Welcome to #MedievalMonday! Every Monday, Chrissie Perella, Archivist, will be showing off one of the Library’s medieval manuscripts.
For the first installment of #MedievalMonday, meet Constantinus Africanus. Dated somewhere between 1220 and 1244, Constantinus was the oldest manuscript in our collection until several weeks ago (more on that in upcoming posts). The first text in this manuscript, Constantinus’ Viaticum, is one of the earliest examples of an Arabic medical text translated into Latin.
Constantinus Africanus was likely born in Carthage, and entered the monastery of Montecassino in southern Italy somewhere around 1060. His Viaticum is an important work in the history of medicine. He translated the Kitab Zad al-musafir wa-qut al-hadir (Provisions for the Traveler and the Nourishment of the Settled), written by the 10th-century Arabic physician known as Ibn al-Jazzar, sometime during the 11th century. It represents one of the earliest Western translations of an Arabic medical work, and demonstrates the revistalization of the flow of knowledge from the East to the West.
This codex illustrates many interesting aspects of medieval manuscripts. One of my personal favorite features is this manicule (f. 68r). Manicules were used as markers to denote parts of the text readers found important. This one is especially interesting as it has fingernails and a sleeve cuff.