THE MEDICAL SCHOOL AT PADUA AND THE RENAISSANCE OF MEDICINE* By ARTURO CASTIGLIONI, M.D.

PADUA, ITALY AMONG the first universities life were more favorable, the protec­ / vk which arose in Italy at the tion of the Commune and of the beginning of the thirteenth Princes more efficacious, the safety of century, and slowly organ­ life greater and the kindness of the ized on the lines of the ancient Latin citizen more cordial. In many cases schools of the Empire, taking certainly the students were attracted and en­ as model in Medicine the Salernitan ticed from the one or the other town school, which was the first lay medical with promises of particular privileges, school of which we know the organiza­ of exemption from the taxes, of tion, Padua is perhaps the one which excellent teachers. Thus in 1228 Ver- most surely and rapidly affirms a spirit celli, which was a little town in Pied­ of independence which sometimes as­ mont, sent to Padua its representatives sumes the character of a revolutionary to invite the students with the largest tendency. The intellectual tendency of promises to come there. From the the University has a well-defined document witnessing this fact which characteristic note: the little univer­ is still preserved one can see that in sity was formed at its beginning by a the year 1228 four groups of students group of students when the Princes already existed, divided according to of Carrara dominated the town. In the their nationality: the first of Latins year 1222 a few students of Bologna of the langue d’oil (that is to say abandoned the school of law of this French and Normans), the other of town which seems to have been already Latins of langue d’oc (Provencals, well organized and migrated to Padua, Spaniards and Catalans), one of Ger­ bringing with them some of their mans and one of Italians. In this time teachers, as had happened some years the students must have been a great before when a group of students had number, because the town of Vercelli chosen the town of Vicenza as their promised to find for them 500 lodgings seat of learning. At that time and still and more if it should be necessary. more in the following century the During the whole thirteenth century University was much more bound to the prosperity of the University of the scholars and to the teachers than Padua increased in spite of the men­ to the city: Universitas meant exactly aces of the Emperors and of the Popes a community of students who chose who were often in conflict with the their masters and then formed an town: the corporations of students independent organization. These men were sometimes only two: Transalpini who considered study as the principal or Ultramontani and Cisalpini or aim of their lives let themselves be Citramontani. easily induced to change their resi­ This division according to Nation­ dence, going where the conditions of ality was for some centuries the only *The Nathan Lewis Hatfield Lecture, XII. Read before the College of Physicians of Phila delphia, November 29, 1933. recognized and perfectly ordered: not with his vast literary and scientific until the beginning of the fourteenth lore dominated the whole learning of century was the universitas artist­ this epoch. He attempted to resolve arum, medicinae, physicae et naturae with syllogisms the contradictions constituted as a faculty which col­ which arose between the medicine of lected all students of natural sciences the Arabic authors and speculative and of medicine, with rights equal to philosophy; he endeavoured to prepare those of the universitas juristarum, the a complete treatise of theoretical and faculty of law. But the medical teach­ practical medicine in which all tend­ ing had been organized from 1250 at encies should be reconciled and the which time two chairs of medicine scholars could be informed both con­ were established. In 1262 the chairs of cerning that natural philosophy which medicine were three and the tendency in the opinion of the author was the to entrust different professors with the pivot of all sciences, and concerning teaching was more and more manifest. diseases and their remedies. An Aver- I n early times the teachers were elected roist in his ideas, a dialectician in by the students, but this gave origin form, in his book “Conciliator con- to such tumults that the elections troversiarum quae inter philosophos began to be made by the State, and et medicos versantur,” from which he at the end of the fourteenth century had the name and the fame of a professors were appointed only in this conciliator, he stated all problems as way. During the thirteenth century dialectical queries and solved them when the Arabistic current became so that in almost every case the stronger in Italy, and in literature, in empirical proofs were overcome by the art, and in science was felt the effect of syllogism. And yet through the far­ the penetration into Italy of the ideas rago of these philosophical discussions which had arisen in the great centers the acute observation of a man of of culture of Islam, and the western genius is apparent. His true master in world received from them through the medicine was Avicenna: in his studies Arabian commentators and the Jewish on the soul Pietro was