Il De medico e gli 'altri trattati' ippocratici

The work De medico shows many similarities in content with Hippocratic treatises of the Classical period, similarities that in some cases are marked by explicit references to “other texts”. Between the 19th and the 20th century, scholars have differently interpreted these parallels. This paper aims to re-examine the question of the relationship between De medico and other Hippocratic treatises. After a short overview of the content and the manuscript tradition of the text, I provide a comparative analysis of those passages that refer (either explicitly or tacitly) to some canonical Hippocratic treatises. From this investigation, we can infer that the author of De medico used these references in order to summarise, in a sort of memorandum, topics usually ascribed to Hippocrates, probably with the aim of making his work more authoritative. In view of the variety and the order of the treatises he refers to, it is possible to suppose that the author had at his disposal one of the first editions of the Hippocratic treatises.