The Complete Works of Galen, Vol. 1

founding father of rational science, which physicians of our own times still partially embrace, and

Symphorien Champier also wrote about the life of Galen, or rather recorded some memories of his life, in his book On the Illustrious Writers of Medicine. This work was published with others in a quarto volume without a location or year specified. He also wrote a life of Galen that is found more extensively elaborated in the fourth Pavia edition of Galen's works, edited by Rusticus Placentinus in 1516, folio pages 2 to 4. Jakob Milich discussed Galen in an oration on his life found in the second volume of Philipp Melanchthon's prefaces and orations, page 395. Antonio Fumanelli mentioned him in various works that contribute greatly to both maintaining health and driving away diseases, published in Zurich, 1557, in folio. Abraham Werner wrote an oration on the life of Galen in Wittenberg, 1570. Giovanni Martino Eustachio, from Gambatesa in the Kingdom of Naples, wrote On the Life of Galen, published in Naples by Horatio Salviano, 1577, in quarto. E. de Villa included him in the book The Lives of the Twelve Princes of Medicine, published in Burgos, 1647, octavo, chapter 7, page 148. A life of Galen is also prefixed to the third Froben edition of Galen's works, published in Basel, 1562, in folio. This version was written by Conrad Gessner and includes other materials most worthy of reading regarding the history of Galen's books.

However, all these authors treated this subject with little accuracy. Jacques Mentel correctly testifies to this in a letter to Philippe Labbe, which will be cited shortly. Mentel says that this specific author required a different kind of biography and different writers. Eusebius, in the final chapter of the fifth book of his History, testifies that Galen was nearly a contemporary of his own age and was even worshipped by some people. Alexander of Tralles calls him the most divine original: "θειότατον". This was a high honorific used in Greek antiquity to denote supreme authority or excellence.. Philippe Labbe sent a chronological eulogy of Galen to Jacques Mentel as a New Year's gift, serving as a specimen of his universal library. He published this in Paris in 1660 through the printing house of Claude Cramoisy, in octavo, with Mentel's letter at the beginning. In that same year, 1660, Labbe sent another small book to Guy Patin and had it printed in Paris by Guillaume Benard in octavo under the title: The Life of Claudius Galen of Pergamum, Prince of Physicians, Collected from His Own Works. This 83-page work consists entirely of passages from Galen, transcribed in Latin from the Giunta edition The Giunta or Iunta family were famous Renaissance printers in Venice who produced influential editions of medical texts.. The book is organized into four intervals: from Galen's birth to the age of 21, then to 29, then to 40, and finally reaching his death. The year of Christ and the year of Galen's life are occasionally noted in the margin. Johann Albert Fabricius had noted all those locations in the chronological eulogy of Galen by Lab-