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ABSTRACT
This paper focuses on the scholastic approach to the intensity of complexions and presents some evidence as to how the meaning of complexio evolved in fourteenth-century Italian medicine: namely, how it was conceptualized, visualized, and finally quantified. In the first part, I summarize the philosophical development of complexio, pointing out how the concept differs from simple mixtures, thereby allowing for the mathematisation of compounds and their intensity. I then move on to consider the links between medicine and mathematics and present the schemes provided by Gentile Gentili da Foligno (1280/90 - 1348) as a case study, analysing their philosophical premises and implications for medical treatment more generally. In the final part, I argue that, quite aside from representing early forms of the mathematisation of qualities, schemata and diagrams also captured the medieval ideal of the cosmos, a hierarchical progression of forms ordered in ascending degrees of perfection and nobility.
Acknowledgement
Funds for this paper have been provided by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft as part of the project Die Welt nach Graden messen. Intensität in Medizin und Naturphilosophie der Frühen Neuzeit (1400-1650): DFG project number 461231785. I am thankful to the anonymous reviewers of Annals of Science for their constructive criticisms and to Dr Justin Begley, who read an early draft of this article offering important insights as to how to develop the most critical points in it.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The literature on the topic is large, although only tangentially related to the question of the intensity of complexions. For an overview see Cristina Cerami, Génération et Substance. Aristote et Averroès entre physique et métaphysique (Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter, 2015); Joel Chandelier and Aurelien Robert, ‘Nature humaine et complexion du corps chez les médecins italiens de la fin du Moyen Âge’, Revue de Synthèse, 134, 4 (2013), 473-510; Danielle Jacquart, ‘De crasis à complexio: note sur le vocabulaire du tempérament en latin médiéval’, in Textes médicaux latins antiques ed. by Guy Sabbah (Saint-Etienne: Université Jean Monnet, 1984), pp. 71-76; ead., ‘La complexion selon Pietro d'Abano’, in Recherches médiévales sur la nature humaine. Essais sur la réflexion médicale (XIIe-XVe s.) ed. by Danielle Jacquart (Florence: Sismel - Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2014), pp. 373-416; Peter Murray Jones, ‘Complexio et experimentum: Tensions in Late Medieval Medical Practice’, in The Body in Balance: Humoral Medicines in Practice, ed. by Peregrine Horden and Elisabeth Hsu (New-York: Berghahn Books, 2013), pp. 107-128; Matthew Klemm, ‘Les complexions vertueuses: la physiologie des vertus dans l'anthropologie médicale de Pietro d'Abano’, Médiévales, 63 (2012), 59-74; Maaike van der Lugt, ‘Neither Ill, nor Healthy. The Intermediate State between Health and Disease in Medieval Medicine’, Quaderni storici, 136 (2011), 13-46; Joseph Ziegler, ‘Measuring the Human Body in Medieval and Early Renaissance Physiognomy’, Micrologus, 19 (2011), 349-368.
2 Specifically, John Emery Murdoch, ‘Mathesis in philosophiam scholasticam introducta: The Rise and Development of the Application of Mathematics in Fourteenth Century Philosophy and Theology’ in Arts libéraux et philosophie au Moyen âge. Actes du Quatrième Congrès International de Philosophie Médiévale (Montreal: Institut d’Études Médiévales, 1969), pp. 215-254; Edith Sylla, ‘Medieval Concepts of the Latitude of Forms. The Oxford Calculators’, Archives d'Histoire Doctrinale Et Littéraire du Moyen Âge, 40 (1973), 223-283; Michael McVaugh, ‘Arnald of Villanova and Bradwardine's Law’, Isis, 58, 1 (1967), 56-64; id., ‘The Development of Medieval Pharmaceutical Theory’, in Arnaldus de Villanova, Aphorismi de gradibus, part of Arnaldi de Villanova Opera Medica Omnia, vol. II, ed. by Michael McVaugh (Granada-Barcelona: Seminarium Historiae Medicae Granatensis, 1975), pp. 3-136; see Murdoch, ‘Mathesis in philosophiam scholasticam’, p. 227. The use of intensity (‘intensität’) to refer to the intensification and remission of a quality has been a standard since Anneliese Maier introduced it, see Anneliese Maier, Das Problem der Intensiven grösse in der Scholastik (‘De Intensione et remissione formarum’) (Leipzig: Heinrich Keller, 1939), pp. 11-15. Although Maier generated no immediate followers among her contemporaries, her legacy was picked up again in a series of important studies on the intensity of drugs, specifically on Galen and Dioscorides; see Georg Harig, Bestimmung der Intensität im medizinischen System Galens: ein Beitrag zur theoretischen Pharmakologie, Nosologie und Therapie in der Galenischen Medizin (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1974) and, most recently, Maximilian Haars, Die allgemeinen Wirkungspotenziale der einfachen Arzneimittel bei Galen. Oreibasios, Collectiones medicae XV: Einleitung, Übersetzung und pharmazeutischer Kommentar (Stuttgart: Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft, 2018).
