Janus Cornarius

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Janus Cornarius (ca. 1500 – 16 March 1558) was a

Greek philosophy; he was, in the words of Friedrich August Wolf, "a great lover of the Greeks."[5] Patristic texts of the 4th century were another of his interests. Some of his own writing is extant, including a book on the causes of plague and a collection of lectures for medical students.[6]

Life and career

Details of the life of Cornarius are taken in large part from the

toponymic Zuiccaulensis ("of Zwickau") is sometimes added. His name may appear as Giovanni Cornario in Italian,[10] Jano Cornario in Spanish,[11] Jean Cornario in French,[12] and Janus Kornar in German.[13]

Cornarius began his education at the

Anabaptist movement from his place of birth, attempted to seize power in 1521. They were successfully opposed and rendered ineffective by Martin Luther in 1522. That Cornarius condemned the Anabaptists is clear from his later book on plague, in which he argued that a particular epidemic in Westphalia was sent as punishment from God for their heretical activities.[15]

After experiencing these political and spiritual upheavals, Cornarius set out on a "soul-searching journey" around Europe,[16] visiting Livonia, Sweden, Denmark, England, and France. While he was looking for work, he settled for a time in Basel, where he gave lectures on Greek medicine at the University of Basel. There he began his efforts to restore the study of the Greeks, whose works, he believed, had been neglected during the Middle Ages in favor of Arab medical authorities. In 1527–28, he was a physician to Prince Henry of Mecklenburg.[4] Returning to Zwickau in 1530, he established a medical practice and married the first of his two wives; she died not long after. With his second wife, he had four sons. For the remainder of his life he was a physician and professor of medicine as well as a prolific editor and translator.[17]

Intellectual milieu

Erasmus

Cornarius came to know the great

Desiderius Erasmus while living in Basel, and was encouraged by him to persist with his work in translating Greek texts into Latin; at the time, ancient Greek was little known, but Latin was still in living use as an international language among scholars for such purposes as letter-writing, informational or philosophical essays, and even some literary compositions.[18] Erasmus wrote to him around the time Cornarius was resettling in Zwickau, addressing him as ornatissime Cornari ("oh-so-refined Cornarius"). Of his translation of Hippocrates, Erasmus effused, "The genius is there; the erudition is there, the vigorous body and vital spirit are there; in sum, nothing is missing that was required for this assignment, confronted happily, it would seem, despite its difficulty."[19] The junior philologist was so pleased by Erasmus's many compliments in this letter that sixteen years later he proudly quoted from it in the introduction to his Latin version of Hippocrates. At the same time, his intellectual independence is indicated by his willingness to set aside the translations of Basil and Galen made by Erasmus in favor of his own.[20]

His work as a

Byzantine studies took a more dismissive view of Cornarius as one of the "Renaissance humanists, fully confident that dissemination of a revered classical text would better mankind’s lot," motivated by "a contempt … for the brutish peasant and his slovenly practices."[23]

Leonhart Fuchs

Like the physician and botanist

Dioscorides’ knowledge of plants resided in accurately capturing the original author’s voice and words, and the two engaged in a vigorous intellectual debate over the value of illustrations in books.[25] With his sometime collaborator Andrea Alciati, Cornarius treated the emblema or image as a verbal construct, and in his index to Dioscorides refers to his own verbal description of a plant as a pictura. In his commentary, Cornarius insisted that pictures were of no benefit to readers who had never seen a particular plant vivam et naturalem ("alive and in nature"), arguing that the static quality of an illustration was misleading, since plants change according to their environment. Thus he stated:[26]

My intention is not to gorge the eyes, but to nourish the mind and spirit, and to quicken critical thinking.

Works

The majority of Cornarius's books were published through the printing house of Hieronymus Froben and Nicolaus Episcopius. For a thorough overview (in French), see Brigitte Mondrain, "Éditer et traduire les médecins grecs au XVIe siècle: L'exemple de Janus Cornarius," in Les voies de la science grecque: Études sur la transmission des textes de l'Antiquité au dix-neuvième siècle, edited by Danielle Jacquart (Paris 1997), pp. 391–417.

