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THE LIFE

OF THE PRINCE

AVICENNA.

TAKEN FROM SORSANUS THE ARAB, HIS DISCIPLE,

and written in Latin by Nicolaus Massa, a most excellent Philosopher and Physician.

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Since I had heard much of your learning, your outstanding greatness of spirit, and your just, upright, and religious life, I was so inflamed with zeal for you that my whole mind is occupied with this matter: what is the dignity and what the splendor of your virtues, so that posterity might understand through me. When I ponder this more diligently in my mind, the occasion arises to publish the life of Avicenna, which I have rendered into Latin letters, having taken it from Sorsanus the Arab, his disciple. It seemed good to me to send it to you, so that you might already set foot into the possession of your own affairs. For whatever has been elaborated by us before in the studies of the liberal arts, or whatever shall be worked out later, we have it in mind to dedicate the whole of it to you; which we will do in its proper place and time.

In the meantime, while you read this life of such a grave author, if your occupations allow (for I know how great the affairs are which Pius IV, the Supreme Pontiff, your uncle, has entrusted to you, and which you handle alone, both regarding religion and the peace of all nations and peoples, and finally regarding every most serious matter, so that like another Atlas you seem to hold up the sky and the earth), you will certainly have a token of my respect for you.

But it is time for us to begin. Andreas Alpagus of Belluno, a man most famous in our time for both character and learning, loved wisdom so much that, having spurned riches and many great conveniences (in the manner of the ancient philosophers), he wished to study for almost his whole life for the truth of things and the utility of the human race. Witnesses to this are his abandoned homeland and his voyage to Syria: where, in order to learn the Arabic language, he stayed for thirty years and more, and gave himself long and much to study. He progressed so far that he translated not a few volumes of the most learned Arabs into the Latin language, and also faithfully corrected those translated by earlier men. Among these are the Books of the Canon of Avicenna, a man who is rightly to be placed among the primary authors not only in medicine, but in every kind of excellent science. These books, which were teeming with errors on every side, he restored to the true integrity of the author, changing the errors, removing the superfluous, and adding words and sentences where they were lacking, so that no one can any longer be in doubt regarding the sentences of this most grave author.

When Paulus Alpagus, his nephew, a man excellent in the understanding of medicine, had handed these over to the distinguished man and one well-deserving of letters and literary men, Thomas Iunta, to be printed for the common utility of men, and had found certain Arabic writings of his uncle, where the life of the noble Avicenna was written in a certain page in Arabic characters and idiom by Sorsanus the Arab, his disciple, he complained to me with grief that he had found no one who could interpret this very life up to this day. I, however, who have always been accustomed (as is proper) to protect the glory of eminent men no less than my own, when I had found Marcus Fadella...