3 As highlighted by Irene Caiazzo, the idea that ‘blending’ (commixtio) implies ‘blurring’ (confusio) is recurrent in twelveth-century translations of Aristotle’s De generatione et corruptione as well as Galen’s De complexionibus wherein confusio is often used to explain the commixtio as in the case of Bartholomew of Salerno, who notes: ‘In corporibus vero sub lunari globo consistentibus commixta in qua commixtione tanta est confusio elementorum ut nullum eorum duarum vel plurium partium continuatione retineant’, quoted in Irene Caiazzo, ‘Le Mélange et la Complexion chez le Médicins du XIIe Siècle’ in De l'Homme, de la Nature et du Monde: Mélanges d'Histoire des Sciences Médiévales Offerts à Danielle Jacquart ed. by Nicolas Weill-Parot, Mireille Ausécache, Joël Chandelier, Laurence Moulinier-Brogi, and Marilyn Nicoud (Geneva: Droz, 2019), pp. 225-240, (p. 231). On the transation between κράσις and complexio see Jacquart, ‘De crasis à complexio’, pp. 71–76 as well as ead., La médecine médiévale dans le cadre Parisien, XIVe–XVe siècle (Paris: Fayard, 1998), pp. 393-396. On the same topic see also Chandelier and Robert, ‘Nature humaine et complexion du corps’, pp. 473-510. As to the philosophical development of complexio in scholastic medicine still very worthwhile Per-Gunnar Ottosson, Scholastic Medicine and Philosophy. A Study of Commentaries on Galen's ‘Tegni’ ca. 1300–1450 (Naples: Bibliopolis, 1982), pp. 127-154. The effort to distinguish commixtio from complexio came along with access to Aristotle’s De generatione et corruptione and with better knowledge of Galen’s De complexionibus. Prior to this period a constant overlapping of the two is witnessed, as especially due to the Latin abridgment of the work Questions on Medicine by Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-Ibadi (809-873 AD) better known as Isagoge Iohannitii.
4 The concept of latitude (latitudo, πλάτος) introduced in the Latin West via the translations of Avicenna, refers back to Galen’s defintion of medicine as ‘the science of the bodies that are healthy, sick, or in a neutral state’ given in the Ars Medica, K I, 307, 5- 309, 15 and, more precisily, in K I 316, 16–17 wherein Galen states: καὶ τμηθήσϵται τὸ τῆς ὅλης ὑγϵίας πλάτος ϵἰς τρία μόρια, πλάτος ἔχοντα καὶ αὐτὰ συχνόν. On the same concept see also Galen, De constitutione artis medicae ad Patrophilum, K I, 257, 1.
5 For the opposition between Galen’s and Aristotle’s conceptualisation see Joel Kaye, A History of Balance 1250-1375. The Emergence of a New Model of Equilibrium and its Impact on Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 199-210. For Aristotle’s concept of health and diseases see Categoriae, 10b, 30-11a, 2 wherein the philosopher states that these are discrete qualitative dispositions whose only variation results from their being participated more or less by an individual; on the differences between Aristotle and Galen see Timo Joutsivuo, Scholastic Tradition and Humanist Innovation. The Concept of Neutrum in Renaissance Medicine, (Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Finnica, 1999), pp. 45–53 and Van der Lugt, pp. 17-18. For the problems discussed by scholastic philosophers in the attempt to reconcile the two aspects of motion, i.e dynamic and static, see Anneliese Mair, Die Vorläufer Galileis im 14. Jahrhundert, (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1949), pp. 9-25.
