The earliest printed book on wine / by Arnald of Villanova ; now for the first time rendered into English, and with an historical essay, by Henry E. Sigerist ; with facsimile of the original edition, 1478.

  • Arnaldus de Villa Nova
Date:
1943
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The earliest printed book on wine / by Arnald of Villanova ; now for the first time rendered into English, and with an historical essay, by Henry E. Sigerist ; with facsimile of the original edition, 1478. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/88 (page 13)
    9 nivobuciwrj physicians to their patients. Dioscorides, Galen, Oribasius, Aetius, Paulus of Aigina and other medical writers have numerous recipes for the preparation of such wines, and they also discuss the diseases for which they were supposed to be good. The mediaeval physicians followed the ancient tradition. The medical use of wine is mentioned in all regimina sanitatis and recipes for the preparation of medicinal wines occur incidentally in the works of many mediaeval medical writers. Arnald’s little treatise, however, was one of the first devoted exclusively to the subject and bearing his name soon became authoritative. Arnald was, of course, familiar with the ancient medical literature as far as it had been translated into Latin or Arabic. His treatise, however, is refresh/ ingly original. He incidentally quotes Hippocrates, Dioscorides, Galen, Macrobius, but apparently from memory, and he never copies them. His book reflects the knowledge of his days and his own personal experience. He men/ tions cases, the lady from Paris who was crazy at times, the cardinal who had urinary troubles; and he often speaks in the first person singular: ego probavi, non invent magis praesentaneum remedium ... His theoretical views obviously were the traditional Galeno/Arabic ones. Drugs had elementary qualities, so had humours and diseases, and the treatment was according to the principle con* traria contrariis curantur. In recommending the wines Arnald was certainly not very critical. Some were presented as regular cure/alls, but this was also in the spirit of the day. Two points in the book call for particular mention. One is the reference to ocularii or eye glasses. In the chapter De vino eujrasicepro oculis, On Eyebright Wine, Arnald says that reliable people who were unable to see without eye glasses could read small letters without glasses after having taken the wine. Spectacles came into use between 1280 and 1300, and Arnald’s book written around 1310 is undoubtedly an early testimony to the use of glasses. The other point is the repeated reference to aqua ardens, to alcohol. Although the distillation of wine had been practised for several centuries, and Thaddeus Florentinus (died 1303) had written a concilium de virtute aquae vitae, quae etiam dicitur aqua ardens, alcohol was not yet in general use.13 13 E. J. Rau, Aerztliche Gutachten und Polizeivorschriften über den Branntwein im Mittelalter, Leipzig thesis, 1914. A treatise De aqua vitce was published in Venice in 1477 under Arnald s name, but its authorship is uncertain. [13 ]