Skip to main content

This auction has ended. View lot details

You may also be interested in

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

GREEK MANUSCRIPT - MEDICAL Manuscript of medical prescriptions and remedies, ascribed to Eustratius Argenti, [c.1700-1750] image 1
GREEK MANUSCRIPT - MEDICAL Manuscript of medical prescriptions and remedies, ascribed to Eustratius Argenti, [c.1700-1750] image 2
Lot 81

GREEK MANUSCRIPT - MEDICAL
Manuscript of medical prescriptions and remedies, ascribed to Eustratius Argenti, [c.1700-1750]

15 June 2016, 14:00 BST
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £6,875 inc. premium

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

How to sell

Looking for a similar item?

Our Books & Manuscripts specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.

Find your local specialist

Ask about this lot

GREEK MANUSCRIPT - MEDICAL

Manuscript of medical prescriptions and remedies, ascribed to Eustratius Argenti, in Greek, black and red ink in a neat hand, on paper, 166 pages, some capitals with decorative flourishes, opening page with large ink-blocked portrait of a Saint Chrysostom, 2 ornamental headings, contemporary Greek red morocco gilt, sides with blindstamped roll-tool border enclosing gilt-blocked decorations in corners and centre, folio (306 x 210mm.), [c.1700-1750]

Footnotes

"This Manuscript of medical prescriptions belonged to Eustratius Argenti, the Doctor and Theologian (1687-1755), and is probably in his own hand. It was found amongst the debris of the Pyrgos in the Campos, Chios, where the Theologian lived, and which belonged to his great great grandson, namely, the late Eustratius John of Argenti of Alexandria, from whose family it was acquired by me..." (Philip Pandeley Argenti). The manuscript "is divided into two parts closely similar in character, the first entitled 'A Doctor's Manual' (Iatrosophion) and the second 'A Book of Remedies' (Antidotarion)... the Iatrosophion opens with sections on the four elements, extracted from Hippocrates and Galen... The rest of the Iatrosophion, and the whole of the Antidotarion, contain brief remedies of the traditional 'folk-medicine' type current in Greece at the time" (Kallistos Ware, Eustratios Argenti: A Study of the Greek Church under Turkish Rule, see pp.45-47). Family tradition ascribes the authorship of the work to Argenti, but Ware notes that there is no author or compiler given, and that the second part is "said to be a translation from the Italian" by one Nicholas Hieropais.

Provenance: Philip Pandely Argenti (1891-1974, diplomat and historian of Chios), bookplate and printed note [see above] dated 1932; gifted to his godson, the present owner.

Additional information

Bid now on these items

A Presentation Copy of Kennedy's First Book to Spencer Tracy. Kennedy, John F. 1917-1963. Why England Slept. New York: Wilfred Funk, Inc., 1940.

Signed to Spencer Tracy 1952 Hemingway, Ernest. 1899-1961. The Old Man and the Sea, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1952.

CORNELIUS, MATTHEWS, editor. 1817-1889. The Enchanted Moccasins and Other Legends of the American Indians.