The Latin Tradition of Prognosticon and Galen's Commentary

Abstract

 The Prognosticon is the most popular Hippocratic treatise together with the Aphorisms. It had two Latin translations from Greek in late antiquity, and then two other Latin translations from Arabic in the Middle Ages, one by Constantine the African (XI c.), and another by Gerard of Cremona (XII c.). The translation of Gerard is followed by the commentary of Galen. This article presents all the Latin translations of the Prognosticon, and explores their sources in view of a new edition of the Greek text for the Collection des Universités de France. Moreover, it points out a new Latin translation from Greek of the Prognosticon with Galen’s commentary, which is preserved in a very beautiful medical manuscript, Naples VIII D 25 of 1380, and shows that such a translation is independent from the preserved Greek manuscripts and their model.