“In Praise of Marriage” & “In Praise of Medicine”

ERASMUS, Desiderius.

Encomium Matrimonii…Encomium Artis Medicae per eundem.

Title within woodcut border & woodcut on verso of final leaf. 54, [2] pp. Small 4to, modern binding reusing an early MS. leaf over boards (verso of final leaf a little soiled). [Basel: J. Froben, 1518].

First separate edition of these two famous texts, “In Praise of Marriage” and “In Praise of Medicine.” The first work created a cause célèbre; written many years earlier in honor of the marriage of his friend Lord Mountjoy, when finally published it was seen by the Louvain and Paris theologians as an implicit condemnation of clerical celibacy.

The second work is Erasmus’s expression of his views of the medical arts. It “presents a view of medical ethics that identifies competence, beneficence and diligence as the physician’s primary moral obligations. The activity of the physician, when directed toward the patient in accordance with these obligations, gives rise to reciprocal obligations on the part of the patient: gratitude and reward. The activity of the patient in accordance with these obligations returns honour and payment to the physician.”–Albury & Weisz, “The Medical Ethics of Erasmus and the Physician-Patient Relationship” (online resource). It is dedicated to the distinguished physician Henricus Afinius, the chief physician of Antwerp.

These two works were first published a few months earlier as part of the Querela Pacis, printed in Louvain.

Fine copy and rather scarce.

Price: $15,000.00

Item ID: 5783