Isḥaq says: The treatise on the disease of melancholy attributed to Isaac Israeli. Edition, translation and study of ms. BnF Hebrew 1173
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/sefarad.024.1231Keywords:
Hebrew medicine, Arabic medicine, Medieval pharmacy, Isaac Israeli, Isḥāq ibn ʿImrānAbstract
In the manuscript of the Biblothèque nationale de France, Hebrew 1173, there is a work attributed to Isaac Israeli: The treatise on the disease of melancholy. An eponymous treatise written by Isḥāq ibn ʿImrān, Israeli’s teacher, is well known while the authenticity of the attribution to Isaac Israeli is doubtful and has not been addressed until recently. This article edits and translates this The Treatise on the Disease of Melancholy and addresses a study that includes the description of the manuscript, its origin, the Hebrew terminology for compound and simple drug names appearing in the text in the context of medieval pharmacology in Arabic and Hebrew works, and the relationship to Isḥāq ibn ʿImrān’s text, its Latin translation, and another copy of the treatise in Hebrew. The purpose of the edition and the study is to clarify the origin of the text.
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Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades
Grant numbers PID2023-147954NB-I00