The Editions of Gabriele Zerbi’s De cautelis medicorum and Their Influence

Abstract

The eminent Veronese physician Gabriele Zerbi (1445–1505) held senior positions in three northern Italian cities and was the author of several major books on anatomy, ageing, philosophy and the role of the kidney. His much smaller De cautelis medicorum (‘Precautions for Doctors’), first published in 1495, describes the characteristics of good and bad professional conduct and provides advice on how to achieve professional success in medical practice. The work was reprinted several times in the course of the sixteenth century, but it is difficult to understand the influence it might have had on contemporaries, not least because of considerable confusion concerning the number of its editions. Thirteen separate printings of De cautelis medicorum have been recorded in the literature. In this Note, after assessing the extant copies and the historical record, I conclude that there were only six, all produced in the period from 1495 to 1528. This number includes two little-known editions: one produced by Cesare Torti of Asculana around 1500, and a second included in the 1525 edition of Pantaleone da Confienza’s Pillularium. In evaluating the geographical influence of the various editions, I also provide evidence that Zerbi’s book was owned or mentioned in both northern and southern Italy, Lyon in France, southern Austria, the Kingdom of Hungary, and Salamanca in Spain. Finally, marks in the surviving copies indicate that readers were engaging with what Zerbi had to say. From these findings, I conclude that De cautelis medicorum had a broad distribution and that Zerbi’s views on the professional conduct of physicians were influential among his contemporaries.