6 Ottosson, p. 174; Jacquart, ‘De crasis à complexio’, pp. 71-76; Chandelier and Robert, ‘Nature humaine et complexion du corps’, pp. 473-510.
7 On the transition from numbers to degrees see Gentile da Foligno, De proportionibus et dosi medicinarum in Opuscula illustrium medicorum de dosibus seu de iusta quantitate et proportione medicamentorum (Lyon: apud Johannem Marescallum, 1584), p. 145: ‘Galenus ponit exemplum in numeris, et non in gradibus.’ On the differences between the translatio antiqua and the translatio arabica see also Kaye, p. 153, n. 78. On the treatment of latitude as extended to all intensifiable magnitudes see Anneliese Maier, Die Mathematik der Formlatituden in An der Grenze von Scholastik und Naturwissenschaft, 2nd ed. (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1952), pp. 257-288.
8 On the origin of the latitude of forms from the medical concept of latitude see Anneliese Maier, Das Problem der Intensiven grösse, pp. 7-15; ead., ‘Zu Walter Burelys Traktat: De intensione et remissione formarum’ Franciscan Studies, 25 (1965), 293-321; see also Sylla, pp. 223-283; McVaugh, ‘Arnald of Villanova and Bradwardine's Law’, pp. 56-64.
9 Anneliese Maier, ‘Die Struktur der materiellen Substanz’ in ead., An der Grenze von Scholastik und Naturwissenschaft, 2nd ed. (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1952), pp. 3–140 (pp. 3-4).
10 This problem is dealt with variously within the Scholastic tradition, and most notably in terms of minima naturalia or minima formae, generating vast discussion as to the composition of homogeneous substances and continuum magitudes (infinity, aeternity); see John E. Murdoch, ‘The Medieval and Renaissance Tradition of Minima Naturalia’ in Late Medieval and Early Modern Matter Theories ed. by Christoph Luthy, John E. Murdoch, William R. Newman (Leiden, Boston, Koln: Brill, 2001), pp. 91-132; Anneliese Maier, Kontinuum, Minima und Aktuelle Unendliches in Die Vorläufer Galileis (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1966), II, pp. 179-180. For the reception of Aristotle’s concept of continuum and infinity in the thirteenth century see Murdoch, ‘Mathesis in philosophiam scholasticam’, pp. 215-254; Marshall Clagett, ‘Richard Swineshead and Late Medieval Phyics’ in Studies in Medieval Physics and Mathematics ed. by Marshall Clagett (London: Variorum Reprints, 1979), pp. 131-161; see also Cecilia Trifolgi, Oxford Physics in the Thirteen Century (1250-1270). Motion, Infinity, Place and Time (Leiden, Boston, Köln: Brill, 2000), pp. 87-132.
11 Walter Burely, Tractatus de intensione et remissione formarum (Venice: Ottaviano Scoto, 1496), f. 10v: ‘Et pono tres conclusiones. Prima est, quod in omni motu ad formam acquiritur aliquid novum quod est forma vel pars formae. Secunda est quod per omnem motum <ad formam> corrumpitur tota forma praecedens a qua est per se motus et acquiritur una forma totaliter nova, cuius nihil praefuit. Tertia est quod nulla forma intenditur nec remittitur, sed subiectum formae intenditur et remittitur secundum formam ita quod forma est illud secundum quod subiectum intenditur vel remittitur.’ Although opinions varied on this point, this conclusion follows directly from the structure of the form-individuum and was considered standard, not least because compatible with that of Aristotle (see note 3). On the same point see also Maier, Das problem der Intensiven grösse, pp. 54-61; ead., Kontinuum, Minima und aktuel Unendliches, pp. 155-216; ead., ‘Zu Walter Burleys Traktat’, pp. 293-321; see also Clagett, ‘Richard Swineshead’ p. 135 and John F. Wippel, ‘Godfrey of Fontaines on Intension and Remission of Accidental Forms’, in Franciscan Studies, 39 (1979), 343-345.
