Translation and Adaptation of Practica in arte chirurgica copiosa, of Juan de Vigo, in the Short Treatises of Friar Agustín Farfán

Abstract

This article studies the importance of an event which, up to now, has been ignored by fields such as Medical History, Book History, and Philology: in Tratado breve de cirugía (1579) and in Tratado breve de medicina (1592), there is a part of adaptation and translation from the anatomical and surgical information that the Italian surgeon Giovanni da Vigo wrote in his Practica in arte chirurgica copiosa (1514). It is posited that this fact did not interfere with the originality of the treatises written by the Augustinian doctor Agustín Farfán. Furthermore, it is noted that the treatment of the work of Pope Julius II’s physician –besides other factors beyond the text– had an influence on the difference in the number of editions between the two books. Finally, this text provides a possible answer to why the last treatise (1592) was republished in 1610 under the profit of the Augustinian Order, which responded to political matters proper to a religious mendicant order that became one of the first criollo institutions.