THOMAS AQUINAS, saint (1225?-1274)

Opuscula (71). Ed: Antonius Pizamanus, with a life of St. Thomas [aa1r blank; aa1v:] Tabula omnium opusculoru[m] ... [Colophon, GG7r:] impressa Venetiis ingenio ac impe[n]sa Hermanni lichtenstein Coloniensis. Anno salut[is] Mcccc.xc. vii. Idus septembris

      Venice: Hermannus Liechtenstein, 7 September, 1490. 4to: aa12 a--v8 x12 A--Z8 AA--GG8 HH12, 520unnumbered leaves. Gothic letter in double columns of 55 lines. Initial spaces with guide letters. Illumination and rubrication: Illuminated letter L on a1r and a stylised leaf and fruit decoration at the foot of the same page. Capitals supplied in red throughout with flourishes extending into the lower margins. Leaf size and condition: 243 x 175mm. A superb large, fresh and clean copy. Binding: Contemporary blind stamped calf over oak boards, remains of clasps, holes where there were once bosses. Leather cracked and defective over cords and at head and foot; old repairs to head of spine and corners. Provenance and annotation: About 60 words of contemporary annotation and occasional underlining and marginal marks and numbers. Inscription on a1r 'Ad cenobium sancte elisabeth in suburbio brixine spectat presens liber.' (To the monastery of St. Elizabeth in the vicinity of Brixen belongs the present book.). Walter Pagel (1896--1983); B. E. J. Pagel (1930--2007). References: Goff T258; Poynter 574; Bod-inc T-140; BMC V 358; BSB-Ink T-236. Later edition, but one of the most complete, containing 71 treatises. ISTC lists 8 incunable editions. The first edition of 1472 comprises 12 treatieses. This recension, edited by Pizamanus, was reprinted at Venice by Bonetus Locatellus for Octavianus Scotus in 1498 with two treatises added. § This is one of the most complete fifteenth century editions of Thomas Aquinas, the 'Angelic doctor,' and a superb copy from the library of a womens' religious house. The dominant figure in medieval scolasticism, Aquinas' writings on the Aristotelian corpus defined the teaching of science up to the so called 'scientific revolution' of the seventeenth century. In theology, Aquinas taught that faith was not incompatible with reason. This collection begins with Pizamanus' life of Aquinas followed by 72 numbered 'Opuscula', including many scientific treatises, roughly grouped around Opuscula 26--55. Although 72 treatises are listed, the editor, Pizimanus, notes that one could not be found, no. 48 on Aristotle's logic, and so although numbered it is not printed. Opusculum 35 'De motu cordis' is discussed by Pagel for its bearing on Harvey's ideas. Pagel notes that this treatise has sometimes been described as a work on the motion of the blood but that this is a misunderstanding and the title really implies the motion of the heart. Aquinas argues that although the motion of the heart is made up of two movements -- pushing and pulling, systole and diastole -- it always returns to the same point and so although not truly a circular motion, it is like a circular motion, and comes close to a simple circular motion like that of the heavens. Pagel concludes that circular symbolism considered with relation to the motion of the heart can be traced back to this treatise of Aquinas; and circular symbolism considered with relation to the circular motion of the blood to Giodano Bruno's De rerum principiis. Binding and provenance. The inscription is that of the Franciscan house of women at Bressanone, now part of Italy but formerly in Germany and called Brixen (John R. H. Moorman, Medieval Franciscan Houses (1983) p. 560. The binding and the fine illuminated initial at the start of the text are consistent with a South German provenance. Literature: Pagel, William Harvey's Biological Ideas (1967) pp. 90--93 and 124; Vincent R. Larkin, 'St Thomas Aquinas on the movement of the heart', Journal of the History of Medicine 15 (1960) 22--30.