Inside the book

The Proemio opens with a historiated initial and sets out Durante's medical philosophy, dividing medicine into the preservation of health and its recovery, announcing that this work addresses only the former. The text opens with a Latin Sommario advising the reader to seek pure air, avoid marshy or sirocco-tainted skies, and orient toward the rising sun. Chapters follow on air, exercise, sleep, repletion and evacuation, and the passions of the soul, before the work turns to its extensive alphabetical treatment of foods, drinks, and medicinal substances. Each entry follows a consistent format: a Latin verse distich summarising the item's humoral qualities, then Italian prose covering its names, qualities (hot, cold, wet, dry, and degree), manner of election, benefits, harms (nocumenti), and remedies. The entry on truffles is characteristic: the Latin warns they generate black bile and injure the nerves, while the Italian prose recommends cooking them with pepper and vinegar against flatulence. The wine section is the most expansive, with the Tavola alone indexing over twenty separate wine-related entries, one of the most detailed vernacular classifications of wine types in any sixteenth-century Italian health manual. Remedies against wine's harms prescribe wormwood beforehand and bitter almonds, cabbage, and saffron afterward - a practical guide to hangover management circa 1600. The work closes with chapters on purgatives and clyster preparations, preceded by an extensive twenty-page Tavola delle cose più notabili serving as both index and ready reference.