[2950] Many of the works listed by Peter the Deacon and some others which he does not name have been printed under Constantinus’ name, either in the edition of the works of Isaac issued at Lyons in 1515, or in the partial edition of the works of Constantinus printed at Basel in 1536 and 1539, or in an edition of Albucasis published at Basel in 1541.
An early MS containing several of Constantinus’ works is Gonville and Caius 411, 12-13th century, fol. 1-, Viaticum, 69-de melancholia, 77v-de stomacho, 98v-de oblivione, 100r-de coitu, (no author is named for 109v-liber elefantie, 113-de modo medendi), 121-liber febrium, (169-de inamidarium Galieni).
The chief secondary investigations concerning Constantinus Africanus are:
Daremberg, Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits Médicaux, 1853, pp. 63-100, “Recherches sur un ouvrage qui a pour titre Zad el-Monçafir en arabe, Ephrodes en grec, Viatique en latin, et qui est attribué dans les textes arabes et grecs à Abou Djafar, et dans le texte latin à Constantin.”
Puccinotti, Storia della Medicina, II, i, pp. 292-350, 1855, devoted several chapters to Constantinus and tried to defend him from the charge of plagiarism and to maintain that the Viaticum and some other works were original.
Steinschneider, Constantinus Africanus und seine arabischen Quellen, in Virchow’s Archiv für Pathologische Anatomie, etc., Berlin, 1866, vol. 37, pp. 351-410. This should be supplemented by pp. 9-12 of his Die europäischen Übersetzungen aus dem Arabischen (1905).
[2951] Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits Médicaux (1853), p. 86.
[2952] Histoire des Sciences Médicales (1870), I, 261.
[2953] Indeed Daremberg said in 1853 (p. 85, note) “dans le moyen âge beaucoup d’auteurs citent volontiers Constantine comme une autorité.”
[2954] Perhaps through the fault of the printer the list of the writings of Constantinus given by Peter the Deacon is defective as reproduced in tabular form by Steinschneider (1866), pp. 353-4. Steinschneider also incorrectly speaks of Leo of Ostia as well as Peter the Deacon as a source for Constantinus (p. 352, “Die Schriften Constantins sind bekanntlich von seinen alten Biographen, Petrus Diaconus und Leo Ostiensis verzeichnet worden”), since Leo’s portion of the Chronicle ends before Constantinus is mentioned.