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[Manuscript G. 108 inf. in the Ambrosiana library in Milan]
Abstract:
The manuscript G.180 inf. preserved in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana of Milan contains the Latin translations of three Hippocratic treatises (Prògnosticon, De aere, De septimanis) that were studied and published between the end of the XIXth and the beginning of the XXth century. But the second part of the manuscript is far more interesting and important. It contains four commentaries to Galen's four treatises: De sectis ad introducendos, Ars medica, De pulsibus ad tirones, Ad Glauconem de medendi methodo. The commentaries were composed in Ravenna between the 6th and the 7th century by "Agnellus iatrosophista" and were written by the physician Simplicius, surely one of Agnellus' pupils. But they aren't an original works by Agnellus: they are translations and combinations of original Greek commentaries compilated by Alexandrian scholars perhaps about the 6th century with Ammonius' and Olympiodorus' teaching method. At any rate, these commentaries testify the occurrence in Ravenna of a most active School of Medicine at the beginning of the Middle Ages. This school was a linear descendant of the School of Alexandria and transmitted classic medical culture first to the Beneventan medicine, and then, through the Beneventan medicine, to the early Schola Salenitana.