De cognoscendis, et medendis morbis ex corporum coelestium positione Libri IIII.
Venice: Ex Officina Damiani Zenarii, 1584.
Price: $8,500.00
Quarto: 23.7 x 17 cm. [12], 228. Collation: *-***4, A-Z4, Aa-Zz4, Aaa-Lll4.With an additional folding leaf with five woodcut volvelle elements. The parts are meant to be cut out and attached to the diagram on leaf G4v.
FIRST EDITION EDITED BY GALLUCCI, WITH THE INCLUSION OF ADDITIONAL TEXTS.
A very fine untrimmed copy. Bound in later carta rustica. Small marginal hole and some small ink spots on title, marginal spot on leaf Kk3, minor ink stain on leaf Ddd1. Illustrated with numerous diagrams, the added sheet with volvelle components is intact and unassembled. For the way the device with volvelles is to be assembled, and instructions for its use, see “Constructing and using the paper instrument” further below. The book was edited by the celestial cartographer Giovanni Paolo Gallucci, who also made the volvelle.
A very fine untrimmed copy. Bound in later carta rustica. Small marginal hole on title, marginal spot on leaf Kk3, minor ink stain on leaf Ddd1. Illustrated with numerous diagrams, the added sheet with volvelle components is intact and unassembled. For the way the device with volvelles is to be assembled, and instructions for its use, see “Constructing and using the paper instrument” further below. The book was edited by the celestial cartographer Giovanni Paolo Gallucci, who also made the volvelle.
A rare treatise on medical astrology. The author, Johann Virdung, was a German physician and practitioner of astrological medicine. Educated at the Universities of Cracow and Leipzig, he compiled numerous almanacs, annual astrological forecasts, and interpretations of celestial events, making yearly predictions from 1487 to 1500, continuing through most of the first decade of the sixteenth century and sporadically into the 1520s. This work, “On understanding and curing diseases based on the position of the heavenly bodies”, is considered his most significant; he composed it in 1532 out of concern that students in medical faculties were completing their studies without mastering critical procedures and methods for treating illness.
In this book, Virdung lays out the procedures of astrological medicine, which rested on the idea that the macrocosm (heavens) and microcosm (human body) were in constant sympathy with one another. Treatment began by casting a chart for the patient to identify planetary influences at work, followed by diagnosis via mapping those influences onto the body (each planet and zodiac sign ruled specific organs, humors, and temperaments). The physician would treat the patient by selecting remedies based on their planetary correspondences (solar herbs for heart complaints, lunar herbs for conditions involving fluids) and timing the treatment according to when the moon and planets were favorable. In the final section the author discusses uroscopy - the practice of examining urine's color, smell, and appearance to diagnose illness.
The author enumerates the signs of the zodiac and the planets and explains the specific foods and illnesses they are held to influence, with a table assigning body parts to planetary and zodiacal governance. He instructs the reader in the use of astrological charts (figures showing the positions of planets and stars) by which one may cast nativities and make prognostications of illnesses, including the hour of death.
Virdung also describes cures derived from such calculations, treating humoral purgation through vomiting, enemas, laxatives, and bloodletting, and supplying further preparations such as unguents, electuaries, pessaries, and herbal decoctions. The final book offers numerous diagnostic analyses of urine, supported throughout by diagrams depicting the arrangement of the zodiacal houses, the motions of the planets within the houses, and the lunar phases.
This book includes several other works on astrological medicine. It was compiled by Giovanni Paolo Gallucci, who collected these texts at the request of the bishop of Modena. It includes Stadius’ translation of Hermes Trismegistus “Iatromathematica”, Marsilio Ficino’s texts on the plague and improving health (especially through astral influences), and Gallucci’s treatises on erecting the celestial figure, finding the part of fortune and of the liver, dividing the zodiac, essential and accidental dignitaries of the planets, and the times appropriate for taking medicine.
