Tacuinum Sanitatis

The Tacuinum (sometimes Taccuinum) Sanitatis is a medieval handbook on wellness, based on the "Taqwin al‑sihha" _ar. تقوين الصحة ("Tables of Health"), an eleventh-century Arab medical treatise by Ibn Butlan of Baghdad. [E. Wickersheimer, "Les "Tacuini Sanitatis" et leur traduction allemande par Michel Herr", "Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance" 12 1950:85-97.] Aimed at a cultured lay audience, the text exists in several variant Latin versions, the manuscripts of which are characteristically so profusely illustrated that one student called the "Taccuinum" "a trecento picture book," only "nominally a medical text". [Brucia Witthoft, 'The Tacuinum Sanitatis: A Lombard Panorama" "Gesta" 17.1 (1978:49-60) p 50.] Though describing in detail the beneficial and harmful properties of foods and plants, it is far more than a herbal: listing its contents organically rather than alphabetically, it sets forth the six essential elements for well-being:

*sufficient food and drink in moderation,
*fresh air,
*alternations of activity and rest,
*alternations of sleep and wakefulness,
*secretions and excretions of humours, and finally
*the effects of states of mind. Illnesses result from imbalance of these elements, therefore a healthy life is lived in harmony.

The terse paragraphs of the treatise were freely translated into Latin in mid-thirteenth-century Palermo or Naples, ["Magister Faragius" (Ferraguth) in Naples took responsibility for one translation into Latin, in a manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, MS Lat. 15362 (noted by Witthoft 1978:58 note 9).] where it continued an Italo-Norman tradition as one of the prime sites for peaceable inter-cultural contact between the Islamic and European worlds.

Three handsomely illustrated complete late fourteenth-century manuscripts of the "Taccuinum", all produced in Lombardy, survive, in Vienna, Paris and Rome, as well as scattered illustrations from others, as well as fifteenth-century codices. [Witthoft 1978 discusses the "Tacuina" in the national libraries of Paris and Vienna, and the Biblioteca Casanatense, Rome.] Unillustrated manuscripts present a series of tables, with a narrative commentary on the facing pages. The "Taccuinum" was first printed in 1531.The "Tacuinum" was very popular in Western Europe in the Late Middle Ages; an indication of that popularity is the use of the word "taccuino" in modern Italian to mean any kind of pocket handbook, guide, notebook.

In addition to its importance for the study of medieval medicine, the Tacuinum is also of interest in the study of agriculture and cooking; for example, the earliest identifiable image of the carrot — a modern plant — is found in it.

Notes

External links

* [http://www.nd.edu/~medvllib/daylife/tac1984.html Samples of 2 manuscripts (Italy, 14th century; Venice, 1490)]
* [http://www.oftalmo.com/seo/2003/02feb03/12.htm Introductory text and some illustrations]
* [http://www.moleiro.com/infoplus.php?p=TAS/en " Tacuinum Sanitatis " described]