Cornarius's complete works were listed on the

anti-Catholic was held to contaminate other works that might be in and of themselves unobjectionable.[27]

Works are listed below in chronological order of publication, except that editions and translations from the same author are grouped.

Hippocrates
  • Hippocrates. ΙΠΠΟΚΡΑΤΟΥΣ ΠΕΡΙ ΑΕΡΩΝ ὙΔΑΤΩΝ ΤΟΠΩΝ. ΠΕΡΙ ΦΥΣΩΝ / Hippocratis Coi De aëre, aquis, & locis libellus. Eiusdem de flatibus ("Treatise by Hippocrates of Cos on Airs, Waters and Places, and also Winds"; Basel 1529), Greek text and Latin translation;[31] ΙΠΠΟΚΡΑΤΟΥΣ ΚΩΟΥ ΙΑΤΡΟΥ ΠΑΛΑΙΟΤΑΤΟΥ … βιβλία ἅπαντα / Hippocratis Coi medici vetustissimi … libri omnes, ("Complete Works of Hippocrates of Cos, Most Ancient of Physicians," Basel 1538);[32] Hippocratis Coi … Opera quae ad nos extant omnia ("The Extant Works of Hippocrates of Cos," Basel 1546), Latin translation.[33] De salubri diaeta incerti auctoris liber Hippocrati quondam falso adscriptus ("A book of unknown authorship, at one time falsely ascribed to Hippocrates, on a healthy diet") was translated by Cornarius and reprinted in the Regimen sanitatis Salernitanum (Geneva 1591), pp. 403–410. The transmission of the Hippocratic Corpus is vexed and problematic; Cornarius contributed, albeit with limited success, to 16th-century efforts to "bring order to the chaos."[34]
Dioscorides
Galen
  • Galen. De compositione pharmacorum localium … libri decem ("Ten Books on the Formulation of Site-specific Drugs," Basel 1537), Latin translation with commentary; Opera quae ad nos extant omnia … in latinam linguam conversa ("The Extant Works of Galen, Translated into the Latin Language," Basel 1549).[44] Also of some interest are the marginalia that Cornarius wrote in his personal copy of Galen’s "De constitutione artis medicae" ("On the Foundations of Medical Practice"), the first widely available Greek text of the work, published at Aldine Press in 1525. The notes of Cornarius were published "not entirely accurately" by G. Gruner, Coniecturae et emendationes Galenicae (Jena 1789); the book itself is held by the library of the University of Jena.[45]
  • Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus but sometimes identified with the work on agriculture by Cassius Dionysius of Utica. The preface of Cornarius is reprinted in the edition of J.N. Niclas, Geoponicorum siue de re rustica libri XX (Leipzig 1781), vol. 1, p. LXXVI ff.[46]
  • Artemidorus. Oneirokritika ("Dream Analysis"), published as De somniorum interpretatione, Libri quinque ("Five Books on the Interpretation of Dreams," 1539), Latin translation.[47]
