Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā)
Avicennæ Arabum medicorum principis: Ex Gerardi Cremonensis versione, & Andreæ Alpagi Belunensis castigatione…
Venetiis, apud Iuntas, 1608
Qq*.2.159-(B)

The prolific translator Gerard of Cremona (d. 1187) finished the first Latin version of Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine in Toledo during the second half of the twelfth century. In Latin, the Canon became one of the ‘medical classics’ of the medieval and early modern periods. The numerous extant Latin manuscripts and the fact that its first printed edition was published in Milan as early as 1472 are clear proofs of its fortune.

This lavish edition was published by the Giunti family in Venice at the beginning of the seventeenth century. It not only includes commentaries by the Italian physician and Arabist Andrea Alpago (d. early 1520s) from Belluno in north-eastern Italy and a biography of Avicenna and further medical treatises, but is also enriched by illustrations, like this one showing a technique for dealing with a dislocated limb.