FIFTEEN LARGE MEDICAL-ANATOMICAL DRAWINGS, on a bifolium from the Codex Roncioni, in Latin, illustrated manuscript on vellum. [Italy (southern, perhaps Salerno?), 13th century (2nd quarter)]

FIFTEEN LARGE MEDICAL-ANATOMICAL DRAWINGS, on a bifolium from the Codex Roncioni, in Latin, illustrated manuscript on vellum

[Italy (southern, perhaps Salerno?), 13th century (2nd quarter)]

a bifolium, c. 270 × 400mm, each page c. 270 × 200mm, ILLUSTRATED WITH 15 DRAWINGS OF NAKED MEN, the first three pages with four drawing each, the fourth with two drawings, above a full-width diagram, each with a two- or three-line caption, the final diagram also with its parts identified by further captions e.g. ‘Hic est locus masculorum’; somewhat worn overall, with a vertical crease not affecting the anatomical drawings, very slight cropping of some text at the top edge, a few insignificant small holes and one larger one that barely touches any drawing, some neatly repaired, some staining affecting the inside face of the bifolium causing some smudging; bound into a cloth-covered folder with gilt title-piece.

PROVENANCE

1. This is the missing bifolium from the centre of a very famous and unique manuscript on practical cautery, of which a two-leaf fragment is now in Pisa (Biblioteca Universitaria, cod. 725), usually known by its former shelfmark as Codex Roncioni 99.
2. Sold in our rooms, 2 December 1997, lot 36, to:
3. The Boehlen Collection, Bern, MS 1205.

Cautery was the practice of applying the tip of a red-hot implement to specific locations on a patient’s body, a practice which was believed to draw out toxins; in its identification of specific locations on the body to produce the desired effects, it is somewhat comparable to acupuncture. An aphorism of Hippocrates, the father of medicine, declared that ‘Those diseases which medicines do not cure, iron cures; those which iron cannot cure, fire cures; and those which fire cannot cure, are to be reckoned wholly incurable’.

Medieval cautery diagrams, and their probable derivation from 2nd-century Alexandrian exemplars, are discussed by Peter Murray Jones; he observes that ‘After the 12th-century series of cautery and surgery pictures, there is a sudden hiatus in the production of such illustrations; very few pictures of surgical procedures can be dated to the first three-quarters of the 13th century’ (Jones, 1998, pp. 76–84, at 82).

ILLUSTRATIONS

Although 13th-century, to judge by the script, the drawing are essentially Romanesque in style, and the facial types can be compared to those in the 12th-century Entry into Jerusalem, lot 14 above. But whereas the figures in the latter item are arranged in two similar-looking groups, the figures of the present manuscript are notable for the great variety of their poses. 

The drawings are:

fol. 1r

(1) Epaticus: a naked man facing left with his arms raised pointing outwards; the cautery points are: one under the right collarbone, two below the right breast and one below the naval

(2) Spleneticus: a naked man facing right with his right hand holding his right ankle and his left hand extended for balance; the cautery points are: three below the collarbone and one below each breast

(3) Ydropicus: a naked man facing left, pointing to his head; the cautery points are: three along the edge of the rib-cage to each side, and one below the navel

(4) Ad stomachicos et dysentericos: a naked man with legs and arms spread; the cautery points are: four in a lozenge shape on the stomach, one above the navel, and one on his left side near the liver

folio 1v

(5) Vulnus ruptum in stomacho: a naked man looking left with his legs bent and crossed, one hand open and the other pointing; the cautery points are:

three across the chest, one below each breast, and four on each side of the stomach in the form of a lozenge

(6) Epilenticus: a naked man stepping towards the left, holding a short baton in his right hand and pointing upward with his left; the cautery points are: at his forehead and to each side of his head

(7) Spleneticus: a naked man walking to the left, in profile, holding a staff; the cautery points are: three on his left rib cage, forming a triangle

