page_title: Janus Cornarius
section_title: Works
hierarchical_section_title: Janus Cornarius / Works
caption_attribution_description: English: Symposium scene: banqueters playing the kottabos game while a girl plays the aulos. A wreath hanging on the wall. Laurel wreaths on the heads. Attic red-figure bell-krater. Español: Escena de simposio: simposiastas están jugando al cótabo mientras una joven toca el aulos. Cratera de campana ática de figuras rojas. Français&#160;: Scène de banquet&#160;: des banqueteurs jouent au cottabe pendant qu'une jeune fille joue de l'aulos. Cratère en cloche attique à figures rouges.
context_page_description: Janus Cornarius was a Saxon humanist and friend of Erasmus. A gifted philologist, Cornarius specialized in editing and translating Greek and Latin medical writers with "prodigious industry," taking a particular interest in botanical pharmacology and the effects of environment on illness and the body. Early in his career, Cornarius also worked with Greek poetry, and later in his life Greek philosophy; he was, in the words of Friedrich August Wolf, "a great lover of the Greeks." Patristic texts of the 4th century were another of his interests. Some of his own writing is extant, including a book on the causes of plague and a collection of lectures for medical students.
context_section_description: The majority of Cornarius's books were published through the printing house of Hieronymus Froben and Nicolaus Episcopius. For a thorough overview (in French), see Brigitte Mondrain, "Éditer et traduire les médecins grecs au XVIe siècle: L'exemple de Janus Cornarius," in Les voies de la science grecque: Études sur la transmission des textes de l'Antiquité au dix-neuvième siècle, edited by Danielle Jacquart (Paris 1997), pp. 391–417.
  Cornarius's complete works were listed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, an index of books prohibited by the Roman Catholic Church promulgated the year after his death. As in the case of several other northern Protestant scholars, general content or scientific controversy was less at issue than religious conviction. Writing that could be regarded as anti-Catholic was held to contaminate other works that might be in and of themselves unobjectionable.
  Works are listed below in chronological order of publication, except that editions and translations from the same author are grouped.
  Universae rei medicae ἐπιγραφή ("Comprehensive Reference on the Subject of Medicine," Basel 1529), with a dedication to the citizens of Zwickau for their support during his seven years of study, also known as Epigraphe universae medicinae ("Comprehensive Reference on Medicine," Basel 1534), probably intended as the sort of CliffsNotes for medical students that Girolamo Mercuriale disdained.
  Hippocrates. ΙΠΠΟΚΡΑΤΟΥΣ ΠΕΡΙ ΑΕΡΩΝ ὙΔΑΤΩΝ ΤΟΠΩΝ. ΠΕΡΙ ΦΥΣΩΝ / Hippocratis Coi De aëre, aquis, & locis libellus. Eiusdem de flatibus ("Treatise by Hippocrates of Cos on Airs, Waters and Places, and also Winds"; Basel 1529), Greek text and Latin translation; ΙΠΠΟΚΡΑΤΟΥΣ ΚΩΟΥ ΙΑΤΡΟΥ ΠΑΛΑΙΟΤΑΤΟΥ … βιβλία ἅπαντα / Hippocratis Coi medici vetustissimi … libri omnes, ("Complete Works of Hippocrates of Cos, Most Ancient of Physicians," Basel 1538); Hippocratis Coi … Opera quae ad nos extant omnia ("The Extant Works of Hippocrates of Cos," Basel 1546), Latin translation. De salubri diaeta incerti auctoris liber Hippocrati quondam falso adscriptus ("A book of unknown authorship, at one time falsely ascribed to Hippocrates, on a healthy diet") was translated by Cornarius and reprinted in the Regimen sanitatis Salernitanum (Geneva 1591), pp. 403–410. The transmission of the Hippocratic Corpus is vexed and problematic; Cornarius contributed, albeit with limited success, to 16th-century efforts to "bring order to the chaos."
  Dioscorides. ΔΙΟΣΚΟΡΙΔΗΣ ΙΑΝΟΥ ΤΟΥ ΚΟΡΝΑΡΙΟΥ ("The Diosorides of Janos Cornarios") / Pedacii Dioscoridis de materia medica libri sex ("Six Books by Pedacius Dioscorides on Pharmacology," Basel 1529), Greek edition. His Latin translation was published in 1557 as Pedacii Dioscoridae Anazarbensis De materia medica libri V ("The Five Books on Pharmacology by Pedacius Dioscorides of Anazarbus"), with Cornarius's emblema inserted into each chapter (singulis capitibus adiecta). The volume also contained his translation of Dioscorides' De bestiis venenum eiaculentibus, et letalibus medicamentis Libri II ("Two Books on Beasts that Produce Venom and on Potentially Fatal Drugs").
  Selecta Epigrammata Graeca Latine, ex Septem Epigrammatum Graecorum Libris ("Selected Greek Epigrams, Translated into Latin, from Seven Books of Greek Epigrams," Basel 1529), a compilation with Alciati, who was "not entirely happy" with the work of his collaborator. The collection, taken from the Greek Anthology, ranges from early classical love poems and gnomic verses to later Hellenistic invective. The translations and some freer imitations were by eminent Latinists of the day, including Ottmar Luscinius, Thomas More, William Lilye, Erasmus, Johannes Sleidanus, and Caspar Ursinus Velius. The collection served as a source for the translations or imitations of a number of poets, among them George Turbervile (in English) and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (in Spanish).
  Parthenius. De amatoriis affectionibus liber ("Book on Erotic Feelings," Basel 1531); the copy that the 16th-century French poet Ronsard owned survives with the poet’s signature. Cornarius's publica
caption: Convivial Greeks
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