Opuscula medica senilia in quatuor libros tributa, quorum I. De dentibus; II. de rationali curandi ratione; III. De facultatibus medicamentorum praecipuè purgantium; IV. De morbo regio; omnia nunc primùm ex MS. Bibliothecae Romanae in lucem data, ad singulare philiatrorum, omniúmque sanè philosophantium emolumentum; adiectis indicibus necessariis

by Girolamo Cardano

Lyon: Laurent Durand, 1638

[32], 531, [21] p. | 8vo | [asterisk]^8 2[asterisk]^8 A-2L^8 2M^4 | 177 x 115 mm

First and only edition of these posthumously published medical pieces by the prolific 16th-century Italian polymath. The sheer volume of work left in manuscript at his death nearly matched what he published in his lifetime. "He was someone who for a number of reasons, not least a conscious aspiration to immortal fame, decided to make himself known through publication, and who wrote a very great deal on a wide range of topics from a relatively early age" (Maclean). These four pieces came from previously untapped manuscripts found in the library of Cardinal Lelio Biscia, a list of which the printer has included in the preface. ¶ Cardano finished his medical education in 1526 and then spent ten years practicing as a physician. He was eventually elected to Milan's College of Physicians, though not before being once rejected, and soon after became chair of medicine at the University of Pavia. "In the health sector he was among the most famous doctors of his time" (Eramo, et al.). He was, by any standard metric, a success. Maintaining that status and position became a bit more difficult in 1560, after his son was executed for poisoning his wife, though he nonetheless managed to sustain a generally positive international reputation. His greatest challenge came in 1570, when the Inquisition sent him to prison. He was perhaps too carefree in his exploration of theological matters—Ian Maclean prefers the word naïve—though he did eventually regain the right to teach and publish. But honestly, what did he expect for creating a horoscope for Jesus? ¶ The first piece in the collection, and arguably the most important, is De Dentibus (p. 1-51), which a quartet of Italian scholars calls "the first organic text on dentistry in history" (Eramo, et al.). What they mean by organic is unclear to us, except perhaps to call it the first dental treatise based on the author's own observations rather than a common case of repackaged existing scholarship. Bellagarda seems to suggest as much, as he compares Cardano's work to "those compiled indecently with information gathered from other books." Eramo and his colleagues seem to place composition—though certainly not publication—ahead of Bartolomeo Eustachio's 1563 Libellus de dentibus, which itself was at least partly written in 1562. Ian Maclean, too, records the composition date of Cardano's De Dentibus as the summer of 1562. Bellagarda dates composition more specifically as July of that year but avoids assigning priority. He rather considers it alongside Estachio's work as "the first Italian work independently dedicated to dentistry." The author certainly believed he was the first to write such a standalone work, though we shouldn't disregard Ryff's 1547 treatise on eyes and teeth, nor the work of Spanish royal dentist Francisco Martinez. All the same, "it is certain that such little works [tali opuscoli] cannot be placed on the same level as the vast scientific work of the Italian" (Bellagarda). And for Cardano it was personal. The work's impetus was his own loss of teeth. By the age of 74, he had just 15 of his 32 teeth. ¶ Wherever it might land in what seems a very tight race between Cardano and Eustachio, Cardano's piece remains a frequently overlooked early contribution to dentistry, absent from standard reference works like Oakley Coles's List of Works of Dentistry (1883) and C. George Crowley's Dental Bibliography (1885). When it was finally published posthumously, "not even then," Bellagarda tells us, "either in France or Italy, did the treatise have the resonance that it deserved for its breadth and originality." ¶ The remaining pieces in the volume are a treatise on the general treatment of disease, taking a gum abscess as an example; a broad overview of medical remedies (medicamentum), with summaries of 130 different purgatives; and a treatise on scrofula, or King's Evil (morbus regius). ¶ Scarce in the trade. Besides ours, we find auction appearances only in 2003 and 2004.

PROVENANCE: Early initials and perhaps an old price inked on the title page. Three old ink stamps obliterated from the title.

CONDITION: Contemporary limp parchment; title inked, even scratched, into the bottom edge of the text block. Woodcut of part of the circulatory system on p. 88. Last leaf is blank. ¶ Pair of closed tears in T6, one marginal, the other affecting a couple inches of text; some scattered worming, the worst strictly marginal in the lower outer corner of the H, I, and K gatherings, but with a few small holes elsewhere affecting text; some browning and foxing. Parchment moderately soiled, the spine especially.

REFERENCES: USTC 6904692; Bibliotheca Walleriana, p. 88, #1768 ¶ Ian Maclean, "Girolamo Cardano: The Last Years of a Polymath," Renaissance Studies 21.5 (Nov 2007), p. 587 (cited above), 603 (for the date); G. Bellagarda, "Quattro studi su G. Cardano: I) Il 'De Dentibus' di Gerolamo Cardano," Minerva Stomatologica 14 (1965), p. 509 (cited above), 510 (cited above); Bellagarda, "Quattro studi...II," p. 563 (cited above); Bellagarda, "Quattro studi...III," p. 564 ("it is truly strange the disinterest shown to him [Cardano] by historians of dental art"); Bellagarda, "Quattro studi...IV," p. 698 (cited above); Stefano Eramo, Domenico Delfino, Matteo Confaloni, Carlo de Carolis, "Il 'De Dentibus' (1562) di Girolamo Cardano," Acta med-hist Adriat 12.1 (2014), p. 27 (cited above; "It [De Dentibus] competed with the famous Libellus de dentibus by Bartolomeo Eustachio that appeared in 1563 (but was written in 1562). However, our intention is not to establish precedence."; an excellent summary of the contents follows), 29 (cited above); Paul Oskar Kristeller, "Between the Italian Renaissance and the French Enlightenment: Gabriel Naudé as an Editor," Renaissance Quarterly 32.1 (Spring 1979), p. 48 ("the printer Laurentius Durand states in his preface that he based his text on a manuscript in the library of Cardinal Lelio Biscia, and that Leone Allacci and Giovanni Argoli had supplied him with a list of Cardanus manuscripts in that library")

Item #620