generally translators, unknown writings of Aris­ faithful to the ideas of Averroes, but totle, Tolomeus and Galen, and when sometimes he contended against Aris­ the dawn of the Renaissance of classi­ totle and Averroes at the same time; cal studies, which had later a stronger doubtless he showed himself a man impulse, began, when with the fall of who was able to detach himself from Constantinople some eminent Greek the classics and to discuss the authority scholars came to Venice and spread of the greatest of them. the study of the Greek language, Pietro d’Abano was one of the first Padua had already the name of an and strongest defenders of the Italic Averroistic university, almost in oppo­ Averroism in which one must recog­ sition to Bologna which was essentially nize the rebellion against the yoke of scholastic. theologizing philosophy. Averroism In Padua at the beginning of the collects some ideas and tendencies thirteenth century taught Pietro deriving from the great Arabian phy­ d’Abano (1250-1316), a physician and sicians and particularly and above all philosopher who was one of the most the thesis of the common intellective eminent scholars of this time and who soul of the human species. One should not forget that Averroism means first through the whole of Italy. His fame Arabism, and then all those who had moreover was perhaps increased by drunk at the Arabic sources and the news of the persecutions by the Dominican friars who had accused him of heresy because of forty-five propositions contained in his work which were considered contrary to Christian dogma. When he was called to the city of Padua, and became in the year 1306 professor of medicine at the University, his name was al­ ready well known to all who dedicated their studies to philosophical re­ searches. An eminent physician, he very soon became a celebrated practi­ tioner and was consulted by Pope Honorius iv and the Marquis Azzo d’Estc. The crowd of students who came to attend his lectures was so numerous that Gentile da Foligno, one of the great surgeons of this time, when he came before the hall where the master was teaching fell on his knees crying out: “Hail, holy templeI” During the thirteenth century the study of medicine flourished in all the universities of Italy and while in Bologna with the teaching of Mondino dc’Luzzi the new travail of anatomic accepted the authority of the great thought was beginning, and the first Commentator of Aristotle. surgeons, heirs of the Salernitan teach­ The influence exercised by Pietro ing, were taking their first steps through his teaching and his books, towards the institution of the new some of which were considered till the surgery, Padua became at the end of end of the fourteenth century as very the century the most important center authoritative texts, was certainly deep of epidemiologic studies. The pesti­ and vast, and even Dante who lived at lence, which about the middle of the Padua at this time and probably was twelfth century had devastated Italy, one of his pupils, felt his influence. The taught the necessity of defensive name of this physician and philoso­ measures, particularly for the sea pher, who had gone to Constantinople towns which drew their wealth from in order to study Greek and to read the over-sea trade; and as early as the Galen and Aristotle in the original year 1374 Venice forbade entrance texts, and the fame of this scholar, into the town of infected or simply who had taught medicine in Paris and suspected persons and goods. Ragusa had been considered there as one of published at first by-laws concerning the greatest masters, were diffused quarantine; and very soon, at about the end of the century, Venice col­ honor, two deserve to be particularly lected ah the measures against pesti­ noted: Giorgio Valla, a Latinist of lence in an exemplary sanitary great worth, a deep scholar in classical legislation. To this end the contribu­ tion of the great masters of the Paduan university was very precious. Among these teachers Pietro da Tos- signano, author of the renowned advice against pestilence, was one of the most famous; but the most authoritative was doubtless Gentile da Foligno, who had been called in 1337 by Count Ubertino di Carrara to teach medicine at the university. He was called “the soul of Avicenna” and his advice had the greatest diffusion. Genoa, and the towns of Tuscany and of middle Italy took counsel with him in difficult cases. In the thirteenth century there is an important development in the study of anatomy: Pope Sixtus iv gave official permission to dissect, and Alessandro Bcnedetti, a teacher of anatomy in Padua about the end of the century, published a treatise on anat­ omy in five books and 138 chapters, affirming the necessity of anatomical literature, who conferred elegance dissection independent of the custom, upon scientific language, and Ermolao generally accepted till that time, of Barbaro, an eminent philosopher, who conceding to the school only the endeavored to restore the text of corpses of executed persons. To him Pliny and wrote a commentary on we owe the construction of the ana­ Dioscorides. tomical theater where he delivered his The life of this man, who can be first lectures; to Antonio Benivieni, considered