CAMPANELLA (Thomas).

Lot 201
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Estimation :
1500 - 2000 EUR
CAMPANELLA (Thomas).
Medicinalium juxta propria principia, Libri septem. Lyon, Jean Pillehotte, Jean Caffin & François Plaignard, 1635. In-4, calf turned over, spine ribbed with a red title coin, edges speckled with red (Modern binding in the old taste). Krivatsy, n°2090. First edition of the only medical work by Thomas Campanella (1568-1639), a Dominican monk of Italian origin to whom we owe the famous utopia Civitas Solis (The City of the Sun). Frequently prosecuted, tortured and imprisoned for his philosophical ideas, Campanella spent a total of more than 25 years in prison, where he devoted most of his time to writing his texts. In 1634, he found refuge in France, hosted by Peiresc and Gassendi, and enjoyed the protection of Cardinal de Richelieu and Louis XIII. The work, published by Jacques Gaffarel, philosopher, renowned Kabbalist and Richelieu's librarian, contains particularly the author's observations on blood circulation: In the context of pre-Harveian statements about the alternation of the contraction of the heart and the filling of the arteries, Tomasso Campanella must be mentioned [...]. At all events Campanella's Medicinalia are indeed productive of some important deviations from Aristotle as well as Galen, as for example his idea that fever is not due to putrefaction, but a curative effort of Nature. Just as important are his untraditional opinions about the heart, the arteries and the pulse (Walter Pagel, New Light on William Harvey, 1976, pp. 71-72). A short copy with margins, the binder's knife sometimes touching the running title and the end of the cuffs. Small traces of worms, without gravity. Broken leaf, no loss.
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