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)

one is the Encyclopaedia medica",

33 which will be treated at length during this session by a more competent lecturer than me. The others include the preserved part of ,,De medicina" by Celsus

34 ,,Praecepta de medicina parvo pretio parabili" by Serenus Sammonicus and bound in one volume with it Benedictus Crispus's „Medicinalis liber".

35 The lost medical manuscripts of the Corvinian Library we know of from references are the following: Galen's ,,De compositione pharmacomm" and the Greek Oribasios's ,,Compendium trium librorum". Both are mentioned in a letter by the Italian humanist Angelo Poliziano who was closely connected to Matthias, as being sent to Buda.

36 There must have been also the 15th century Italian physician Johannes Bosco's ,,Compendium de regimine sanitatis" dedicated to Matthias, but the copy now preserved in Erlangen is a plain paper codice, thus it could not have been the one in the Corvinian Library, only a contemporary copy.

37 Presumably the royal library, too, possessed Avicenna's ,,Cantica de medicina" with commentaries by Averroes, because a printed copy of it existed in the possession of Bishop Filipec, a confidential man to King Matthias.

38 No doubt that it had to exist either as a manuscript or as a printed book in the king's possession as well. In connection with the medical books of the Corvinian Library we mention that the other large book collection of Buda Castle, the palace library for the clergy of the royal chapel, the remains of which were gathered and carried to Vienna in 1686, also contained medical books: Iacobus de Forlivio's „Expositiones in aphorismos Hippocratis una cum quaestionibus", Bernardus de Gordesio's „Practica seu Lilium medicináé", the „Antidotarium médicinale" by Falcutius as well as three works which escape closer identification. One of them figures as „

Liber medicus", the other as „Medicináé diversae", the third as , ,Observationes practicae medicinales" in the inventory set up in 1686.

39 Each of these books must have had a copy at the royal library as well. Since if so many manuscripts were copied abroad for the king at great expense, we may assume that the workshop of Buda copied everything to be found in Hungary especially those at hand in the royal palace. * We could present no more than a sketch, since in our estimate only one tenth of the original stock of the Corvinian Library has survived and perhaps another tenth is which we have data on. Still we think that even these remains make it possible to give a vague picture of the scientific and medical interests and culture of the spiritual elite of the time of King Matthias and of the king himself. 33 Roma, Biblioteca Casanatense, Cod. Lat. 459 34 München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. Lat. 69 35 Roma, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Palát. Lat. 1587 36 Teleki, József: Hunyadiak kora Magyarországon. (The age of the Hunyadis in Hungary.) Vol. XI. Pest 1855. 479 p. 37 Erlangen, Universitätsbibliothek, No. 669 38 Csapody Cs.: Die erhalten gebliebenen Bücher des Johannes Filipec (Pruis) Bischof von Grosswardein. Gutenberg Jahrbuch 1975. 338-340 p. 39 Pflugk, Julius: Epistola ad Vitum a Seckendorf, praeter fata bibliothecae Budansis, librorum quoque ultima expugnatione repertorum catalogum exhibens. Jena 1688.