GUIDI, Guido (1508-1569)
09.07.2025 10:30UTC +01:00
Classic
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CHRISTIE'SAuctioneer | CHRISTIE'S |
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Event location | United Kingdom, London |
Buyer Premium | see on Website% |
ID 1450449
Lot 76 | GUIDI, Guido (1508-1569)
Estimate value
5000GBP £ 5 000 – 7 000
Chirurgia. Translated from Greek into Latin by the author. Paris: Pierre Gaultier, 1544.
First edition of any part of the Niketas codex, the earliest surviving illustrated surgical codex and one of the most beautiful scientific books of the Renaissance. Owned and annotated by Alesandro Padovani, medical doctor and bibliophile of Forli. The text is a compilation of surgical works by Hippocrates, Galen and Oribasius by a Byzantine physician, Nicetas; the earliest manuscript, whose illustrations inform all subsequent interpretations, dates from c. 900 CE. A copy of the text made for Francis I of France was the basis for Guidi’s translation into Latin; it was illustrated with drawings by Primaticcio and Jean Santorinos, and it survives at the BnF. ‘[Some illustrations] were undoubtedly transmitted directly from antiquity, and, therefore, represent the genuine Hippocratic traditions of surgical practice as transmitted through later Greek channels to Byzantium’ (Garrison, Introduction to the History of Medicine, 1917, p.108. The woodcuts for this first edition are probably by Francois Jollat, based on the Primaticcio-Santorinos drawings. Cf. V. Nutton, ‘Nicetas Codex’, in Grafton, et al., eds., The Classical Tradition, 2010. On Padovani, see R. F. Dondi, ‘Cenni sul medico forlivese Alessandro Padovani (?-1637) e sulla sua Biblioteca’, Rivista di storia della medicina, XLX, 1975, 190-198. Choulant-Frank pp. 211-2; Dibner, Heralds 118; Garrison-Morton 4406.1; Mortimer, Harvard French 542; Durling 2204; Norman 954; Osler 155; Waller 1960; Wellcome I, 6596.
Folio (368 x 237mm). With the final blank leaf, Greek and roman types, 210 woodcut text illustrations (30 full-page) showing bandaging techniques and surgical and orthopaedic apparatus after drawings attributed either to Francesco Primaticcio or the school of Francesco Salviati, 30 full-page, ornamental initials (very occasional faint spotting or toning, woodcut on p. 502 just shaved at fore-edge as usual). 18th-century mottled calf, spine gilt and lettered, red edges (neat repairs at spine and corners, minor scuffing). Provenance: Alessandro Padovani (d.1637; physician and book collector; title inscription, annotations [some just shaved]).
Place of origin: | Western Europe, France, Europe |
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Auction house category: | Medicine & science, Books and manuscripts, Printed books |
Place of origin: | Western Europe, France, Europe |
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Auction house category: | Medicine & science, Books and manuscripts, Printed books |
Address of auction |
CHRISTIE'S 8 King Street, St. James's SW1Y 6QT London United Kingdom | |
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Phone | +44 (0)20 7839 9060 | |
Buyer Premium | see on Website | |
Conditions of purchase | Conditions of purchase |
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