Byzantine doctrines on uroscopy in the Liber Orinalibus of Hermogenes (codex 69 Montecassino)

Abstract

The Liber medicine orinalibus (codex 69 Montecassino) of Hermogenes is the first known manuscript to have a Latin translation from the original Greek work of Magnus of Emesa (or Nisibis). The particular text here translated, from the so-called Commentatio, mentions direct transliteration of Greek concepts such as chyma and hypostasis, suggesting that the Latin text derived directly from the Greek original, without the intermediation of Arabic translations. The implementation of our text is considered to have been undertaken in the city of Ravenna, which housed a medical school during the sixth century ad, or in southern Italy, with its scriptoria. Evidence of the presence of Latin translations of Greek medical texts in Calabria during the Gothic age is provided by Cassiodorus (Inst. 1, 31, 2). The Greek to Latin workshops testify to an uninterrupted activity of copying from Greek medical texts, with particular attention to the Iatrosophists of the Alexandrian school, of which Magnus was a representative.