Scientia peregrina. Critical notes on pharmaconomic transmission in the Secretum secretorum

Abstract

The text of the pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum secretorum has as yet received little attention as a vehicle for the transmission of scientific knowledge, in spite of its extraordinary Mediaeval popularity and the general acknowledgement of its being both an encyclopaedia and a mirror of princes. The analysis of the contents relating to various branches of the scientiae (and among them most especially medicine, with a treble representation herein in the form of dietetic, therapeutic and surgical treatment) has been virtually neglected by contemporary research. In an attempt to show the relevance of the application of the philological method to the linguistic matter through which knowledge is actually vehiculated, our study presents the preliminary findings of a research on the process of Latin translation and subsequent vernacularization of this work, on the basis of the pharmaconymic material found in the section of the medicines. We do so with the aim of contributing to a critical review of both the Arabic text and the Latin and vernacular traditions derived from it.