as the prince of the human­ the merit of having been the first fore­ ists of this time, deserves really to be runner of Morgagni, with his impor­ quoted: he was crowned poet laureate tant observations in the field of patho­ in his fourteenth year by Frederic 111, logical anatomy, to which he brought took his degree in Padua in 1477; an important contribution of exact translated and published some books observations. of Aristotle, held public office, taught At the end of the thirteenth century the Greek language and literature, and nourished in Padua the study of had in his home gatherings of the botany, which became the foundation most celebrated scientists of his time. of all later researches in the field of He was in i486 ambassador of the natural sciences. Among the human­ Republic of Venice to the Emperor istic authors who held Pliny in great Frederick, and in 1489 ambassador to Pope Innocent viii, who created him see new things and to think with one’s Patriarch of Aquileia and Cardinal. own brain instead of accepting He died in 1493, not yet forty years supinely the dogmatic affirmations of old, leaving some works which reveal the school. In the spirit of humanism an astonishing erudition and a perfect the foremost factor of the renaissance knowledge of the Greek language and of medicine has to be sought; a renais­ literature and of classic antiquity. sance which was in preparation during Thus we find about the end of the the last centuries of the Middle Ages thirteenth century the first bud of with the studies of anatomy, with the the renaissance of medicine, which first clinical observations, with that flourished contemporaneously with the love of nature which is characteristic renaissance of philosophy, of letters of the Renaissance. and of art, in the most brilliant At the end of the century another period of Italian history, when the factor of great importance contributes university, especially through secular to prepare the new times, that is the work of patient researches opened its invention of printing. To this epoch doors to the new doctrines which belong the first printed and partly tended to deliver science from its illustrated texts of medicine, and in bonds. order to imagine what a change the The return to the old texts, begun diffusion of printing brought also in by the Italians who had never lost the field of medical culture it suffices contact with the Greek spirit, ardently to remember that as late as in 1395 the supported by the humanists, rendered University of Paris possessed only the relations of the western world with some few manuscript books of the Hellenism more intimate. While on medicine. one hand the return of the old Greek The part which Venice and the and Latin authors in their original Venetian printers had in the diffusion form seemed at the beginning to of medical culture is noteworthy. We strengthen their authority and to must recall that in the last decade make Criticism of them more difficult, of the fifteenth century two hundred on the other hand the Italians dis­ Venetian printers published 1500 covered in the old texts those sane works, more than all the other printers reasonings, keen observation, and free­ in the whole of Italy. We must recall dom of inquiry and criticism, which for that to this epoch belong the first too long a time seemed to have been anatomical figures, and that it is forgotten. One begins to understand probable that the sight of the first in Italy that more than the maxims drawings, in some old reproductions of the ancients, the spirit which of the five or six figures which repre­ dictated them is admirable: the Italian sented the osseous, arterial and venous spirit comes little by little nearer to systems and were derived from Ara­ the thought of the ancient classics and bian and Persian manuscripts, had to the form of their literature; and I demonstrated their inexactness and believe that it is essentially from this made it necessary to replace them humanism that free and fruitful criti­ little by little with figures based on the cism, objective and impartial is born, examination of the corpse. Certainly which grows with individuality in the first old anatomic figures of the medicine and in art, with the desire to old handwritten texts, so plain in the ingenuousness of their lines, showed mon, that he had made hundreds of more evidently their errors and errors, and that it was necessary to demonstrated that correction was nec­ begin again the study of anatomy. essary: perhaps it was thanks to the old drawings that the initiative for anatomical teaching through the figure arose, to which another fact gave an extraordinary impulse: the renaissance of the Hellenistic conception accord­ ing to which disease is only a disturbed harmony which it behooves Nature to cure. In this time of the renaissance of the conception of life, Padua was the only school in which freedom of research and of teaching was granted. In Padua Andreas Vesalius, who had been educated at Louvain and studied medicine at Montpellier and Paris and taught anatomy in Louvain, be­ came in 1537 professor of anatomy. In Padua where the university, owing to the intelligent care of the magis­ trates of the Republic, was at this time in