  • Basil. Omnia D. Basilii Magni archiepiscopi Caesareae Cappadociae, quae extant, Opera ("Complete Extant Works of D. Basilius the Great, Archbishop of Caesara, Cappadocia," Basel 1540), Latin translation.[48] ΑΠΑΝΤΑ ΤΟΥ ΘΕΙΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΜΕΓΑΛΟΥ ΚΑΛΟΥΜΕΝΟΥ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΟΥ / Divi Basilii Magni Opera Graeca quae ad nos extant omnia ("The Complete Works of the Divine Basil the Great That Survive to Our Day, in Greek," Basel 1551), Greek edition.[49]
  • obelus, and on notations and characters in translations of Holy Scripture, as put into use by Origen," Basel 1543), all in their first Latin translation.[50] The work is usually referred to in English as the Panarion. Cornarius's edition is also catalogued as Contra octoaginta haereses opus, Panarium, sive Arcula, aut Capsula Medica appellatum, continens libros tres ("A Work Refuting 80 Heresies, Called the Bread-Basket, or the Storage-Box, or the Medical Bag, Containing Three Books").[51]
Convivial Greeks
  • John Chrysostom. De episcopalis ac sacerdotalis muneris praestantia, Ioannis Chrysostomi, Episcopi Constantinopolitani cum Basilio Magno dissertatio ("A distinguished discourse on the service of bishops and priests by John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople with Basil the Great," Basel 1544), Latin translation.[52]
  • Sophistic Physiognomy; that is, Two Books on Recognizing the Evidence of Nature," Basel 1544), Latin translation,[53] with a work by Cornarius on alimentation in which he argues against the view of Plutarch.[54]
  • De rectis medicinae studiis amplectendis ("Understanding Correct Methods of Medicine," Basel 1545), a collection of his lectures for medical students in the "propaedeutic" genre.[55]
  • De conviviis veterum Graecorum, et hoc tempore Germanorum ritibus, moribus ac sermonibus; … Platonis et Xenophontis symposium (Basel 1548), introductory treatise on ancient and modern banquets ("On the Banquets of the Ancient Greeks, and the Conventions, Customs, and Conversation of the Germans of Our Own Day"), followed by Latin translations of the Symposium of Plato and the Symposium of Xenophon; notable as a rare example of a 16th-century account of contemporary dining behavior.[56]
  • De peste libri duo ("Two books on plague," 1551); despite making a case for disease as divine punishment, Cornarius mostly concerns himself with how the plague was spread by corrupted air and by contact with plague-infected bodies.[57]
  • Paul of Aegina. Totius rei medicae libri VII ("Seven Comprehensive Books on the Subject of Medicine," Basel 1556), Latin translation.[58]
  • Plato. Opera omnia ("Complete Works," Basel 1561), also catalogued as Platonis Atheniensis, philosophi summi ac penitus divini opera (in latinam vertit Cornario) ("The Works of Plato the Athenian, Greatest and Deeply Inspired Philosopher, Translated into Latin by Conarius"), published posthumously.[59]

