It cannot be said that Manfredi’s printed works suggest great scientific attainments. All are permeated by the same astrological obsession. They comprise the following:
(a) The editio princeps of Ptolemy’s Cosmographia and Tabulae Cosmographiae, the best-known printed work to which Manfredi’s name is attached. He was associated in its production with the famous scholar Filippo Beroaldo, and the finely produced volume was published at Bologna in 1472 (?),[178] and dedicated to the memory of Pope Alexander V (died 1410). It is interesting as containing the first printed map of England (Fig. [9]). At the end of the work we read:
‘Accedit mirifica imprimendi tales tabulas ratio. Cuius inuentoris laus nihil illorum laude inferior. Qui primi litterarum imprimendarum artem pepererunt in admirationem sui studiosissimum quemque facillime conuertere potest. Opus utrumque summa adhibita diligentia duo Astrologiae peritissimi castigaueru[n]t Hieronimus Mamfredus & Petrus bonus. Nec minus curiose correxerunt summa eruditione prediti Galeottus Martius & Colla montanus. Extremam emendationis manum imposuit philippus b[e]roaldus.’
THE FIRST PRINTED MAP OF ENGLAND.
From the 1472 (?) Bologna Ptolemy, edited by Manfredi and others.
(b) Liber de homine: cuius su[n]t libri duo. Primus liber de conservatione sanitatis.... [Liber secundus de causis in homine circa compositione[m] eius], Bologna, 1474. The work is in Italian, and consists of a number of paragraphs, each beginning with the word ‘perchè’. There is a servile dedicatory epistle in Latin addressed to Giovanni Bentivoglio. The first book is concerned with diet, and occupies two-thirds of the volume. The second book answers questions on the subject of physiognomy and bears resemblance in many passages to the Anatomy. It is taken in the main from the pseudo-Aristotelian Problemata. The book is without pagination or figures. It is well printed, and illuminated examples are not infrequently encountered.
This work was very popular. In 1478, during the lifetime of its author, it was audaciously pirated at Naples with the following incipit: ‘Incomenza el Libro chiamato della uita costumi natura & om[n]e altra cosa pertine[n]te tanto alla conservatione della sanita dellomo quanto alle cause et cose humane. Co[m]posto per Alberto Magno filosofo excellentissimo.’
In 1497, after Manfredi’s death, the work appeared in black-letter folio at Bologna, with its author’s original dedication slightly altered. The text in this edition commences, ‘Perchel sophio nele cose che noi viuemo: & lo indebito modo del viuere nostro: induce in noi egritudine’.