its greatest splendor, and where from every part of Europe It was certainly excessive daring for a scholars came as to the most renowned young man of hardly twenty-five center of learning, Vesalius found that years, and the struggle was very sharp; possibility of free research, that com­ but Vesalius knew how to carry it, prehension of his work and of his perfectly sure of the truth of his courageous criticism w’hich rendered ideas, animated only by the conviction it possible for him to accomplish a of the absolute necessity of clearing work which seemed in his time to be the field from all ancient superstitions. incredibly audacious. The chief task He was also in first place the great of his life was to renew the teaching and courageous reformer of pictorial of the anatomy of the human body anatomic representation: in Padua and to overthrow the teaching of some great artists, such as Mantegna, Galen, which during sixteen centuries one of the first realistic painters of had not only prevailed but been con­ corpses, and Riccio, the exquisite sidered indisputable. He demonstrated sculptor who reproduced in his line that the studies of Galen were based bronzes with perfect fidelity the forms only upon animal dissections, and and the muscles of men and animals, that all that concerned the human had certainly exercised their influence body had been hardly observed. He on the development of anatomical taught from the same chair from which thought. Riccio was a great friend all teachers had bowed to the high of the anatomist Marcantonio Della authority of the great master of Perga- Torre and sculptured for this family of physicians in the Church of S. Vesalius set out on a pilgrimage to Fermo in Verona a magnificent monu­ Jerusalem and received a call from ment, the bas-reliefs of which, at the Venetian Senate to reoccupy the present preserved in the Louvre, be­ chair of anatomy, his greatest longing long to the best works of Italian Ren­ was to come back to the town which aissance. Vesalius understood clearly to him seemed “the only nurse of high the importance of adorning his book genius.” with the best drawings: he supervised But not alone because Vesalius with the greatest care those who was one of her great teachers and worked for his book and to whom he because in Padua his immortal book probably indicated himself, the object was written and the anatomical figures of the drawings. He complains in designed, does Padua deserve the his letters of the trouble they had first place in the history of the caused him, and found as collaborator scientific renaissance in Italy. Before one of the best pupils of Titian, and after Vesalius Padua had among Jan Stephan Kalkar, a Flemish painter its professors some of the most excel­ whose paintings were often difficult lent anatomists of all times. Here to distinguish from those of his master. taught Gabrielle Falloppio who was Probably Kalkar engraved the pic­ certainly the most courageous of the tures on wood: certainly the figures innovators and the most illustrious are executed with perfect truthfulness of the Italian anatomists of this and with great taste, chiefly from century. He departed even more de­ dissections of youthful bodies. The cisively than Vesalius from the teach­ drawings are free and bold and in ing of Galen. He corrected the de­ the book of Vesalius we find for the scriptions by Vesalius of the anatomy first time in a text for students a clear of the cerebral arteries and of the representation of true facts in the clitoris: he described the tubes that most beautiful form. bear his name, the oculomotor mus­ Thus under the protection of an in­ cles, the cerebral nerves, the chorda telligent and strong government which tympani, the semicircular canals and considered the university as one of the the aqueduct. The first edition of most important instruments of its “Observationes anatomicae” was pub­ political power, in this fertile ground, lished in Venice in 1651. modern anatomy, as Leonardo had His pupil was Girolamo Fabrizio imagined it in his solitary work, was d’Acquapendente (1537-1619) who born. In a time in which in the German studied particularly the anatomy and universities anatomical teaching was physiology of the uterus and of the not yet regular and when in Flanders fetus. To him was due the creation of a Vesalius himself was compelled to new anatomical theater at Padua, undertake some adventurous expedi­ which is still preserved. He was the tions with his students to steal the author of an important study on the corpses of executed persons and thus physiology of respiration and of the make dissections possible, and when voice, and it is curious that he once the great anatomist was persecuted treated this subject so profoundly at the Court of Spain by the enemies that it is told that one day, in 1588, of his affirmations, Padua was the all the students of German nationality center of experimental science. When deserted his school, thinking that in the explanation of the mechanism of Iished a manual of anatomy in Spanish the muscles of the tongue he mocked which had a great circulation. Of their pronunciation of Italian. He this anatomical school Haller could

