Ortus sanitatis : De herbis et plantis. De animalibus et reptilibus. De auibus et volatilibus. De piscibus et natatilibus. De lapidibus et in terre venis nascentibus. De vrinis et earum speciebus. Tabula medicinalis cum directorio generali per omnes tractatus..
| Uniform Title: | Hortus sanitatis. |
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| Corporate Author: | |
| Other Authors: | , , , |
| Format: | Book |
| Language: | Latin |
| Published: |
[Strasbourg] :
[Reinhard Beck],
anno. M.D.XVII. [1517]
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| Subjects: |
| Item Description: | Sometimes attributed, by confusion with Gart der Gesundheit, to J. von Cuba. Place of printing and printer from NLM 16th cent., VD 16, Proctor, etc. The treatise on urines (leaves 2G1r-8v), which begins: Quoniam medicus est artifex sensitivus ..., has been attributed to Bartolomeo Montagnana and Zacharias de Feltro. See note to the Venice 1511 edition of the Hortus. Title printed in red and black, within illustrated border by Hans Baldung Grien. Signatures: a⁸ b-k⁶ l⁸ m-r⁶ s⁸ t-z⁶ A⁶ B⁸ C-E⁶ F⁸ G-I⁶ K⁸ L-M⁶ N⁸ O-R⁶ S⁸ T-2B⁶ 2C⁸ 2D-2F⁶ 2G⁸, 2I-2K⁸. Michael Laird, bookseller, description: Excellent contemporary Bavarian blind-stamped calf by the Benetictine monks of St. Quirinus, covers decorated in blind, with repeated use of the monastery's distinctive round stamp containing two intertwined branches bearing heart-shaped leaves, riased bands, vellum manuscript-lettered tabs, early handwritten paper label on the spine (lacking clasps, catches, and corner and central bosses). Housed in a very fine new black morocco box. Title printed in red and black within woodcut border, full-page woodcut of skeleton on k1v, four small woodcuts on K1r, small cut of a woman with a physician holding a flask on GG1r, and 1,066 woodcut illustrations in the text, the majority of them (that is, all of those appearing within the botanical section) in contemporary color. Title page with early inscription of the Bamburg Augustinians; note in ink on pastedown that this is a Royal Library duplicate; early marginal notes in ink on a few leaves. A little wear to the joints, spine ends chipped, other signs of use externally, but the original attractive binding solid and with very considerable appeal. A half dozen small, round wormholes in the first few leaves, other trivial defects in the text, but an extraordinarily fine copy internally, the paper, fresh, bright, and clean, and with strong impressions of the woodcuts. This is a remarkably well-preserved copy of the largest herbal and medical woodcut book that had been published to date, a work Hunt calls "the most important medical woodcut book" from the incunabular era, offered here in a contemporary German monastic binding, with contemporary coloring that is almost never seen in copies of this edition. An encyclopedia of the plant, animal, and mineral kingdoms and the medical applications of their products, the "Hortus Sanitatis" is an herbal of the greatest importance, offering a comprehensive view of the Medieval understanding of the natural world. Hunt says that "though based in part on the 'Gart der Gesundheit,' [the 'Hortus'] was almost entirely rewritten and elaborated upon, especially in the parts on animals, birds, fishes, stones, and minerals (all of which were less well represented in the earlier work), and in the treatise on urines; the text on herbs too is quite different, each chapter beginning with a description of the plant, its synonyms, and often something about its geographical origin, and ending with a list of the plant's medicinal virtues in a separate section headed 'Operationes.'" The present edition is the sixth overall and fourth Strassburg edition, and it is the first to separate the chapters on animals, stones, and metals from the chapters on plants. The design of the title page is variously attributed to Urs Graf, Hans Wechtlin, or Hans Baldung Grün. A few of the woodcuts are new to this edition, but most are reversed versions of the Prüss blocks, first published in 1491. According to Klebs, "the most interesting of the new cuts are some of the genre pictures especially those to the parts on zoology and mineralogy), for the draughtsman worked on these more individually with regard to the costumes, which represent those in use in Alsace at that time. . . . A large section of the book is devoted to zoology[:] 164 chapters concern land animals, 122 birds and 106 fishes. Camels are portrayed and described in chapters xxvii, xviii and xxix of the section concerning land animals[;] they are among the earliest portrayals of these animals. The section on birds shows woodcuts of a falconer with several falcons, as well as several birds of prey . . . . These woodcuts belong to the earliest portrayal of these animals in a printed book." The woodcut illustrating the human skeleton is considered the best such depiction before Vesalius. The binding here bears the distinctive leaf mark of the Benedictine Abbey of Tegernsee, established in the eighth century. The Abbey assembled a library that rivalled the holdings of the Vatican, and in 1468, the monks set up their own bindery. A printing press was added to the Abbey's works by 1573. After the dissolution of the monasteries in 1803, the Abbey's vast library of more than 60,000 volumes was absorbed into the Royal Library in Munich. Items that duplicated the library's existing holdings, like the present volume, were sold. Copies of this work with period hand coloring are extremely rare. The only other one we could locate in North America is at the Yale University Medical Library. LC copy imperfect: leaves C5 and K8 wanting; extra copy of leaves b3.4 misfolded and bound in gathering b. Source: Source unknown. |
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| Physical Description: | [712] pages : illustrations (woodcuts) ; 32 cm (folio) |
| Place of Publication: | France -- Strasbourg. |