Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 109-112. (Budapest, 1985)

A TERMÉSZETTUDOMÁNYOK ÉS A MEDICINA A RENESZÁNSZ ÉS A REFORMÁCIÓ KORÁBAN - Csapodi, Csaba: Orvosi és természettudományi corvinák (angol nyelven)

Besides contemporaries, the Corvinian Library possessed of course the renown works of ancient, medieval and Arabian astronomers. One of them was the above mentioned extract from Ptolemaeus's Almagest, another was a commentary on Ptolemaeus by the Arabian astronomer Haly Aberudiam in the Latin translation of Thebaldeus.

17 This latter manuscript got to Buda through King Sigismund from the library of Wenceslaus King of Bohemia and Germany. The astronomic work ,,Philosophia" by the medieval astronomer-philosopher Wilhelmus de Conchis has also survived.

18 Astronomy then did not disappear from Buda after the the death of Matthias through Regiomontanus had left and even died long ago, Ilkusz returned to Poland, but there has been preserved a 1488 Augsburg edition of Angeli's Astrolabium which was bound for the king already in the time of the less bookish Ladislaus II.

19 Besides astronomy, from among the ancient works of science or natural philosophy that would be hard to separate at that time, there have survived from the Corvinian Library two botanic works in Latin translation by the Greek Theophrastos: „História plantarum" and ,,De causis plantarum",

20 the ,,De natura rerum" by Lucretius Cams,

21 a complete and an abbridged edition of Pliny's ,,História naturalis"

22

, Seneca's ,,De questionibus naturalibus"

23

, the works of Aristotle printed in five volumes,

24 with commentaries by Averroes, and also his ,,Libri physicorum"

25 in a separate volume. To these are added the , ,Commentaria in librum de coelo et mundo Aristotelis"

26 in which the great scholastic thinker of theology and philosophy of the Middle Ages, Thomas of Aquinus comments upon Aristotle, the Venerable Bede's „De natura rerum" and bound in one volume with it we find again Seneca's ,,Questiones naturales".

27 Finally we may mention as an uncertain Corvinian manuscript the Greek Heron now in Vienna.

28 In connection with sciences we may mention also geographical works from the Corvinian Library, since they concern much more than descriptive geography: Ptolemaeus's Geographia in Greek

29 and Latin,

30 Strabon's Geographia in the translation of Guarino Battista,

31 Pomponius Mela's ,,De situ orbis" and its abbreviation by Zominus, both in one collective volume.

32 We may mention among the works of geography the ,,De mirabilibus mundi" by Solinus, although it has not survived, both Ransanus and Thuróczy refer to it in their works written in Buda, they must have used the copy of the Corvinian Library. Few medical books have survived in original, though there must have been no slight number of them since Naldus Naldius the humanist of Florence in his detailed description of the Corvinian Library said that the medical books were standing beside the legal ones, thus they formed a separate group. From among the authentic Corvinian medical books that survived, the most important 17 Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 2271 18 Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, Res. 28 19 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, PML 55. 1. 75 20 Budapest, University Library, Cod. Lat. 1 21 Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 170 22 Roma, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. Lat. 1951 23 Paris, Bibliothèque National, Cod. Lat. 6390 24 Ibid. H. 1660 Vélins 474-478 25 Göttingen, Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. ms. philol. 36 26 Praha, Státni Knihovna CSSR, Universitni Knihovna, Cod. VJJ.I. H. 73. 27 München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. Lat. 175 2S Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Phil. gr. 140 » Ibid. Hist. rg. 1 30 Ibid. Cod. 24 31 Modena, Biblioteca Estense, Cod. Lat. 472 32 Ibid. Cod. Lat. 437