(8) Ad renum et coxarum dolorem: a naked man seen from behind with his legs apart and a staff in each hand; the cautery points are: two at the base of the spine, and on each leg two above and one below the knee

folio 2r

(9) Ad renum dolores: a naked man seen from behind with his legs stretched out and his arms grasping vertical bars; the cautery points are: one between his shoulder-blades and two above his buttocks

(10) Ad sciaticos: a naked man facing left and leaning on a crutch under his left armpit; the cautery points are: three, on his thigh, forming a triangle

(11) Herniosis: a naked man with his legs spread and his hands folded across his stomach; the cautery points are: two to each side at the bottom of his belly

(12) Ad dolored et tumores geniculorum: a naked man sitting on a mound facing left with one hand raised; the cautery points are: at his ankles, calves, and upper legs

folio 2v

(13) Ad renum et coxarum dolorem: a naked man in a sitting position, facing left and holding a crutch or walking-stick in his right hand; the cautery points are: at his ankles, knees, and buttocks

(14) Elefanticus: a naked man lying diagonally with his feet towards the right and his hands behind his back; the cautery points are: at his ankles, knees, three to each thigh, and several more on his belly and arms

(15) A half-page schematic diagram showing parts of the stomach and the female reproductive organs and where it is possible to make incisions: ‘Membra semota a corpore ut videri et cognisci valeant …’

Fully nude figures are extremely rare in western art between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance. In medieval art figures without clothes are usually religious – not secular, as in the present case – and their anatomy is usually at least partly obscured. Illustrated medical texts provide an exception, but such drawings are extremely rare. Sudhoff knew of only 20 cautery manuscripts, none in private hands, and none outside Europe.

REFERENCES

To the best of our knowledge, the present manuscript remains unpublished and unedited, except for the 1997 Sotheby’s catalogue description. The other leaves from the same parent manuscript have been published many times, including – but not limited to – the following:

K. Sudhoff, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Chirurgie im Mittelalter, Studien der Geschichte der Medizin, 10 (Leipzig, 1914), pp. 81–90, 98–99, and Taf. XXIII (‘Eine sehr interessantes Fragment’, ‘diesem äußerst wichtigen Fragmente’).

K. Sudhoff, ‘Graphische Darstellungen innerer Körperorgan', Weitere Beitrage zur Geschichte der Anatomie im Mittelalter', Archiv fur Geschichte der Medizin, 7 (1914), pp. 367–78 at 368–70 (dated first half of the 13th century).

C. Ferckel, ‘Diagramme der Sexualorgane in mittelalterlichen Handschriften’, Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin, 10 (1916/17), pp. 255–62, at 256–8.

G. Mazzatinti, Inventari dei manoscritti delle biblioteche d’Italia, XXIV (Florence, 1916), p. 61 no. 725 (dated 14th century; 'Interessantissimo per l’argomento e d’importanza eccezionale per 12 vignette a penna di cui è ornato (una vera rarità per il tempo) rappresentati nudi umani, l’intero apparato dei visceri, il fegato, l’apparato olfattivo-visivo, l’apparato genitale maschile’).

K. Weitzmann, Ancient Book Illumination (Cambridge, MA, 1959), p. 20 and fig. 24 (dated 12th century; ‘comes closest to the archetype because of its clear preservation

of the papyrus style of illustration’).

L.C. MacKinney, Medical Illustrations in Medieval Manuscripts (Berkeley, 1965), p. 171 no. 137.1 (dated 14th century).

C. Maccagni, ‘Frammento di un codice di medicina del secolo XIV (Manoscritto No. 735, già Codice Roncioni No. 99) della Biblioteca Universitaria di Pisa’, Physis: Rivista internazionale di storia della scienza, 11 (1969) pp. 311–78.

R. Herrlinger, History of Medical Illustration, from Antiquity to A.D. 1600 (London, 1970), fig. 35.

G. Orofino, ‘Vedere la natura: Dal ritratto strumentale al ritratto d’ambiente’, in Vedere i Classici: L’illustrazione libraria dei testi antichi dall’età romana al tardo medioevo, ed. by M. Buonocore (Vatican exh. cat., 1996), pp. 69–76 at 75 (dated 12th century; ‘piu vicina all’ achetipo’).