Classics Alumnus Book Project

Wayne Millan, a UMD Classics Alum, has a new book project!

Classics alumnus Wayne Millan (M.A. 1991) has a new book project: in collaboration with Dr. Victor Weedn, Chief Medical Examiner for the State of Maryland, he is producing the first vernacular translation in any language of a pioneering treatise on legal medicine, De Relationibus Medicorum Libri Quatuor [sic], "Four Books on Physicians' Evidence." The author, a Sicilian physician with "the mellifluous name of Fortunato Fedele (in Millan's words), published the first edition of his work in Latin in 1602; the final edition was published in 1674. 

Millan and Weedn have a contract with the publishing firm of Routledge for their translation and commentary on the work. In a way, Millan notes, this is a follow up to his Classics M.A. thesis on John Evelyn's Sylva- "except of course that Evelyn wrote mainly in English."

Although there is a "rare, and very clean, copy of Fedele's first edition" at the National Library of Medicine, the library has been closed for most of the past year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Millan has been working from a digital scan of a copy at the University of Turin in Italy. The original title of the work includes an apparent misspelling: "Quatuor" for the Classical Latin "quattuor." According to Millan, this may reflect 16th-century pronunciation.

In his 1991 M.A. thesis, Millan catalogued the Latin and Greek references in the first edition (1662) of John Evelyn's Sylva, the first comprehensive treatise (in any Western language) on arboriculture. He adds, "Now, 30 years later, I've come 'round to work on Fortunato Fedele, who is credited with the first-ever treatise (in any known language) on legal medicine. This aspect of my life is making great sense!"