This month, we will introduce a convolute containing three vernacular prints—that is, a composite volume created by binding together multiple printed works or manuscripts. In this context, “vernacular” does not refer to the indigenous languages of the Baltic region—such as Estonian, Latvian, or Livonian—but rather to Low German, which was commonly used among the Germans of this area.
Although religious literature remained the largest part of printed production well into the 18th century, the invention of the printing press also greatly facilitated the dissemination of secular specialist literature and (popular) scientific thought. A similar picture emerges when looking at the Low German books printed in 1484. While most of the books printed that year contained religious texts, three medical prints were also published—precisely the ones found in our Baltic collection: Bok de arstedie (“Book of the Healing Arts”) by Ortolf of Bavaria, also known as Ortolf of Würzburg; Kraft unde doghede der branden watere (“The Power and Virtues of Distilled Waters”) by Michael Schrick; and Eyn ghud bewert regimente van den pestilencien (“A Well-Proven Guide to the Plague”) by Valascus de Tarenta. The first two works were translated from High German, while the third was translated from Latin. All three were published by Bartholomäus Gothan in Lübeck.
Ortolf of Bavaria was a renowned wound surgeon active in Würzburg, who likely received his higher education in France and worked for the Würzburg Cathedral Chapter. He wrote his work around 1280, and it remained in use until the late 16th century, serving as a standard medical text in the German-speaking world throughout the early modern period. According to Ortrun Riha, who has studied the original text and translated it into modern German, the book covers all key areas of medieval medicine: it describes theoretical foundations (such as the doctrines of the elements, humours, temperaments, dietetics, and therapeutic principles), explains how to examine urine, discusses pulse diagnosis, presents a selection of well-known Hippocratic aphorisms and prognoses, includes pseudo-Hippocratic diagnostics, and offers an extensive discussion of bloodletting and blood examination. The most comprehensive section is a guide to diseases from head to toe, including treatment instructions. The work concludes with chapters on surgery.
Michael Schrick, also known as Puff Schrick from Schrick (c. 1400–1473), was an Austrian physician who served as both the dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Vienna and the personal physician to several rulers. His book, which covers 83 chapters on various herbal distillates, was first printed in 1477 in Augsburg by Johann Bämler, who relied on manuscripts that had been circulating since the mid-15th century. The book continued to be printed until the early 17th century.
Valascus de Tarenta (also known as Vasco or Velasco de Taranta, c. 1380–c. 1418) was a Portuguese-born physician who studied medicine in Montpellier, France, and later became the personal physician to the French king. His original work, titled De epidemia sive peste (“On the Epidemic, or the Plague”), was translated into Low German from an unknown source. It is known that a Catalan edition was printed in 1475, while a Portuguese edition did not appear until the 1490s—after the Low German translation had already been published.
Kaspar Kolk, who has examined the binding of the convolute, believes it was bound at the bindery of the Dominican monastery in Tallinn (see Kolk 2024, Late Gothic Bookbinding in Tallinn). The book once belonged to an individual identified only by the initials I.G.[?] and later, in 1554, to the Tallinn merchant Hans Kampferbeck (see Kolk 2021, From Theology to Astrology: Books Surviving from Three-Quarters of a Century After the Reformation in Tallinn, pp. 179–180).
See this incunabulum in ETERA.