12 On this see McVaugh, ‘The Development’, pp. 3-136; see also Murdoch, ‘Mathesis in philosophiam scholasticam’, p. 227.
13 This desire to deduce morbid conditions from a priori schemes is also associated with the discussion of Galen’s Tegni and the possibility to define medicine and its object as falling under the specifics of a science, on which see Ottosson, pp. 104-108. On the same point see also, Chandelier and Robert, ‘Nature Humane and Complexion’, p. 505: ‘Si l’idée même de degrés de complexion n’est pas neuve, son inscription dans le cadre de l’aristotélisme latin lui donne une place et une importance inédites. […] La complexion humaine a des caractéristiques propres, mais peut subir des variations quantitatives et qualitatives à l’intérieur de limites naturelles au–dela desquelles elle n’appartient plus au domaine de l’humain. Le bénéfice de cette conception renouvelée du corps humain est important, car l’idée de latitude de la complexion permet de tenir un discours scientifique – et donc universel – sur l’individu.’
14 For an introduction to the ancient roots and limits of the concept of latitude see Richard Sorabji, ‘Latitude of Forms in Ancient Philosophy’ in The Dynamics of Aristotelian Natural Philosophy from Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century ed. by Cees Leijenhors, Christoph Lüthy, Johannes Thijseen (Leiden, Boston, Köln: Brill, 2002), pp. 57-64. On the specifics of the Medieval concept of latitude as applied to man see Aurélien Robert, ‘La Latitude de l’humanité dans la médecine et la théologie médiévales (XIIIe-XIVe siècle)’ in Mesure et Histoire Médiévale: XLIIIe Congrès de la SHMESP (Tours, 31 mai-2 juin 2012) ed. by Société des Historiens Médiévistes de l’Enseignement Supérieur Public (Paris: Publication de la Sorbonne, 2013), pp. 41–52 (pp. 46-48).
15 Cf. Kaye, p. 164: ‘It is here, with the application of mathematics to proportion for the prescription of medicines, that, beginning in the later thirteenth century, medieval medical writers made some of their most important additions to Galen. I hope, however, it is clear that they, along with other innovators in other disciplines in this period, had been bequeathed an extraordinary foundation on which to build. […] Where Galen applied these elements to the analysis of the body and its workings, scholastic authors who came to share in the new model of equilibrium would see their applicability to many other complex equalizing systems, such as the workings of the marketplace, the city, and the cosmos itself.’
16 On this see Robert, ‘La Latitude de l’humanité’, pp. 41-52.
17 Murdoch, ‘Mathesis in philosophiam scholasticam’, pp. 215-216: ‘[S]ome in the XIVth century felt not only that mathematics should be applied to philosophy, but that it must be applied. […] For the ‘pure’ parts of the Quadrivium – as arithmetic and geometry were often called – soon found themselves applied not only in natural philosophy, but in all manner of philosophical endeavour and, almost as an automatic corollary, throughout the fabric of theology as well.’
18 The lexical range of intensity proper to medieval natural philosophy and medicine, and particularly to the 14th century, is incredibly vast, encompassing such terms as intensio et remissio formarum, fractio <qualitatum>, vis, facultas, potentia, resistentia, maioritas. Here, I make use of the word ‘intensity’ in keeping with Anneliese Maier’s suggestion to treat the medieval ‘latitude’ as <Ein> Problem der intensiven Grösse.
19 On quantification in medieval pharmacology see McVaugh, ‘The Development’, pp. 3–136 and Geneviève Dumas, ‘Soupçons, Drachmes et Scrupules: de la Nécessité de Mesurer dans la Pharmacologie Médiévale’ in Mesure et histoire médiévale: XLIIIe Congrès de la SHMESP ed. by Société des Historiens Médiévistes de l’Enseignement Supérieur Public, (Tours, 31 Mai-2 Juin 2012) (Paris : Publications de la Sorbonne, 2013), pp. 53-68.
