THE PRINTED CiRCA INSTANS 265 
3. Ferrarese recension of Circa instans, prepared from the pre- 
ceding, perhaps by 1190 A. D., by one who knew of the cures 
hinted at under Ambra and Strucium in no. 3, and who inserted * 
the names Joannes and Platearius accordingly, and whom we may 
therefore term Socius Platearii ; prepared with view to form a med- 
ical dictionary of plants only and therefore dropping chapters on 
minerals and animals, also some on plants ; contains 276 chapters. 
Printed together with the Practica of Serapion, Ferrara, 1488, I 
call it the Ferrarese recension because first printed at Ferrara, but 
its writer doubtless wrote at Salerno. Perhaps the fragmentary 
14th century MS. of Circa instans, 5 leaves, found by Puccinotti 
in the Bibl. Barberina at Rome, belonged to this recension ; as also 
may the Turin 14th century MS. (Circa instans to Zuccarum), the 
only Circa instans exhibited at the great Italian exhibit of medical 
MSS. in 1898 (Giacosa, 411).t 
The world’s knowledge of the Circa instans was confined to 
this form of it till the discovery of the Breslau MS. in 1837, and 
the publication of extracts from the Modena codex &s¢ense in 
1886; the printed Circa instans (the Circa instans stampato of 
Camus), being printed from some MS. of this Ferrarese recension ; 
first at Ferrara,$ 1488, Choulant. together with the Practica of 
* Another possible interpretation is that the “initial m for mater Joannis and the 
word avunculus for Platearius had descended through an unaltered text through per- 
writing his Circa instans incorporated in it without change the statements under amébra 
and strucium written by some ancestor like Giovanni I. But these pivotal words 
_ are just the words Matteo II would have been likely to have changed, had they 
existed in matter coming down to him and now revised by him to make it true to the 
present. 
e 276, five short chapters are not found in no. 2 or no, 4, but found in the 
Wicca, Estense, as Abrotanum, Anagallidos, Arnoglossa, Aaron , Celtica ; and it 
contains 4 others, Ma/abratum, Nitrum, Siseleos and Stafsagria, wtichi are lacking in 
both 4 and 5, but are listed in their index, Camus (13). 
This, the Asti codex, is one of 53 leaves, of which Circa instans fills the first 
29; the Alphita, Gerardo da Cremona on purgatives and Constantinus’ translation of 
“Isacco Giudeo”? fill the rest. This valuable 14th century codex, now in the Bibl. 
Naz. of Turin, was bou ght (says its peel aatr while in the papal college, in 1408, for 
6 florin s, by one Magister Sysmondi de Asinarii de Asti, artium et medicinae doctoris,”’ 
and, later, another hand writes that it ‘is the book of tipi — Nicolaus de 
Ferrario de Asti, doctor of medicine and of arts, practicing at Asti 
¢ This Ferrara editio princeps of 1488 bore, as title, 
ee secundum Platearium dictus Circa instans”’ and ended ‘ Explicit “ier de sim- 
bus medicinis eccellentissimi viri Johannis Platearii.’’ Probably both were added 
- wants liber de simplici 
