Chapter 3 Hieronymo Manfredi

Hieronymo Manfredi was a member of a family that had already for more than two centuries provided distinguished citizens, and especially physicians, to the city of Bologna.168 He was born about the year 1430 and was educated at the University of Bologna. Here in 1455 he was laureatus in Philosophy and Medicine, and here he became professor of the latter subject in 1463.169

During the second half of the fifteenth century, a perfect mania for the study of astrology infected Italy and penetrated equally into the Court, the Church, and the Academy. The profession of Medicine was far from immune, and at the University of Bologna, where a chair of Astrology had long been established,170 the study was pursued with ardour and enthusiasm. Here Manfredi early devoted himself to that will-o'-the-wisp, the pursuit of which absorbed and sterilized many of the best intellects of his day. By the year 1469 he was already regarded as an authority on the vainest of studies,171 and as the years went on he seems to have devoted himself to it ever more and more. The generally credulous character of Manfredi's astrological ideas may be gathered from the page of his Prognosticon ad annum 1479 which we here reproduce (Fig. 10).

The history of Manfredi's connexion with the University of Bologna may be briefly told. He appears for the first time on the professorial roll in 1462, when we find him giving the 'extraordinary' lectures on Philosophy, a subject then regarded as under especial charge of the physicians. In 1465 he was conducting the 'ordinary' course in Philosophy, and at the same time giving occasional lectures on Medicine. In the following year he was called to the chair of Theoretical Medicine, and in 1469 he helped the Faculty out of a difficulty by giving lectures on 'Astronomia' in place of the aged professor Giovanni de Fundis. The latter died in 1474, and from that date onward Manfredi assumed responsibility for the course on 'Astronomia'. Among the colleagues who joined him were Gabriele de Gerbi, who became lecturer on Logic in 1476, Filippo Beroaldo, who became lecturer on Rhetoric and Poetry in 1479, and Alessandro Achillini, who became lecturer on Logic in 1484.172

Such was the regard for Manfredi's powers of astrological prediction that to all the University announcements of his course of lectures on Astronomy is added 'cum hoc quod faciat iudicium et tachuinum'.173 In spite of his proficiency in the science, however, he was unable to foretell his own death. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola writes of him thus derisively:

'quo anno [1493] obiit omnimoda[m] uite incolumitate[m] fuerat pollicitus Hieronymus manfredus astrologus nostra aetate singularis: a quo tamen nihil mirandum minus praeuisam aliorum mortem: qui nec suam ipse praeuiderit: nam cum proxima estate uita sit functus: in istius tame[n] anni publico uaticinio qui s[cilicet] ei fuit fatalis: multa & mira sequenti anno dicturum se non semel pollicebatur. Qui nescio oppignoratam fidem quomodo reluet: nisi forte de caelo uerius nunc terrena despiciat q[uam] de terra oli[m] caelestia suspiciebat.'174

Manfredi died in 1493 and was buried in the church of Santa Margarita in Bologna. This church no longer exists, but it contained in the eighteenth century a tomb bearing the inscription:

HIERON. MANFREDO BONON. PHILOSOPHO AC MEDICO SVAE AETATIS NEMINI SECVNDO ASTRONOMORVMQVE CITRA INVIDIAM FACILE PRIMARIO. POSVIT SVPERSTES IOAN. FILIVS SVISQVE POSTERIS. VALE ATQVE ILLVM VALERE OPTA.175

Manfredi left a widow, Anna, who was still living in 1496 with a household of ten persons in the Via S. Margarita.176 The houses on one side of this street backed on the very walls of the buildings belonging to the 'University of Medicine',177 and we may suppose that Hieronymo Manfredi had resided here on that account. His surviving son, Giovanni, lived hard by in the Via S. Antonio di Padoa.

It cannot be said that Manfredi's printed works suggest great scientific attainments. All are permeated by the same astrological obsession. They comprise the following:

(a) The editio princeps of Ptolemy's Cosmographia and Tabulae Cosmographiae, the best-?known printed work to which Manfredi's name is attached. He was associated in its production with the famous scholar Filippo Beroaldo, and the finely produced volume was published at Bologna in 1472 (?),178 and dedicated to the memory of Pope Alexander V (died 1410). It is interesting as containing the first printed map of England (Fig. 9). At the end of the work we read:

'Accedit mirifica imprimendi tales tabulas ratio. Cuius inuentoris laus nihil illorum laude inferior. Qui primi litterarum imprimendarum artem pepererunt in admirationem sui studiosissimum quemque facillime conuertere potest. Opus utrumque summa adhibita diligentia duo Astrologiae peritissimi castigaueru[n]t Hieronimus Mamfredus & Petrus bonus. Nec minus curiose correxerunt summa eruditione prediti Galeottus Martius & Colla montanus. Extremam emendationis manum imposuit philippus b[e]roaldus.'