studied not less deeply the physiology justlv write: for a century and a half of the circulation and was the dis­ it was the leader of all Europe, so coverer of the valves of the veins. that there were but few dissectors He was the teacher of Harvey and who did not come from its halls. in the hall of the old Paduan uni­ The studies of physiology began in versity, where the coat-of-arms of the Italy with the Renaissance and many most illustrious students are painted, of them were devoted to the circula­ we find that of Guglielmo Harvey, tion of the blood, among which were belonging to the Natio Anglica: a those of Rcaldo Colombo, successor burning candle between two snakes to Vesalius in the chair of anatomy at of Aesculapius. That was the time Padua, who in 1558 published a work in which from the whole of Europe in which he affirmed the non-existence strangers came to Padua to learn of the passages through the septum anatomy: a pupil of Falloppio was of the heart between the right and Volcher Voiter, born at Groningen left ventricle, belief in which up to in 1534, died in 1600, whose works are that time had been generally accepted. important for the development of He clearly stated that the artcria the anatomy of the human fetus and venosa (pulmonary vein) carried blood the child. A pupil of the Paduan and not air and he indicated the school of anatomy was the Spaniard greater circulation in a general way. Juan Valverde di Hamuzco, who pub- He was the teacher of the greatest physiologist of this period, Andrea of the patient. From this teaching in Cesalpino, a physician and a philoso­ Padua the clinical teaching of the pher, born in Arezzo in 1519, who University of Leyden arose. Evald attacked one of the most important Schrevelius and Jan van Heurne, of the errors of the Galenic concept, who had been scholars at Padua, namely, the inclusion of the liver in brought this method of teaching to the greater circulation. He was the Holland where medicine throve in a first to use the word “circulation” free and very rich country which (1559) and observed what happened seemed to inherit in the seventeenth in the veins after a ligature had been century the fortunes of the Venetian placed about the arm. His discovery Republic and its part in the progress of is the essential basis for the doctrine science, just as it snatched from of the circulation of the blood which Venice, after the discovery of the new was later completed and clearly de­ trade routes, the domination of the scribed by Harvey. seas. Thus the most important and deci­ The most interesting figure of the sive of the problems of physiology, Paduan Renaissance is surely that of whose solution marked the fall of Girolamo Fracastoro, a man of genius the Galenic conception, found at the who was in Padua a comrade of University of Padua its foremost Nicolaus Copernicus, a pupil of the workers: from Colombo to Cesalpino, great anatomist Achillini and a friend from Fabrizio d’Acquapendente to of Cardinal Pietro Bembo, the great Harvey. In a magnificent collabora­ humanist. Pathological conceptions tion which had been hitherto without had a very important evolution during example the work of anatomy and the Renaissance, due to the fact that physiology of scientists of different in this epoch certain diseases spread nations had prepared in Padua the through Italy which up to then had triumph of exact sciences. been but little known: smallpox, chick­ But clinical sciences very rapidly enpox, influenza and typhus. In the followed this movement. To this cen­ sixteenth century syphilis spread all tury belong the first studies of psychia­ through Italy in the form of an try of Giovanni Battista Da Monte epidemic disease which claimed many who devoted his attention to melan­ victims. choly and other forms of nervous This is not the place to take up the diseases while Girolamo Mercuriale, much discussed historical question a great teacher also in the field of as to the origin of syphilis; that is, hygiene and of medical gymnastics, whether it was brought to Europe endeavored to classify them according through Spain after the discovery of to the etiology; in Padua began the America or had already existed in teaching of pharmacology which drew Europe in milder forms. It is certain great advantage from the institution that it was spread through Italy of the so-called garden of simples, more extensively than through other of which the oldest was founded in European countries and was closely Padua by Francesco Buonafede in studied and efficiently treated. Hier­ 1545. Clinical teaching was initiated onymus Fracastoro was the most at the end of this century by Giovanni illustrious among the many physicians Battista Da Monte at the bedside who dedicated their study to the pathology of syphilis. He wrote a thought to be absorbed from the poem, which was considered during breath and adhered to those humors the Renaissance as the most beautiful which carried them to the heart. poetical work in Latin verse, worthy These germs according to Fracastoro to be compared with the poems of have the power of multiplying rapidly. the Golden Age of Latin literature. Those that infected animals could not This poem, entitled “Syphilis sive infect plants, and vice versa, and Morbus Galicus,” which was pub­ there