Exposito super Antidotario Mesue, first published in Ferrara in March 1488, and then just weeks later in Bologna, is a late 14th century commentary by Christophorus Georgius de Honestis on an even older ‘Antidotarium’ – one ascribed to a Baghdad court physician, Mesuë the Younger, who died in 1015.
The latter’s work was a popular Muslim pharmacopoeia that has been described as “for centuries the standard text-book on pharmacy in the West”.
Including at the end an extra tract on the medicinal use and preparation of barley water, a somewhat foxed, browned and occasionally annotated copy of the Bologna edition in old stiff wrappers was sold by Swann (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on March 9 for a record $12,000 (£9870).