice on October 7, 1497, it was the fifth edition of Rhazes' primary work printed in the fifteenth century.

Rhazes (circa 854-925), a Persian philosopher and physician, was most influential as an encyclopedist. "His compilations included extensive information from diverse sources and provided original clinical histories and the results of therapeutic experiments." (Norman, One Hundred Books Famous in Medicine [1995] 6.). Rhazes provided the first accurate descriptions of smallpox and measles, and made original contributions to obstetrics and ophthalmology. -- This copy is of primary interest for the extensive marginalia by a contemporary hand, including cartoons and doodles illustrating aspects of the text. It provides fine insight into how a fifteenth century medical student attempted to absorb this encyclopedic work.

—J. Norman, 2006

A version printed in 1500 by Johannes Hamman: Signatures q-v are reprinted from the ed. published in Venice in 1497 by Bonetus Locatellus, without change of colophon [Not certain which version Lane has].

References: Al-Razi (Wikipedia).

Cartoons and doodles illustrating aspects of the text

Cartoons and doodles illustrating aspects of the text