¶ De Graeco penu est Babylonios venatibus assuetos, [436] ubi in solitudine deprehenderentur, nec cibaria percoquendi esset occasio, cruda ova fundae imposita, vertigine assidua tandiu rotare consuevisse, donec coquerentur, Caelius.

¶ From the Greek provisioning it results that those usually hunting Babylonians, when were in desert places and didn't have the possibility to cook the foods, after put the raw eggs on a sling they were usual to rotate them for a so long time until were cooked, Lodovico Ricchieri.

¶ Postremo τηγανιστὰ dicuntur ova in sartagine spissata, oleo scilicet vel butyro fricta. nam teganon Graecis patellam vel sartaginem significat. nostri vulgo ova in butyro nominant, eyer in ancken. His vesci solent, praecipue in ientaculo, ebriosi etiam aliqui in comessatione, Tragus. Alhagie ex vitellis ovorum est cibus, factus in sartagine ex ovis conquassatis, quem Veneti fritaleam appellant, Andreas Bellunensis.

¶ Finally are said tëganistà the eggs hardened in frying pan, obviously fried with oil or butter. In fact for Greeks tëganon means saucepan or frying pan. Ours commonly call them eggs in butter, Eyer in Ancken. They are usual to eat them above all at breakfast, some drunkards also during debauches, Hieronymus Bock said Tragus. The alhagie is a food gotten by egg yolks and prepared in frying pan with beaten eggs, which Venetians call omelette, Andrea Alpago.

¶ Ova quae pnicta[1], id est suffocata appellant, elixis (hephthis, id est duris) et assis sunt meliora. parantur autem ad hunc modum. ubi ipsa oleo et garo et pauco vini conspersa fuerint, vas, quo continentur, cacabo aquam calidam habenti indunt. deinde ubi ipsum totum superne obturarint, ignem substruunt, quoad ova mediocrem habeant consistentiam. Quae enim supra modum fiunt crassa, elixis et assis sunt similia. quae vero ad mediocrem crassitiem pervenerunt, et melius quam dura concoquuntur, et alimentum corpori dant praestantius, Galenus lib.3. de alim. facult. ut quidam transtulit. sed verbum Graecum ἀναδεύσαντες, quo Galenus et Aegineta utuntur, non conspergere, sed subigere et permiscere significat: quod miror nec Hermolaum, nec alios (quod sciam) praeter Cornarium animadvertisse. is enim in annotationibus suis in Galeni libros de compos. medic. sec. locos, haec Aeginetae verba super his ovis, ἀναδεύθεντα ὠμά μετὰ γάρου καὶ οἴνου καὶ ἐλαίου, καὶ ἐν διπλόμασι συμμέτρως πηγνύμενα: sic vertit, Cruda cum garo vinoque ac oleo subacta, (Albanus irrigata vertit, et diplomata inepte vasa aenea testaceave) in duplici vase coquuntur donec mediocriter condensentur.

¶ The eggs they call pnictà - cooked in a well closed pot, that is, smothered, are better than the boiled ones (hephthis, that is hard) and than the roasted ones. They are prepared as follows. After they have been sprinkled with oil, sauce of fish and little wine, they introduce the vessel in which are contained in a copper pot with warm water inside. Then after having completely closed it in the upper part they put fire under it until the eggs reached a moderate consistence. In fact those hardening over a certain degree are similar to the boiled and roasted ones. But those which reached a middling consistence are digested even better than those hard-boiled and supply the body with a better nourishment, Galen in the III book of De alimentorum facultatibus, as someone translated. But the Greek verb anadeúsantes, used by Galen and Paul of Aegina, doesn't mean to sprinkle, but to dip and to mix: I marvel that neither Ermolao Barbaro nor others (as far as I am aware) realized this, except Janus Cornarius. He in fact in his annotations about the books of Galen's De compositione medicamentorum secundum locos, the following words of Paul of Aegina regarding these eggs anadeúthenta ømá metà gárou kaì oínou kaì elaíou, kaì en diplómasi summétrøs pëgnúmena he translates in this way: Raw beaten with sauce of fish and with wine and oil (Alban Thorer translates with watered, and the diplomata - pots with double receptacles for bain-marie - foolishly translates them with bronze or terracotta pots) are cooked in a double pot until didn't harden a little bit.

