A manuscript worth a villa: Vittorio Putti's acquisition of the Guy de Chauliac manuscript.

Abstract

Leave your computer keyboard for a while and follow us on a journey back in time to Bologna in Italy in the old monastery (Figure 1) of the Olivetan monks, called San Michele in Bosco, converted in 1880 to a modem orthopedic institute, Istituti Ortopedici Rizzoli. Picture a cold evening on the 20th of February 1929. Vittorio Putti (Figure 2) still in his white coat walking towards his ofiice. A long-awaited moment after a hard day’s work and surgery. He takes the key from its secret hiding place in one of the rooms of his private study and, opening the safe, he takes out the “treasure”. He had been nervous since he had seen in the Hoepli (1929) catalogue that the manuscript would be auctioned on the 18th February in Milan. Now, at last, it was his. Holding it in his hands, he feels an indescribable pleasure. He reads the catalogue description once again: Guy de Chauliac “Inventaire de Chirurgie”. 11luminated manuscript on parchment of the 15th century (1468) (Figure 3). The codex consists of 250 unnumbered leaves in French gothic handwriting, red and light blue headings, ten illuminated frames, ornamental initials. On a frontispiece we read medical aphorisms written by a 15th century owner of the book. In the verso, we see the calendar’s prolegomena and