were even certain diseases con­ lished in Verona in 1530, had an fined to man or to certain animals; enormous and widespread publicity. certain diseases had even special affini­ The name of the disease is taken from ties for certain individuals or organs. this poem, in which Fracastoro told Hence it is apparent from these the story of a shepherd, called Syphi- statements that Fracastoro had a Ius, who contracted the terrible disease clear insight into the specific charac­ as a punishment from Apollo. He teristics of contagion and should be gives an exact description of the considered as one of the important disease, prescribing the use of mercury precursors of the modern doctrine of and guaiac in its treatment. infection. The most important work of Fra­ Among the diseases which appeared castoro, although it is not to this for the first time in Italy or rather book that he owes his greatest reputa­ were first studied in this century was tion, was the “De contagione et typhus fever. In a Parmese diary of contagiosis morbis,” published in 1546 1477 there is described an epidemic at Venice, which is by far the most with high fever and exanthems, which valuable example of his scientific was probably typhoid fever; also value. Fracastoro was the father of the so-called Merranic plague which modern epidemiology and was the spread through Italy from 1492 to first to study epidemic diseases in 1493, as can be learned from the the light of scientific concepts, dis­ writings of the Jews banished from tinguishing three forms of infection Spain. The first clinical description of and contagion. These were contagion this disease we owe to Fracastoro by direct contact, such as scabies, who in his classic book on contagious leprosy, etc.; contagion by indirect diseases described it with accuracy, contact by means of fomites, such distinguishing it from bubonic plague as clothing, sheets, etc., which are and typhoid fever. carriers of the germs of the contagion The pathology of tuberculosis was and thus spread the diseases; and also studied by Fracastoro, who main­ finally a third form in which the tained the contagiousness of the dis­ disease could be transmitted at a ease and the possibility that it might distance without direct contact, such also be spread by means of the clothing as plague, smallpox and similar dis­ and bed linen. This concept guided eases. In such cases he imagined that Fracastoro in prescribing prophylactic the germs were propagated by select­ measures in the fight against tuber­ ing the humors for which they have culosis: he forbade the use of purges the greatest affinity, entering the or of substances which hindered ex­ organism by means of the respiration. pectoration. In all his work it can be The germs (seminaria) were then clearly seen how modern scientific epidemiology had its origin in the geometry and of algebra: from Coper­ outstanding writings of Hieronymus nicus to Galileus, from Vesalius to Fracastoro. Fabrizio d’Acquapendente, from Co­ Contemporarily Italian surgery lombo to Fracastoro, physicians, poli­ made great progress in this century, ticians, lawyers, physicists, naturalists and also in this field Padua had some and mathematicians prepared and of the best known surgeons as teach­ accomplished the Renaissance of Sci­ ers. Among these it will suffice to ence. In Padua the great international mention the names of Fabrizio d’Ac­ currents met; the far-seeing protection quapendente, the anatomist, who en­ of a wise government preserved the joyed the fame of being the greatest freedom of teaching and of learning as Italian surgeon of his time, and a great treasure. Giovanni Antonio Della Croce who How important a part foreign stu­ published in Venice in 1573 a book dents had in the life of the university which had a widespread sale, and was and particularly in the school of considered the classical text on surgery medicine, is demonstrated by the for more than two centuries. The books of the foreign nations in which description of trepanning in cases of their Consiliarii noted the most im­ wounds of the skull forms an impor­ portant happenings. Sometimes the tant chapter of this book in which all representative of the students com­ instruments which are necessary for plained before the authorities because these operations are reproduced. the lectures were not regularly de­ This scientific movement of progress livered. In the year 1587 a few in all fields of medicine, of which I national groups were represented in have endeavored to give a picture in the Natio Alemanna, that is the its most important expressions, found students from Switzerland, Bohemia, its climax when at the beginning of Denmark, Flanders and Poland, and the fifteenth century, Padua being each group chose its representative. ahead of the scientific progress, the The Consiliarius of the Natio Ale­ gigantic figure of a man arose who manna had the right to hold the impressed on the whole historic epoch matricular book and he had first the mark of his individuality. Galileus place in all the ceremonies of the Galilei, discovering the telescope and university, two votes in all meetings the microscope gave two mighty weap­ and the right to bear the sword. ons to research and was the founder