[Herbalist] Book Review: Tacuinum Sanitatis

[Kathleen Keeler]

Greetings
My apologies to those of you who get this twice.
 
  I recently bought Tacuinum Sanitatis: An Early Renaissance Guide to 
Health by Alixe Bovey, 2005,  ISBN 0-9549014-3-6
from Amazon, sight unseen.

   It turns out to be the best book on/of the Taciunum Sanitatis I've 
seen. (I own The Four Seasons of the House of Cerruti, (a reprint of one 
of the editions now out of print) and Luisa Arano's  The Medieval Health 
Handbook Tacuinum Sanitatis, based on her PhD thesis on it, which is 
available through used bookstores and at Amazon, as well as a couple of 
books that reprint some of the pictures from T.S. I have however never 
seen the $1,374.87 edition or $135 editions of the Tacuinum Amazon 
advertises.)

    Tacuinum Sanitatis was a book of "health tables", compiled in Arabic 
about 1050. They reached Europe in that form about 1200 and in the 1300 
and 1400's were variously produced as handsome picture books that 
explained, for a popular (not medical professionals) audience, the 
health benefits of things from sage to rye to pork to drunkenness, the 
east wind, and dancing.  The illustrations include a lot of detail of 
daily life in southern Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries.  
Apparently they were widely used (copied and recopied) in Arabic, as 
Latin tables, and in the picture book form.

    This volume is the book that accompanies an exhibition of the 
pictures that is or was on display at Sam Fogg in London.
1) It gives a coherent, brief overview of the medical ideas of the 
Middle Ages and how the Tacuinum Sanitatis fits into those;  2) It 
explains the history of the TS, its origins, and its many editions. 3) 
This edition has not been previously available because it is the one 
edition that was in a private collection (Liechtenstein). Some of the 
pictures are not present in any of the other versions I've seen. It 
analyses who made it, for whom, where. 4) It presents in full color ALL 
the pictures in the volume, reproduced at about 6 x 6 cm (2 1/2 x 2 1/2 
"). 5)  The Liechtenstein volume was apparently once a single edition 
with the "Rouen" edition. The commentary was cut from the Liechtenstein 
volume so the comments on the pictures in this book were added based on 
other editions of the TS.  They are great fun.  ["62 Thrushes  CXXX. 
Turde A customer selects some thrushes from a merchant's selection.  The 
best thrushes are fat, which are good for increasing the sex drive and 
producing sperm."]

The rest of the book is lavishly illustrated with pictures from other 
editions of TS or supplemental material such as the calligraphy of the 
scribe believed to have written this edition.

It cost $35 of Amazon. Amazon's commentary is absolutely minimal, you 
can't tell much of what you are getting.  The book is a thin (80 page) 
paperback about 12" x 9" (larger than the average book).

As you can tell, I am very pleased with this book!
Agnes

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