Selected bibliography

References

A page from the 1551 Froben edition of St. Basil's collected works, edited by Janus Cornarius and Julius von Pflug (from Griechischer Geist aus Basler Pressen)
  1. ^ Carmélia Opsomer and Robert Halleux, "Marcellus ou le mythe empirique," in Les écoles médicales à Rome. Actes du 2ème Colloque international sur les textes médicaux latins antiques, Lausanne, septembre 1986, edited by Philippe Mudry and Jackie Pigeaud (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1991), p. 160.
  2. ^ John E.B. Mayor, "Helmreich’s Marcelli de medicamentis liber," Classical Review 4 (1890) 218–219.
  3. ^ Richard J. Durling, "Girolamo Mercuriale’s De modo studendi," Osiris 6 (1990) p. 182.
  4. ^ a b c P.S. Allen, Opus Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934), vol. 8 (1529–1530), p. 250.
  5. ^ "Grosse Liebhaber der Griechen," p. 137 in Kleine Schriften in lateinischer und deutscher Sprache (Halle 1869), vol. 1.
  6. ^ Peter G. Bietenholz and Thomas B. Deutscher, Contemporaries of Erasmus: A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and Reformation (University of Toronto Press, 2003), vol. 1, pp. 339–340.
  7. ^ Melchior Adam, Vitae Germanorum medicorum (Heidelberg 1620); life of Cornarius excerpted (in Latin).
  8. ^ Also named as Haynpol, Heynpul, Hagepol, Hagenbut, and Hagebutte; discussion of name with Thomas Gloning (in Italian and French) at "Cornarius Janus — Haynpol Johann".
  9. ^ Peter G. Bietenholz and Thomas B. Deutscher, Contemporaries of Erasmus (University of Toronto Press, 2003), vol. 1, pp. 339.
  10. ^ Fortunato Federici, Degli scrittori greci e delle italiane versioni delle loro opere (Padua 1828), p. 104.
  11. ^ Otis H. Green and Irving A. Leonard, "On the Mexican Booktrade in 1600: A Chapter in Cultural History," Hispanic Review 9 (1941), p. 36.
  12. ^ Maximillian Niedermann, Marcelli De Medicamentis Liber, "Corpus Medicorum Latinorun" vol. 5 (Leipzig 1916), praefatio p. xiv, of the handwritten note on the manuscript of Marcellus used by Cornarius.
  13. ^ Friedrich August Wolf, Kleine Schriften in lateinischer und deutscher Sprache (Halle 1869), vol. 1, p. 137.
  14. ^ Peter G. Bietenholz and Thomas B. Deutscher, Contemporaries of Erasmus (University of Toronto Press, 2003), vol. 1, pp. 340.
  15. ^ Vivian Nutton, "The Reception of Fracastoro’s Theory of Contagion: The Seed That Fell among Thorns?" Osiris (1990) p. 214.
  16. ^ Sachiko Kusukawa, "Leonhart Fuchs on the Importance of Pictures," Journal of the History of Ideas 58 (1997) p. 424, drawing on Otto Clemen, "Janus Cornarius," Neues Archiv für Sächsische Geschichte 33 (1912) 40–45.
  17. ^ Peter G. Bietenholz and Thomas B. Deutscher, Contemporaries of Erasmus (University of Toronto Press, 2003), vol. 1, pp. 339–340.
  18. ^ a b Peter G. Bietenholz and Thomas B. Deutscher, Contemporaries of Erasmus (University of Toronto Press, 2003), vol. 1, p. 340.
  19. ^ Adest ingenium, adest eruditio, adest corpus vegetum et animus vividus; denique nihil deest quod ad istam provinciam quamvis difficilem feliciter obeundam requirendum videatur.
  20. ^ P.S. Allen, Opus Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934), vol. 8 (1529–1530), p. 251, note to line 10.
  21. ^ Conatus est Graecos illos medicos facere Latinos non obscura et perplexa, sed perspicua et explicata translatione.
  22. ^ Hoc vero tandem post maximos huc impensos labores, mihi primum ut et legerem illum [Dioscoridem] et audirem contigit: nunc per me etiam aliis rei medicae studiosis continget, si qui forte nostra lingua latine loquentem illum audire, aut legere volent (Dioscoridae ... de materia medica, a2v).
  23. ^ John L. Teall, "The Byzantine Agricultural Tradition," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 25 (1971), p. 41.
