Interpretation of Dreams

[Ahmet Ibn Sirin]. [Kitab al-Jawami - Italian]. Espositione de gli insomnii secondo la interpretatione de gli Indi Persi et Egyptii. Tradutte e Greco in Latino per Leone Toschano, et al presente date in Luce. Per il Tricasso Mantuano ad Alessandro Bicharia patricio Pavese.

Venice, Giovanni Padoano ad instantia de Marchio Sessa, 1551.

8vo. 62, (2) ff. With wodcut printer's device on title page. Contemporary limp vellum with later giltstamped orange spine label and ms. spine title.

 4,500.00

Very rare Italian edition of the "Kitab al-Jawami", an Arabic work on the interpretation of dreams by an "Achmet, son of Seirim" - almost certainly identical with the 8th century Muslim mystic Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Sirin. The work survived in a Greek translation ("Biblion oneirokritikon") prepared in the 12th century. "The author Ahmed served as interpreter of dreams to Caliph Al-Mamun around 820 [...] The medieval conflation of medicine with astrology originated with the Arabs. Through the Salernitanian school, which had many Arabic works translated, the notion reached Europe in the 11th century, where it remained predominant as late as the 17th and 18th century [...] In 1577 J. Loewenklau published a Latin translation of the Oneirokritiká of Ahmed, whom he calls Apomasar" (cf. Schöll).

Slight waterstaining and old ink ownerships and annotations to title page.

References

BM-STC Italian 338. Edit 16, CNCE 40443 (title misspelt: "insonnii"). OCLC 1002786023. Not in Adams. Cf. GAL I, 66. Schöll, Geschichte der griechischen Literatur III, 487. Graesse, Bibl. mag. et pneum. 97.