Constructing and using the paper instrument:
A Renaissance physician who practiced astrological medicine needed to know, for any given patient and moment, which sign of the Zodiac was rising, which planets were dominant, and what the astrological "hour" was — because different signs and planets were believed to govern different parts of the body and different kinds of illness. Getting this wrong by calculation was easy and time-consuming; Virdung provides the reader an instrument to let even a moderately educated physician get a reliable answer quickly.
Virdung’s paper instrument — essentially a Renaissance paper computer — is designed to help a physician determine astrological information quickly without having to do complex mathematical calculations. It consists of several circular paper wheels (rotulae) stacked on top of one another and pinned at the center so they can rotate independently, plus a movable pointer called the Linea Fiduciae (the "Fiducial Line" — think of it simply as an indicator arrow). While he himself acknowledges it is not as mathematically precise as a full calculation, he says it is "sufficient for the matter at hand" — a pragmatic and rather honest concession.
The components for building the instrument are printed on a single, folding sheet of paper. At the top of the leaf is a set of instructions for assembling the instrument:
The layers of the instrument, from bottom to top are: 1. The base wheel — divided into 24 hours — is printed directly on the page itself and therefore stays fixed. It is the base against which all the rotating components move, and from which the final answer is read; 2. The horizon wheel — chosen from the four provided to match the latitude of the user's city as closely as possible. This wheel shows how the sky looks from the user's location, with the horizon line and hours marked out according to where celestial bodies rise and set as seen from that latitude; 3. The Zodiac wheel — a smaller wheel showing the twelve signs, which the user sets according to the specific date using an ephemeris (an astronomical almanac giving the Sun's position for every day of the year); 4. The Linea Fiduciae — a small ruler or pointer that rotates over all the wheels and that is read like the hand of a clock. These are all pinned together at the center with a thread or pin so each layer can spin freely but none can fall apart.
Virdung then walks through an example to show how the device works in practice. He poses this question: "On December 21st, 1584, at what time will the sign of Libra begin to rise above the horizon?" — the kind of question a physician would need to answer in order to time a medical procedure astrologically.
He then walks the reader through the steps: Step 1. Look up December 21st in your ephemeris. It tells you the Sun is in the first degree of Capricorn on that date. Step 2. Find that degree of Capricorn on the smaller Zodiac wheel, on the ecliptic line, and place the Fiducial Line directly over it. This effectively sets the instrument to today's date — you are telling the device where the Sun currently is in the sky. Step 3. Rotate both the Zodiac wheel and the horizon wheel together until the point where the Fiducial Line crosses the ecliptic sits above the Horizon on the eastern (right-hand) side of the instrument. This represents the Sun rising. Step 4. Continue rotating both wheels together until the Fiducial Line aligns with the mark for the first hour on the large base wheel. This is the critical calibration step — you are setting the instrument to sunrise for this date and location, which is the starting point for counting the hours of the day. Step 5. Fix the second wheel to the third with a small dab of wax so they cannot slip relative to each other, and fix the Fiducial Line to the Zodiac wheel with wax as well, so that the pointer and the Zodiac wheel will now move together as a single unit. Step 6. Rotate the Zodiac wheel and the Fiducial Line together as a single unit until the first degree of Libra appears rising on the eastern side of the horizon. Step 7. Read the answer off the base wheel where the Fiducial Line now points. By the standard clock the answer is 12 hours after midday — that is, midnight. By Astrological Hours, which count in unequal increments from sunset and are each governed by a planet, the answer is 7 hours and 45 minutes into the night's sequence.
The author notes that on this particular date — December 21st, 1584 — both readings happen to point to the same actual moment: midnight. This is not always the case; it is a coincidence of the winter season, when sunset falls early and the astrological hour count therefore reaches its 7th hour and 45th minute at around the same time the standard clock strikes 12.
Durling, NLM 4631, with long note and partial contents; Wellcome I, 3077; Gardner 1261; Sudhoff, Iatromed 71; Isis XIX (1933), 364--78; Isis XXV (1936), 363--71; Cantamessa 8447; Durling 4631; Not in Waller nor Adams.