  24. ^ Brigitte Mondrain, "Éditer et traduire les médecins grecs au XVIe siècle: L'exemple de Janus Cornarius," in Les voies de la science grecque: études sur la transmission des textes de l'Antiquité au dix-neuvième siècle, edited by Danielle Jacquart (Paris 1997), p. 416.
  25. ^ Sachiko Kusukawa, "Leonhart Fuchs on the Importance of Pictures," Journal of the History of Ideas 58 (1997) p. 426, with reference to Eberhard Stübler, Leonhart Fuchs: Leben und Werk (Munich 1928), pp. 102–110.
  26. ^ Dioscoridae ... de materia medica, a3v; Sachiko Kusukawa, "Leonhart Fuchs on the Importance of Pictures," Journal of the History of Ideas 58 (1997) pp. 424.
  27. ^ Paul F. Grendler, "Printing and Censorship," in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, edited by Charles B. Schmitt et al. (Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 46.
  28. ^ Peter G. Bietenholz and Thomas B. Deutscher, Contemporaries of Erasmus (University of Toronto Press, 2003), vol. 1, p. 340; P.S. Allen, Opus Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934), vol. 8 (1529–1530), p. 250.
  29. ^ Verzeichniss allen auf der Stadt-Bibliothek in Bern (Bern 1811), vol. 1, p. 362.
  30. ^ Richard J. Durling, "Girolamo Mercuriale’s De modo studendi," Osiris 6 (1990), p. 184.
  31. ^ Frank Hieronymus, "Griechischer Geist aus Basler Pressen." Archived 2012-06-05 at the Wayback Machine
  32. ^ Frank Hieronymus, "Griechischer Geist aus Basler Pressen." Archived 2012-06-05 at the Wayback Machine
  33. ^ Peter G. Bietenholz and Thomas B. Deutscher, Contemporaries of Erasmus (University of Toronto Press, 2003), vol. 1, p. 340; Frank Hieronymus, "Griechischer Geist aus Basler Pressen." Archived 2012-06-05 at the Wayback Machine
  34. ^ L. Guinet, "Emile Littre (1801–1881)," Isis 8 (1926), p. 89; see also Jacques Jouanna, "Sur les nouvelles éditions d'Hippocrate au XVIe siècle: Les notes marginales de Janus Cornarius dans l'Aldine de Göttingen d'Hippocrate et leur importance pour l'établissement du texte des ‘Épidémies’ V et VII" in Homère chez Calvin, Festscrift for Olivier Reverdin (Geneva 2000), pp. 361-370.
  35. ^ Frank Hieronymus, "Griechischer Geist aus Basler Pressen" Archived 2012-06-05 at the Wayback Machine; Peter G. Bietenholz and Thomas B. Deutscher, Contemporaries of Erasmus (University of Toronto Press, 2003), vol. 1, p. 340.
  36. ^ Frank Hieronymus, "Griechischer Geist aus Basler Pressen." Archived 2012-06-05 at the Wayback Machine
  37. ^ H.B. Lathrop, "Janus Cornarius’s Selecta Epigrammata Graeca and the Early English Epigrammatists," Modern Language Notes 43 (1928) 223–229.
  38. ^ P.S. Allen, Opus Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934), vol. 8 (1529–1530), p. 499, note 28.
  39. ^ William E. Sheidley, "George Turberville’s Epigrams from the Greek Anthology: A Case-Study of ‘Englishing’," SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900 12 (1972) pp. 71–84; Jesus Ureña Bracero, "Diego Hurtado de Mendoza y las selecciones de la Antología Planudea," Florentia Iliberritana 10 (1999), 303-330, with an English summary, and Irving P. Rothberg, "Hurtado de Mendoza and the Greek Epigrams," Hispanic Review 26 (1958) 171–187.
  40. ^ Isidore Silver, "Ronsard Comparativist Studies: Achievements and Perspectives," Comparative Literature 6 (1954), p. 153, note 19.
  41. ^ Frank Hieronymus, "Griechischer Geist aus Basler Pressen" Archived 2012-06-05 at the Wayback Machine; Luigi Tartaglia, "Intorno alla traduzione latina di Aezio curata da Ianus Cornarius," in Histoire et ecdotique des textes médicaux grecs, Actes du IIe Colloque international Paris 24-26 mai 1994 (= Storia e ecdotica dei testi medici greci: atti del II Convegno internazionale Parigi 24-26 maggio 1994), edited by Antonio Garzya et Jacques Jouanna (Naples 1996).