Galenus lib. 11. de simplic. medic. de ovis agens, utiliter ovum crudum ambustis imponi scribit, sive albumen tantum imponas lana molli exceptum: sive ovum totum una cum vitello conquassatum, ἀναδεύσας. Ἀναδεύειν, φυρᾷν, μαλάττειν, Hesychius. Δεύειν, βρέχειν, Varinus: id est irrigare, madefacere. Videtur autem verbum compositum ἀναδεύειν, permixtionem quae per totum fiat, praesertim in humido vel liquido, (quasi ἄνω καὶ κάτω καὶ διὰ παντός γιγνομένην) significare. hanc enim vim praepositio ἀνὰ  in compositione quandoque habet, ut in verbis ἀναφυρᾶν, ἀναμιγνύναι, ἀνακινεῖν, ἀναθολοῦν. nam et extra compositionem ultro citroque significat, ut ἀνὰ τόπον, ἀνὰ στρατόν. itaque ova cum oleo et vino ἀναδεδευμένα, permixta et agitata vertere licebit: ita ut tale fere hoc ferculum fuisse videatur, (sed densius tamen) quale apud nos ius est cui vulgo a vino calido nomen. neque enim ova integra permanent, sed franguntur agitanturque. Hermolaus primum non recte exaphetà et pnictà confundit. deinde pnicta interpretatur, quae in aquam calidam mittuntur immergunturque cum garo, etc. hoc quoque perperam, ut ex Galeni et Aeginetae verbis iam recitatis facile percipitur.

Galen in XI book of De simplicium medicamentorum temperamentis et facultatibus when disserting about the eggs writes that it is useful to apply on burns both only the egg white placed on a cloth of soft wool and the whole egg beaten along with the yolk, anadeúsas. Anadeúein, phurâ_in, maláttein - To dampen, to soak, to soften, Hesychius. Deúein, bréchein, Guarino: that is, to irrigate, to dampen. In fact the composed verb anadeúein - to dampen, to water - seems to mean a blending done on the whole, especially when a substance is damp or liquid (as if ánø kaì kátø kaì dià pántos ghignoménë - as if it were happening over and down and through the whole). In fact sometimes the preposition anà in a composed word has this meaning, as in the verbs anaphurân - to mix, anamgnúnai - to mix together, anakineîn - to shake, anatholoûn - to trouble. In fact also out of a composed word it means beyond and hence, as anà tópon - everywhere, anà stratón - anywhere. Insofar the eggs anadedeuména with oil and wine will be allowed to translate them with mixed and beaten: so that it would seem that this course were practically equivalent (but nevertheless thicker) to a certain broth we have and which commonly receives the name from the warm wine. And in fact the eggs don't keep entire, but are scrambled and shaken. Ermolao in first place erroneously confuses the exaphetá and the pnictá. Then he thinks that the pnictá are those put in warm water and dipped along with sauce of fish, etc. And also this in an incorrect way, as it can be easily inferred from the words of Galen and Paul of Aegina just quoted.

Pnictà Galenus vocat quod praefocari videantur dum certo genere coquuntur, etc. Caelius: qui nec ipse verbi ἀναδεύειν vim animadvertit. Pnictòn vocant etiam quoddam obsonandae carnis genus. quod equidem reor haud multum distare ab eo quod anábraston appellant, Hermolaus.

Galen calls them pnictá since it seems that are suffocated when cooked in a certain way, etc., Lodovico Ricchieri: but not even he realizes the meaning of the verb anadeúein. They call pnictòn also a kind of meat course. Really I believe that it doesn't differ too much from that they call anábraston - boiled, Ermolao Barbaro.

Nos huiusmodi genus cocturae appellamus verdempffen, quoniam vase operto et incluso intus vapore veluti suffocari videatur quod intus coquitur. unde etiam ova pnicta non inepte puto Germanice dixeris verdempffte eyer. Ad ova pnicta coquenda Galenus oleo utitur, nos butyro, Brasavolus. Suspicor autem edulium non aliud ab ipso intelligi, quam in quo ova integra relinquantur. audio enim in Italia ova parari, ita ut eis in vas purum stanneum plerunque evacuatis, superinfundatur parum aceti, vini, et olei aut butyri, ut ova integantur. coquunt autem donec album densari supra vitellos et albescere coeperit. Sed haec pnictà Graecorum non esse ex praedictis patet.

We call this manner of cooking verdempffen since what is cooked inside of a covered pot, and with the vapor locked up inside, almost seems to be suffocated.  Then I think that in German also the eggs pnictà you could rightly call them as verdempffte Eyer - smothered eggs. To cook the smothered eggs Galen uses oil, we use butter, Antonio Brasavola. I have the suspicion that Brasavola wants to mean a course not different from that in which the eggs are left entire. In fact I hear that in Italy they are prepared in such a way that, after having mostly emptied them in a clean tin container, is poured on a little bit of vinegar, wine, oil or butter so that the eggs become covered. And they cook them until the white hardened over the yolks and started to become white. But it is clear from the aforesaid things that these eggs don't correspond to the pnictà of Greeks.

