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The Tacuinum (sometimes Taccuinum) Sanitatis is a medieval handbook on wellness, based on the Taqwin al-sihha ("Tables of Health"), an eleventh-century Arab medical treatise by Ibn Butlan
Ibn Butlan

Ibn Butlan was an Iraqi physician. He wrote the Taqwim al-Sihhah . The work treated matters of hygiene, dietetics, and exercise. It emphasized the benefits of regular attention to the personal physical and mental well-being....
 of Baghdad
Baghdad

Baghdad is the Capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, with which it is also coterminous. With a municipal population estimated at 6.5 million, it is the largest city in Iraq, and the second largest city in the Arab World....
. Aimed at a cultured lay audience, the text exists in several variant Latin versions, the manuscripts of which are characteristically so profusely illustrated that one student called the Taccuinum "a trecento picture book," only "nominally a medical text".






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The Tacuinum (sometimes Taccuinum) Sanitatis is a medieval handbook on wellness, based on the Taqwin al-sihha ("Tables of Health"), an eleventh-century Arab medical treatise by Ibn Butlan
Ibn Butlan

Ibn Butlan was an Iraqi physician. He wrote the Taqwim al-Sihhah . The work treated matters of hygiene, dietetics, and exercise. It emphasized the benefits of regular attention to the personal physical and mental well-being....
 of Baghdad
Baghdad

Baghdad is the Capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, with which it is also coterminous. With a municipal population estimated at 6.5 million, it is the largest city in Iraq, and the second largest city in the Arab World....
. Aimed at a cultured lay audience, the text exists in several variant Latin versions, the manuscripts of which are characteristically so profusely illustrated that one student called the Taccuinum "a trecento picture book," only "nominally a medical text". Though describing in detail the beneficial and harmful properties of foods and plants, it is far more than a herbal
Herbal

A herbal is a book, often illustrated, that describes the appearance, medicinal properties, and other characteristics of plants used in herbal medicine....
: listing its contents organically rather than alphabetically, it sets forth the six essential elements for well-being:

  • sufficient food and drink in moderation,
  • fresh air,
  • alternations of activity and rest,
  • alternations of sleep and wakefulness,
  • secretions and excretions of humours, and finally
  • the effects of states of mind.


Illnesses result from imbalance of these elements, therefore a healthy life is lived in harmony.

The terse paragraphs of the treatise were freely translated into Latin in mid-thirteenth-century Palermo
Palermo

Palermo is a historic city in southern Italy, the Capital of the autonomous region Sicily and the province of Palermo. The city is noted for its rich history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old....
 or Naples, where it continued an Italo-Norman
Italo-Norman

The Italo-Normans, or Siculo-Normans when referring to Sicily, were the Italy-born descendants of the first Norman conquest of southern Italy to travel to the Mezzogiorno in the first half of the eleventh century....
 tradition as one of the prime sites for peaceable inter-cultural contact between the Islamic and European worlds.

Four handsomely illustrated complete late fourteenth-century manuscripts of the Taccuinum, all produced in Lombardy
Lombardy

Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region....
, survive, in Vienna, Paris, Liège and Rome, as well as scattered illustrations from others, as well as fifteenth-century codices
Codex

A codex is a book in the format used for modern books, with separate pages normally bound together and given a cover. It was a Roman invention that replaced the scroll, which was the first form of book in all Eurasian cultures....
. Unillustrated manuscripts present a series of tables, with a narrative commentary on the facing pages. The Taccuinum was first printed in 1531.

The Tacuinum was very popular in Western Europe in the Late Middle Ages
Late Middle Ages

The Late Middle Ages is a term used by historians to describe history of Europe in the periodization of the 14th and 15th centuries . The Late Middle Ages were preceded by the High Middle Ages, and followed by the Early modern Europe ....
; an indication of that popularity is the use of the word taccuino in modern Italian to mean any kind of pocket handbook, guide, notebook.

In addition to its importance for the study of medieval medicine, the Tacuinum is also of interest in the study of agriculture and cooking; for example, the earliest identifiable image of the carrot
Carrot

The carrot is a root vegetable, usually orange or white, or red-white blend in colour, with a crisp texture when fresh. The edible part of a carrot is a taproot....
 — a modern plant — is found in it.

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