THE FIRST PRINTED MAP OF ENGLAND.

From the 1472 (?) Bologna Ptolemy, edited by Manfredi and others.

(b) Liber de homine: cuius su[n]t libri duo. Primus liber de conservatione sanitatis.... [Liber secundus de causis in homine circa compositione[m] eius], Bologna, 1474. The work is in Italian, and consists of a number of paragraphs, each beginning with the word 'perchè'. There is a servile dedicatory epistle in Latin addressed to Giovanni Bentivoglio. The first book is concerned with diet, and occupies two-?thirds of the volume. The second book answers questions on the subject of physiognomy and bears resemblance in many passages to the Anatomy. It is taken in the main from the pseudo-?Aristotelian Problemata. The book is without pagination or figures. It is well printed, and illuminated examples are not infrequently encountered.

This work was very popular. In 1478, during the lifetime of its author, it was audaciously pirated at Naples with the following incipit: 'Incomenza el Libro chiamato della uita costumi natura & om[n]e altra cosa pertine[n]te tanto alla conservatione della sanita dellomo quanto alle cause et cose humane. Co[m]posto per Alberto Magno filosofo excellentissimo.'

In 1497, after Manfredi's death, the work appeared in black-?letter folio at Bologna, with its author's original dedication slightly altered. The text in this edition commences, 'Perchel sophio nele cose che noi viuemo: & lo indebito modo del viuere nostro: induce in noi egritudine'.

In 1507 it appeared at Venice in small black-?letter quarto as Opera noua intitulata Il perche utilissima ad intendere la cagione de molte cose. By this title, Il Perchè, the work, which ran through numerous editions, has usually been known. It continued to be reprinted as late as 1668.

(c) A treatise on the Plague: Tractate degno & utile de la pestile[n]tia co[m]posto p[er] el famosissimo philosopho medico & astrologo maestro Hieronymo di manfredi da Bologna, Bologna, 1478. This was translated into Latin by the author himself in the same year. The work owes much to Avicenna, but contains some original clinical observations, and shows a certain independence of the prevailing spirit of the age by quoting opinions of contemporary as well as of ancient physicians. The remedies are similar to those recommended by John of Bourdeaux in his widely distributed tract on the plague, and are probably derived ultimately from the Regimen Sanitatis Salerni.

(d) Prognosticon ad annum 1479, Bologna, 1478. We reproduce the terminal page of this work (Fig. 10).

Fig. 10.?The last page of Manfredi's Prognosticon ad annum 1479, Bologna, 1478.

From his tomb in the Church of S. Giacomo Maggiore at Bologna Plate XXXVII.?GIOVANNI BENTIVOGLIO II

BRIT. MUS. MS. ROY. 7 F VIII, fo. 50 v Plate XXXVIII a.?ROGER BACON'S

DIAGRAM OF THE EYE.

XIIIth Century

From a drawing in WINDSOR CASTLE Plate XXXVIII b.?LEONARDO DA VINCI'S

DIAGRAM OF THE HEART

Early XVIth Century

(e) Prognosticon anni 1481, in which is embodied Oratio contra turcos & hostes Christianorum, s. 1. Jan. 1481.

(f) Centilogium de medicis et infirmis, Bologna, 1488. With a dedication to Bentivoglio. This short work is wholly astrological, and consists of one hundred precepts concerning the relationship of the stars to various diseases and conditions. Reprinted Venice, 1500, and Nuremberg, 1530.

The following three works are attributed to Manfredi, but are not mentioned in Hain, Copinger, or Reichling's lists of Incunabula; we have not seen any of them and their existence is doubtful.

(g) Ephemerides astrologicae operationes medicas spectantes, mentioned in the Biographisches Lexikon der hervorragenden Aerzte of E. Gurlt and A. Hirsch. Possibly it represents another edition of (e).

(h) Quaestiones subtilissimae super librum aphorismorum, Bologna, 1480 (?), mentioned by Haller.179 Possibly it represents another edition of (b).

(i) Chiromantia secundum naturae vires ad extra, Padua, 1484, mentioned by Haller.179