Niccolò da Reggio and His Latin Translation of Galen’s On Simple Drugs

Galen’s Simple Drugs I-V were known in medieval universities in the Latin translation by Gerard of Cremona (1114-1187), a great translator of philosophical and scientific texts, who was active in Toledo. The first Latin translation of all the books of Simples Drugs was done from Greek by Nicolò da Reggio, a physician who translated fifty five works of Galen and five of Hippocrates at the Angevin court of Charles II and Robert I in Naples, from 1308 to 1345. A stylistic examination of Niccolò’s translation shows that it splits in two parts, books I-V and books VI-XI: books I-V were translated by Niccolò in the early years of his activity, whereas books VI-XI are close to subsequent translations. Niccolò’s style changed in few years, before 1314, and this means that the translation of Simple Drugs I-V could not be much earlier than that of books VI-XI. At the moment, it is difficult to establish whether Niccolò had different sources or different collaborators for his translations of Galen’s works, including Simple Drugs, which was already known in Latin in Late Antiquity.