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an old book with a decorative design on the front coveran old book with a picture of a bird on it
ALDE

26 - GALIEN (Claude). *De simplicium medicamentorum facultatibus*…
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Estimate €2,500 - €3,000
Sale commission
Description
GALIEN (Claude). *De simplicium medicamentorum facultatibus*, 11 books. Lyon, Philibert Rollet for Guillaume Rouillé, 1552. In-16, fawn morocco, decorated with panels of interlaced scrolls highlighted with brown, green and white wax and gilded fleurons on a dotted ground, smooth spine adorned with azure ironwork, gilded and chiselled edges (contemporary binding). A Lyon edition of this eleven-book treatise by Galen on medicines. Produced by the printer Philibert Rollet (1495–1562), we owe it to the publisher Guillaume Rouillé (1518–1589), who founded his own publishing house, under the sign of the Shield of Venice, in 1545. ‘Galen, a Greek [from Asia Minor], was the most prolific of all ancient medical writers and left behind a vast medical encyclopaedia. […] For nearly fifteen hundred years his authority was unassailable and every medical question was automatically referred to him: there was no appeal. Galen was a keen observer and investigator, and some of his works on physiology and anatomy – he left a brilliant study of the brain – as well as on neurology and diagnosis, are of particularly high quality. [...] The first significant break with Galenism came with Vesalius and Paracelsus; yet Galen’s influence on medical practice remained powerful even into the nineteenth century’ (Printing and the Mind of Man). A copy fully repaired in an interesting plate-bound cover, with the decoration enhanced by coloured wax. Numerous marginalia and an annotation on an endpaper left by a sixteenth-century reader. Joints and caps previously restored; a small marginal stain at the bottom of pp. 459–480. Baudrier, IX, 195 – Durling, no. 1823 (incomplete copy) – PMM, p. 18 (Venice edition, 1490, of the works of Galen).
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About the sale Fine antique books – A library in the Languedoc
Auction location
Auction time 10/20/2026 at 2:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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