  42. ^ Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science (New York 1923), vol. 2, p. 566.
  43. ^ George Helmreich, Marcelli De Medicamentis Liber (Leipzig 1889), pp. iv–v on Cornarius's edition; John E.B. Mayor, "Helmreich’s Marcelli de medicamentis liber," Classical Review 4 (1890) 218–219; Maximillian Niedermann, Marcelli De Medicamentis Liber, "Corpus Medicorum Latinorun" vol. 5 (Leipzig 1916), praefatio pp. v–xix on the ms. history; Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science (New York 1923), vol. 2, p. 576; Ernest Wickerheimer, Manuscrits latins de médecine du haut moyen âge dans les bibliothèques de France (Paris 1966), pp. 70–72, cited by Carmélia Opsomer and Robert Halleux, "Marcellus ou le mythe empirique," in Les écoles médicales à Rome (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1991), p. 161.
  44. ^ Frank Hieronymus, "Griechischer Geist aus Basler Pressen" Archived 2012-06-05 at the Wayback Machine; Peter G. Bietenholz and Thomas B. Deutscher, Contemporaries of Erasmus (University of Toronto Press, 2003), vol. 1, p. 340.
  45. ^ Stefania Fortuna, "Galen’s De constitutione artis medicae in the Renaissance," Classical Quarterly 43 (1993) 302–319, p. 312.
  46. ^ John L. Teall, "The Byzantine Agricultural Tradition," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 25 (1971), pp. 41–42; see also J.M. Olivier, "Le codex Aurogalli des Geoponica," Revue d’histoire des textes 10 (1980) 249-256.
  47. ^ Peter G. Bietenholz and Thomas B. Deutscher, Contemporaries of Erasmus (University of Toronto Press, 2003), vol. 1, p. 340; Frank Hieronymus, "Griechischer Geist aus Basler Pressen" Archived 2012-06-05 at the Wayback Machine.
  48. ^ Frank Hieronymus, "Griechischer Geist aus Basler Pressen." Archived 2012-06-05 at the Wayback Machine
  49. ^ Frank Hieronymus, "Griechischer Geist aus Basler Pressen." Archived 2012-06-05 at the Wayback Machine
  50. ^ Frank Hieronymus, "Griechischer Geist aus Basler Pressen." Archived 2012-06-05 at the Wayback Machine
  51. ^ Wilhelm Pökel, Philologisches Schriftseller-Lexicon (Leipzig 1892), p. 50; Peter G. Bietenholz and Thomas B. Deutscher, Contemporaries of Erasmus (University of Toronto Press 2003), vol. 1, p. 340.
  52. ^ Frank Hieronymus, "Griechischer Geist aus Basler Pressen." Archived 2012-06-05 at the Wayback Machine
  53. ^ Wilhelm Pökel, Philologisches Schriftseller-Lexicon (Leipzig, 1892), p. 50.
  54. ^ Frank Hieronymus, "Griechischer Geist aus Basler Pressen." Archived 2012-06-05 at the Wayback Machine
  55. ^ Richard J. Durling, "Girolamo Mercuriale’s De modo studendi," Osiris 6 (1990), p. 181.
  56. ^ Michel Jeanneret, A Feast of Words: Banquets and Table Talk in the Renaissance, translated by Jeremy Whiteley and Emma Hughes (University of Chicago Press, 1991) p. 72, note 15; Verzeichniss allen auf der Stadt-Bibliothek in Bern (Bern 1811), vol. 1, p. 361; Friedrich August Wolf, Kleine Schriften in lateinischer und deutscher Sprache (Halle 1869), vol. 1, pp. 137–138; Jakob Gronovius, Thesaurus antiquitatum Graecarum, vol. 9, pp. 1–20.
  57. ^ Vivian Nutton, "The Reception of Fracastoro’s Theory of Contagion: The Seed That Fell among Thorns?" Osiris (1990) p. 214; Peter G. Bietenholz and Thomas B. Deutscher, Contemporaries of Erasmus (University of Toronto Press, 2003), vol. 1, p. 340.
  58. ^ Frank Hieronymus, "Griechischer Geist aus Basler Pressen." Archived 2012-06-05 at the Wayback Machine
  59. ^ David J. Murphy, "The Basis of the Text of Plato’s Charmides," Mnemosyne 55 (2002) 131–158, especially pp. 154–155; see also G.J. Boter, "The Hassensteinianus of Plato," Revue d’histoire des textes 18 (1988) 215-218.
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