| Item Description: | Purchased with the kind assistance of the B.H. Breslauer Foundation, Inc.
Antonello Privitera, bookseller, description: RUFFO, GIORDANO. Trattato di Mascalcia [1r-24v, at colophon, in red, f. 24v, lines 23-24:] Compiuta e la opera che fece lo bono caualliero calabrese. Lo qual sappe bene tutta la marescalchia. [3 blank lines][f. 24v lines 28-29]: Deo gratias. Amen. Mccccxl. Die xvij Septembri. [1 blank line][f. 24v lines 31]: Corphoy. [Translation: «It is finished the work that made the good Calabrian cavalier. Who well knew the entire horses medicine and blacksmithing. Thanks to God. Amen. 1440, the day 17 September. Corfu»]. Corfu (at the time Republic of Venice, now Greece), 17 September, 1440. [TOGETHER WITH, ff. 25r-26v:] Insarmo de lo verme [TOGETHER WITH, ff. 27r-36r:] Incipit liber equorum. [TOGETHER WITH, ff. 36r-37r:] Medicina a guarire uno cavallo [«Medicine to heal a horse», and WITH, ff. 37r-38v:] Other receipts. Small 4to (215x150 mm), contemporary calf binding on wooden boards preserved in a velvet red box, ff. 24, 2, 12. Manuscript on vellum (the leaf 1 and the corresponding one) and paper, written in sepia and red ink, in Italian vernacular language and Latin.Rubricated in red. The corpus of this codex is composed by two main treatises, the Italian version of Ruffo’s De Medicina equorum and the Liber equorum, separated by a receipt (partly in form of prayer) on the way to worm the horses. In the last leaves are contained various other receipts. A large illuminated initial C in burnished gold and colors with extension, armorial coat of arms in sepia ink, gilt monogram ZB. The text was written between 1250 and 1256, in Latin, with the title De medicina equorum or Hippiatria and immediately had a great success. Giordano Ruffo’s veterinary focus on the war horse, neglecting the shooting or work horses. Ruffo, in addition to dwelling on how to feed war horses, pays attention to the practical aspects of farriery, warning, for example, of damages caused by a wrong horse-shoeing. The work was printed for the first time in Venice in 1492. According to what Ruffo announces in the prologue, and transmitted by the majority of Latin and vulgar manuscripts, the work consists of six numbered and rubriced parts. First in the Western world, the author introduces the subdivision, present among Arab veterinarians, between a hippological section (dedicated to birth, breeding, horse training) and true hyppyatria (natural and accidental infirmities, and their cures). The first four books deal with breeding, feeding, reproduction, hygiene, the physical structure of the horse, the bites and the horse-shoeing: Ruffo is the first veterinarian to deal with it directly and to base its terminology also identifying the pathology of inclavatura, that is the penetration of a nail into a horse’s hoof, which could cause medical problems (see Gaulin, 1994, p. 430, and Trolli, 1990, pp. 28-41). The last two parts are dedicated to describing diseases, distinct from natural (V) and accidental (VI); The latter book, which occupies 85 percent of the text and is in turn divided into about sixty chapters, treats pathologies, from head to toe, and their care. The description follows a fixed order: location of pain and its symptoms; etiology and determination of care; designation of care; treatment. PROVENANCE: 1. Not identified contemporary coat of arms and gilt monogram ZB at title-page. 2. Inscription Ex libris Antonij Πρεσβύτερου on a paper label at rear inner board. |
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