BENIVIENI, ANTONIO. 1443-1502.


De abditis nonnullis ac mirandis morborum et sanationum causis. Florence: Filippo Giunta, 1507. 8vo (203 x 142 mm). a-f8 g6. 54 leaves. Roman type. Initial spaces with guide letters. Contemporary limp vellum. Some minor staining. Provenance: Liechtensteinhaus (bookplate); Logan Clendening (bookplate); Clendening Medical Library, University of Kansas (bookplate). WITH: SINGER, CHARLS. 1876-1960. The Hidden Causes of Disease. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1954. 8vo. Publisher's cloth, printed dust jacket. Singer's English translation of Benivieni's De abditis, singed and inscribed by the translator.VERY RARE FIRST EDITION of the first treatise on pathology based on post-mortem examinations. Edited by Girolamo Benivieni (c. 1453-1542) and Giovanni Rosati (fl. 1480-1507). "Antonio Benivieni was a friend and colleague of several of his distinguished contemporaries, including Angelo Poliziano, Marsilio Ficino, Benedetto Varchi, and Lorenzo de' Medici; during his thirty years of medical practice he attended the most important families in Florence. However, his fame today rests on the posthumous De abditis, edited by his brother, the poet Girolamo Benivieni, and the physician Giovanni Rosati. The title of the book, which translates as 'On the several hidden and strange causes of disease and cure,' reflects the author's interest in ascertaining, via postmortem examination, the reasons for death in cases where diagnosis during life had been obscured ... De abditis, was derived from the large number of manuscript records that Benivieni left behind him at his death. The work was originally conceived as a treatise of 300 sections to be published in three series or centuriae; however, Benivieni completed only 160 sections, and of these the editors selected 111" (Grolier).WITH: First English translation of this work, by Charles Singer, 1954. With a biographical appreciation by Esmond Long, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED by Long. Adams B-664; Garrison-Morton 2270; Grolier, Medicine 12; Durling 528; Norman 183; Waller 894.