20 As noted by John Murdoch, this equalisation entails a problem of measurement that is the same as, and in fact predates, the one faced by Thomas Bradwardine and fourteenth-century philosophers with regards to the quantification of motion; see Murdoch, ‘Mathesis in philosophiam scholasticam’, p. 227: ‘The pertinent [i.e. to Bradwardine’s function] segement of pharmacology is a problem which, like Bradwardine’s, was one of measure: in a given medicine how is the strength (gradus) of its effect related to the relative strength (virtutes) of the opposing qualities (such as hot-cold) determing that effect?’
21 The locus classicus stating the successions of forms as a succession of degrees of perfection (gradus perfectionis) is Thomas Aquinas, Quaestio disputata De anima, in S. Thomae Aquinatis, Quaestiones Disputatae, vol. 2 ed. by Pio Bazzi, Mannes Calcaterra, Tito Sante Centi, Egidio Odetto, Paul-Marie Pession, (Rome- Turin: Marietti, 1953), art. IX: ‘Sed considerandum est quod secundum gradum formarum in perfectione essendi, est etiam gradus earum in virtute operandi, cum operatio sit existentis in actu. Et ideo quanto aliqua forma est maioris perfectionis in dando esse, tanto etiam est maioris virtutis in operando. Unde formae perfectiores habent plures operationes et magis diversas quam formae minus perfectae.’
22 Gentile Gentili da Foligno, Primus […] Canonis liber (Venice: Ottaviano Scoto, 1520), f. 19r: ‘Omnia mixta mundi ordinatur ad aequale ad pondus in appropinquatione et elongatione consideratione finis secundum quod ipsa sunt in gradu perfectiori operationum autem imperfectiori, et qui vult in hoc laborare laboret’. See also Tractatus de resistentiis sive de contraoperantis in id., Domini Gentilis Fulginatis … Singulare consilium contra pestilentiam eiusdem questio perutilis de resistentijs seu de contra operantijs (Salamanca, Laurentius Liondedei, 1515?), cc. 1-2, 4 [unnumbered].
23 On the different aids used in medieval science to visualise intensity and latitude see John Emery Murdoch, Album of Science. Antiquity and the Middle Ages (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1984), especially pp. 19, 156-160. On the measurment of latitudes as segements of different length, see Fabrizio Bigotti, ‘The Weight of the Air. Santorio’s Thermometers and the Early History of Medical Quantification Reconsidered’, Journal of Early Modern Studies, 7, 1 (2018): 73-103, (pp. 94-103).
24 For a discussion of Pietro D’Abano’s diagram of latitude see Ottosson, pp. 146–149 and Robert, ‘La latitude de l’humanité’, pp. 44-46.
25 For an analysis of the diagrams related to the latitude of health, see Ian Maclean, ‘Diagrams in the Defence of Galen: Medical Uses of Tables, Squares, Dichotomies, Wheels, and Latitudes, 1480-1574’ in Transmitting Knowledge. Words, Images, and Instruments in Early Modern Europe ed. by Sachicho Kusukawa and Ian Maclean (Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 135-164.
26 Gentile Gentili da Foligno, Expositio et quaestiones subtilissimae super primo libro Michrotechni Galeni in Pietro Torrigiano de’ Torrigiani, Plus quam commentum in Parvam Galeni artem (Venice, apud Iunctas, 1557), Quaestio VI, f. 225r: ‘Ergo omnes prefati volunt, quod sanum simpliciter sit sanum optima sanitate […]. Sicut ergo optime sanum est aptum perdurare, et est optima sanitas, ita sanum ut nunc, paratum est labi, et non perdurare. Ergo differentia formalis non est esse a generatione sanum simpliciter, et ex rebus temporalibus sanum ut nunc’. On the differences between the via Plusquam Commentatoris and the via Gentilis and their implications on Renaissance medicine see Joutsivuo, pp. 127-153.
