Collectorum medicinalium libri XVII qui ex magno septuaginta librorum volumine ad nostram aetatem soli pervenerunt, Ioanne Baptista Rasario medico Novariensi interprete

Venice: Paolo Manuzio [Paulus Manutius], 1555. Hardcover. Very good. Octavo. 752pp. Oribasius's compilation of medical texts, prepared at the direction of the Roman emperor Julian, includes excerpts from Galen and Heraklas. Now recognized as a significant archive of such texts, many of which have been entirely lost or whose surviving copies are few, the book here receives a fresh rush of archivization at the hands of Paulus Manutius and his imprint. Manutius continued the operations of his heralded father, Aldus, working under the same sign. This copy bound in tawed pigskin embossed on all panels, including spine and dentelles, in blind, and with clasps. At the center of both colors is a gilt supralibros for Gottfried of Gottweig (1672-1749), an abbot at the Benedictine Gottweig Abbey in Austria. Gottfried, also known as Johann Franz Bessel, worked as a diplomat, arranging negotiations between major ecclesiastical and imperial powers. His tenure as abbot brought the abbey into an age of academic esteem, largely thanks to Gottfried's collecting on all subjects, religious or scientific. Moderate overall rubbing to binding, light biopredation to endpapers, scuff to top edge, else vg+. Professionally treated, with report thereto included. Held in dropback box with previous owner's ephemera. A fascinating association between medical history and the influence of humanistic inquiry in early 18th-century monasticism. Collation: *4 A-Z8 a-z8 &8. (USTC 845434)