¶ Pars II. De ovorum salubritate simpliciter. Cibos quot modis iuvent ova, notum est. Nullus est alius cibus qui in aegritudine alat neque oneret, simulque vim potus (quidam legunt vini usum) et cibi habeat, Plin. Recentia alimentum sunt sanguini proximum, R. Moses. Temperamentum ovi (Galenus hoc non de ovo, sed de albumine scribit. albumen quidem mole sua vitellum in ovo superat, ut totum ovum corporis temperati respectu frigidius existimari possit, etsi Aggregator[2] absolute calidum faciat) frigidius est corpore temperato. refrigerat enim temperate, et sine morsu desiccat, Serapio. Temperata sunt ova: sed albumen ad frigiditatem declinat, vitellus ad caliditatem. utraque humida sunt, praecipue tamen albumen, Avicenna.

¶ Section 2 - Only about the salubriousness of the eggs. It is known in how many ways the eggs become useful for the foods. No other food is existing able to feed during an illness, and which doesn't make heavy, and at the same time is endowed with the energy of a drink (some instead of vim read vini - wines, wine's employment) and of a food. The fresh ones are a food approaching as characteristics to those of the blood, Rabbi Moses. The temperament of an egg (Galen writes what follows not about the egg, but the egg white. In fact in an egg the albumen overcomes as volume that of the yolk, so that the egg in its totality could be considered as more cold in comparison to a temperate body, although Symphorien Champier thinks it as quite warm) is more cold than a lukewarm body. In fact it refreshes fairly well and dries without giving pain, Serapion. The eggs are lukewarm: but the egg white tends to be cold, the yolk tends to be warm. Both are damp, nevertheless above all the egg white is so, Avicenna.

¶ Ova, ut author est Galenus, alimentum humens conferunt, In libro de ptisana. Multum nutriunt, Methodi 8. Victum plenum faciunt, In Aphorismos. Velociter nutriunt propter suae substantiae subtilitatem. Ova cum materia et nutrimentum omnium avium existant, necesse est ut validissimi et multi sint nutrimenti. totum enim assimilatur sanguini, etc. Isaac. Aliquando vim carnis retinent, ut scribit Rasis. Nutriunt secundum omnes sui partes, praesertim vitellos, ita ut ex eis nulla fere pars excrementitia sit, Nic. Massa. Ova, praesertim vitelli, valde corroborant cor. sunt enim naturae temperatae, et cito in sanguinem vertuntur, et parum superflui relinquunt: et sanguinem generant subtilem et clarum: hoc est conforme{m} sanguini quo nutritur cor, Avicenna in libro de medicinis cordialibus. commendat autem ova ex gallina, perdice, phasiano, starna. Ova temperata dicuntur, albumine scilicet et vitello simul sumptis: quorum alioqui alterum per se ad calidum, alterum ad frigidum inclinat, Nic. Massa. Ova humectant et hecticis[3] conferunt, Ant. Gazius. Boni succi sunt, De euporistis. Crassi et boni succi, et humorum acrimoniam infr{a}enant, De victu in morbis acutis[4]. Non dura bene parata et cocta, generant bonum humorem, medium inter crassum et tenuem, De dissolutione continui[5].

The eggs, as Galen writes, supply a damp food, in the treatise De ptisana. They nourish quite a lot, book VIII of Methodus medendi. They make complete a food, In Hippocratis aphorismos commentarii. They nourish quickly because of the delicacy of their composition. The eggs, since are representing the moulding substance and the nourishment of all bird's embryos, it is necessary that they have a very strong and abundant nourishing power. In fact the whole turns into blood, etc., Isaac Judaeus. Sometimes they have the energy of the meat, as Razi writes. They nourish with all their parts, above all the yolks, so that almost no part of them flows unused in the excrements, Nicola Massa. The eggs, mainly the yolks, strengthen quite a lot the heart. In fact they are of temperate nature, and quickly turn into blood, and leave a little residue: and give origin to a fluid and clear blood: this is proper for the blood by which the heart is fed, Avicenna in the treatise De medicinis cordialibus. He recommends the eggs of hen, partridge, pheasant, grey partridge. They are said temperate eggs when obviously the albumen and the yolk are taken together: on the other hand one of them tends for nature to the warmth, the other tends to the cold, Nicola Massa. The eggs hydrate and are good for those people having a continuous fever, Antonio Gazio. They have a dense and good composition, Euporista of Oribasius. They have a dense and good composition and curb the harshness of the humours, in the treatise De diaeta in morbis acutis secundum Hippocratem. Not hard, well prepared and cooked they produce a good humor, fifty-fifty road among dense and fluid, De dissolutione continua.