27 A description of this diagram has been provided first by Roger French, Canonical Medicine. Gentile da Foligno and Scholasticism (Leiden: Brill, 2001), pp. 103–108 and, most recently, by Chandelier and Robert, ‘Nature humaine et complexion’, p. 494 (diagram) and pp. 492–496 (brief analysis).
28 Gentile, Primus […] Canonis liber, f. 17v, Propositio 15: ‘Decimaquinta propositio est homo investigatus medium in tota linea mixtorum declinat versus extremitatem et calidorum et mixtorum humidorum. Et similiter homo temperatus se habet ad latitudinem speciei humane quae declinat ad calidum et humidum. Via investigandi haec est quod totam lineam mixtorum dividamus in puncto medio equidistante ab extremis: et tota una medietas sit equalis alteri in vigore et habeat se sicut contraria et imaginemus hominem fieri confractis his extremitatibus. […] Secundum, cum vis tua imaginationem exercere: videbis quod si tota linea primarum qualitatum dividatur in 2 medietates: mediates una excludit omnia mixta: et est longior quam tota linea mixtorum. […] Quod autem hec mediate linee exlcudens totam lineam mixtorum sit longior ab utraque parte extremitatis apparebit postremo considerans ex prioribus aliqualiter apparet.’
29 Ibid., f. 16r, Dubitatio 29: ‘Dubitat utrum homo sit magis propinquus complexioni equalitati ponderis quocunque alio animali generabili et corruptibili, et si homo magis appropinquat quis homo, an homo de secundo modo equalitatis qui est homo temperatus: an homo distemperatus.’
30 Ibid., f. 16r: ‘[C]um aequalitas ponderis nullius sit operationis, igitur quanto entia sunt perfectioris operationis tanto longinquiora ab aequali ad pondus’. See also f. 19r whose text is quoted in n. 23.
31 Ibid., f. 16r, Propositio secunda: ‘calidum potest occurrere frigidum et siccum umidum secundum multos et multos graduus proportionum nobis incognitarum’; septima propositio: ‘intellectus humanus potest omnia mixta mundi diversificata secundum suas species comprehendere sub una linea recta esse situata’.
32 Ibid., f. 16r, Propositiones 3 et 4.
33 Ibid., f. 20r, Propositio 20: ‘omnia mixta recedunt ab equali ad pondus per excessum calididatis supra frigiditate et humiditatis supra siccitate.’
34 Ibid., f. 17r, Propositio 11: ‘cum quidem extra omnes omnia mixta nos imaginamus formas elementares sive elementa refracta refractione non multa.’
35 Ibid., f. 16r: ‘calor in mixtis est similitudo forme quia terminat. Impossibile enim est quod in mixtis frigidum stet in forma calido, nec siccum potest stare in forma humido: quia mixtum completur digestione […] Quidam autem arguit quod metalla sunt frigida a predominio et quod stant per frigidum quia eliquata a calido fluunt: non intelligit que sit vera complexio metallorum per quas metalla merent formam tam soluta quam firmam […] Considerandum tamen quod ista victoria debet intellegi virtualiter id est in virtute et potentia maiori, licet non in quantitate molosa, palmus, enim ignis vigorosior est cubito terre.’
36 Ibid., f. 18r, Propositio 21: ‘in natura inaequale ad pondus est imaginabile et non reperibile in re ut supra diximus.’
37 Ibid., f. 16r quoted in n. 30 see also, f. 17r, Propositio octava: ‘equale ad pondus est exclusu[s] a tota linea mixtorum ita quod nec est in medio: nec in extremis intrinsecis. Ratio quod in linea mixtorum nulla res potest poni nisi habeat ratione mixti: scilicet ratio mixti includit victoriam calidi digerentie et continentie: et in compositione equali ad pondus nulla est victoria unius qualitatis super aliam.’
38 Ibid., f.17r, Propositio 20: ‘[E]quale ad pondus in universa substantia situatur iuxta mixtum mundi quod in sua specie est minoris caliditatis comparatum ad omnes species mixtorum: et similiter intelligi debetur quod situatur iuxta mixtum quod minoris est humiditatis.’
39 Ibid., f. 16r, Propositio 5: ‘[E]xtrema intrinseca huius latitudinis sunt complexio mixti in qua est plus de calore quam possit repreiri in aliquo mixto et ab alia parte complexio mixti in qua est minus de calore quam possit reperiri in aliquo mixto.’
40 Ibid., 17r, Propositio 13: ‘[E]qualitates ad pondus posite modo dicto possunt reduci ad duo in genere: quorum una dicetur equalitas ad pondus in tota id est in tota universitate generabilium et corruptibilium: alia dicetur equalitas ad pondus in tota universitate mixtorum. Ratio est: quia due sunt prime oppositiones sive contrarietates secundum genus. Una est oppositio secundum primas qualitates absolute sive simplices: ut verbi gratia calidissimum ignis frigidissimum aque consideratis in earum simplicitate: et ita intelligat de humido et sicco: et tunc equale ad pondus imaginatur medium inter ista est unum equale ad pondum quod dicitur medium in universa substantia: quia transmutatio in universa substantia est virtute harum qualitatum. Alia est oppositio prima licet non est prima secundum qualitates mixtas ut imaginando omnia mixta mundi una linea et accipiendo caliditatem complexionalem calidissimi mixti: et ex opposito qualitatem complexionalem mixti frigidissimi id est minimi caloris: et accipiendo eas partes in vigore et imaginando ex his unam complexionem equalem ad pondus […].’
41 Ibid., f. 16r, Propositio 6: ‘[E]xtrema latitudinis extrinseca praedicta consideratione sunt duo. Unum iuxta mixtum calidissimum calidum: ita excedens supra frigidum quod non possit facere unum mixtum aliud extremum est iuxta mixtum quod habet minus de calore quam secundum speciem reperiri possit ad mixtionem: et tunc comprehendimus cum intellectu calidus magis diminutum habet: ita quod cum frigido non possit constituere unum mixtum: cum tamen erat maioris vigoris constituebat mixtum positum cum minori gradu caloris qui possit reperiri.’
42 Ibid., f. 17r, Propositiones 10-11.
43 Ibid., f. 17r, Propositio 14; f. 17v, Propositio 15.
44 Ibid., f. 15v: ‘[U]ti diximus in tractatu de resistentiis’. For a discussion of the same, f. 19v. There is no scholarship on this work and the manuscripts I have been able to consult thus far show no marginals or comments; possibly a sign that Gentile’s concept of resistance was too much even for the medieval physicians to cope with!
45 See Gentile, Tractatus de resistentiis, c. 7 [unnambered]: ‘ … caliditas illa tertia que est in consimilbus ut partes organicorum et ut appropinquent cordi: non est subiective in illis consimilibus, sed est in spiritu volitante in toto organico. Et si tu vis tenere aliam viam: teneas illam, utrumque tamen habet difficultatem. Et volo quod secundum omnem viam vides quod valde molestat communia dicta medicorum et rectificat illam. Et est quia dicunt medici quod regula in cognoscendo membra calida firgida humida et sicca est sensus tactus. Et dicunt cum hoc quod talis complexio est innata actuata per influentem. Hoc est quod omnes magistri confirmant sed mihi non apparet possibile dare tale iudicium per sensum tactum. Nam vel daret tangendo consimilia membra animalis mortui et tunc non iudicabit de complexione influenti: nec apparet talis diversitas nisi in quantum sunt cibus nobis aut medicine et non invenitur gradus et ordo complexionum membrorum: et ordinavit illos Galenus et alii ut tangetur in animali vivo scindendo et eviscerando quod dein adhuc actu vivit: tunc nunquam occurit tibi complexio innata actuata per influentem: quin cum hoc occurrat calor actualis cuiuscunque organici gradus non poteris ponere nervos vel ligamenta complexionis frigide per iudicium sensus tactus, quia illa in animali vivo inveniuntur multum calida ad tactum ut apparet de nervo, ligamento et osse cordis et sic quod plus iudicabitur erit complexio calida diversa in diversis organici'.
46 Ibid., cc. 9–10 [unnumbered].
47 Scholarship on Gentile’s De proportionibus medicinarum is currenlty lacking. The only study which I am aware of is that of Nathaniel Hupert, Gentile da Foligno ‘De proportionibus medicinarum’. Innovation and Tradition in Italian Scholastic Medicine (Harvard, 1988) being a PhD thesis, the only copy of which is kept at the University of Harvard repository. It is my regret that, due to the present contingency, I have not been able to consult this text.
48 Gentile, De proportionibus, p. 151: ‘Si autem sint medicinae diversae in complexione, et una habeat excessum in gradu super aliam, tunc praedominante gradu dicitur totum compositum esse tale, ut si sit unum componentium calidum in quarto, et aliud frigidum in primo: hoc compositum diceretur calidum non tamen si quarto, sed secundum resistentiam: ut dictum est supra. Quia si calidum minus reducit magis calidum ad remissiorem gradum, multo magis frigidum […]. Considerare tamen oportet, quod mixtio talium debet fieri secundum quantitates proportionatas, non dico aequales in pondere, sed in proportione, v. g. camomillae uncia I minus calidae, quam piperis, piperis dragmae 2 sunt ergo sumendae quantitates sicut investigat Averroes cum quibus salventur operationum illorum simplicium.’ Of note that, the degree of different substances within the same complexion is deduced by the relative resistence they oppose to each other, as clarified by Gentile in the same text, p. 144.
49 Ibid., pp. 141–142: ‘Complexio autem medicinae laxative est duplex: ut ad praesens spectat: quedam est ex primis qualitatibus resultans, quomodo dicimus, quod medicina laxativa est calida vel frigida. In tal vel tali gradu. Alia est complexio resultans ex qualitatibus primis, per quas medicinae habent operationes tertias […] et talis plus habet dici forma composti, vel qualitas, quam complexio: nam complexio proprie significat supra qualitates tangibiles. De primo quidem dicendum, quod medicinae simplices in composito laxativo, vel sunt eiusdem complexionis, vel diversae. Si eiusdem, vel sunt eodem gradu, ut cum commiscemus crocus et mannam, quae ambo sunt eiusdem complexionis, et non gradus, ut cum commiscemus crocum cum caryophyllis. Est enim crocus calidus in primo, caryophyllus in tertio.’
50 Ibid., pp. 153-154: ‘Ideo dico, quod si associetur medicinis saltem primi, et secundi gradus, ut cum epithymo et manna, et caetera quod debet poni in maiori quantitate, et etiam si iungatur cum suis consolantibus, ut infra. Cum medicinis autem tertii gradus est magna similitudo, et ideo inter eas non est magna resistentia, sicut enim modicum distant, ita modicum se alterant, sicut calidus in tertio et calidus in quarto.’
51 Gentile Gentili da Foligno, Quaestio de maioritate morbi (Augsburg: Ambrosius Keller, 1479), Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, 2 Inc s.a. 1226, cc. 25–26 [unnumbered]: ‘[P]utredo in febre salubri potest procedente febre augendo procedere de minori gradu putredinis in maiorem; et intelligo gradus non per occupationem plurium partium humoris quae putre fit; sed per aquisitionem plurium partium caloris putredinalis intensive.’
52 Gentile, De proportionibus, pp. 177-178.
53 Kaye, pp. 235-240.
54 In this sense, Gentile notes that each complexion is provided with its own aequalitas ad iustitiam that points to the internal equilibrium reached within the material substratum. Put differently, each substance is defined by a predetermined activity, below and beyond which it falls outside the prescribed order of nature; see Gentile, Primus […] Canonis liber, f. 17v, Propositio 17: ‘equale ad pondus inventus per equationem in equalitate fit totuplex quotuplex iustitialis et ultra plus apparet. Nam primo est totuplex quot sunt mensure equalitatis sive gradus inventi in mixtis excedentis et excessi id est quot sunt equalitates ad iustitiam.’
55 Ibid., f. 17r, Propositio Quarta: ‘perfectio mixtionis humanae est postrema perfectio nullam habens extra se mixtionem possibilem inveniri perfectiorem.’
56 Kaye, p. 226.