of The English students were so numer­ experimental science. ous that in 1534 the Natio Anglica At the time in which a great passion divided itself from the Scota: in for studies, a great love of beauty, 1603 the English, the Scotch and and inexhaustible desire for glory the Irish are again united in the vivified all the works of the Italians, English nation. This nation had its Padua was the most important center own councillor, a beadle and a secre­ of scientific research. Here came teach­ tary (cancellarius); it possessed also ers and students from all parts of its own library and special privileges. Europe, here the astronomers searched The influence of Padua on English the secret of the stars, the physicians medicine during the Renaissance is the mystery of life, the mathemati­ undoubtedly very important. I do cians the most difficult problems of not know whether it is really possible to limit the Italian influence on scholars at Padua succeeded in estab­ English scholarship to a definite period lishing the new learning at Oxford of time, that is from the beginning to and in extending the Italian influence the end of fifteenth century, as Lewis in England. The famous Doctor Caius Einstein* thinks; surely throughout had also been a scholar at Padua and the whole Renaissance we find in he founded at Cambridge a Medical English literature many quotations College, which still bears his name. which demonstrate that at the Paduan The reputation of Padua as a center school British scholars were very of learning was popular in England common. Many Oxford men crossed from old times.* Geoffrey Chaucer, the Alps during the fifteenth century: who was in Lombardy on a diplomatic Vicenza and Vercelli had English mission about 1372, quotes Padua in rectors: the new spirit of the Renais­ the prologue to “The Clerkes Tale”: sance had effected a revolution in I wol you telle a tale which that I the intellectual world, and Oxonians Lerned at Padowe of a worthy clerk. . . . went to Italy in search of the new Franceys Petrark, the Iaureat poete. Humanism. I may mention one of the most renowned of the English Every alumnus at Padua prided scholars of Italian Universities: John himself upon his academic distinction Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, who was and defended his peculiar Latinity. known in the whole of Italy for his George Chapman in his comedy “All scholarship and was considered, as Fools” lets Costanza say: Einstein says, the first example of You have a younger son at Padua an “Italianate Englishman.” He had I like his learning well—make him your heir. gone to Padua to continue his Latin In the first scene of “The Taming studies and he is said to have caused of the Shrew” Shakespeare pays his Pius the Second to weep with joy at tribute to Padua. Lucentio explains hearing such eloquence flow from the motive of his journey: English lips. Thomas Linacre came to Italy in 1488, became in Florence the For the great desire I had To see fair Padua, nursery of Arts . . . friend of Lorenzo dei Medici and I am arrived . . . of Politian, graduated as a doctor of And haply institute medicine at Padua and called Italy A course of Learning and ingenious studies “Sancta mater studiorum.” He was And therefore Tranio ... I have Pisa left, the first great Humanist and the And am to Padua come, as he that leaves foremost physician of his time, and A shallow plash to plunge him in the deep. was considered by Erasmus the in­ But the fame of Padua as a center troducer of medical science into Eng­ of learning did not cease with the land. In London he became Court end of the Renaissance. It may be of physician with John Chamber, who some interest to quote here the first had also studied medicine at Padua. contact of one of the most prominent He was the founder of the College American physicians with the Paduan of Physicians in London modelled on School. John Morgan, born in Phila­ Italian institutions. delphia in 1735, where he received The efforts of the group of Oxonian the degree of a.b. from the College * Einstein, L. The Italian Renaissance in * Spielman, M. H. The Iconography of England. New York, Columbia Univ. Press. Andrus Vesalius, 1514-1564. London, 1925. of Philadelphia in 1757, went to Copernicus, the great astronomer, Europe in 1760 to pursue his medical was a student at Padua from 1501 to study. He spent five years in Europe 1504 and regularly matriculated in and when he came back to Phila­ the Faculty of medicine; there seems delphia delivered his famous “Dis­ to be little doubt that the discovery course upon the Institution of Medical of the heliocentric system of the Schools in America” (1765), which Universe can be dated from Padua. was the most important contribution Padua was the foremost school for to the foundation of medical schools non-Catholic students to whom in­ in the United States. In his “Journal” scription in the university of Cracow he tells of his visit to Morgagni, in was forbidden. The greatest Polish July 1764. Morgagni showed him physicians of the Renaissance were pu­ many interesting preparations, told pils of the Paduan university: Joseph him of his new discoveries and Struthius, who was physician of the King Sigmond August of Holland . . . He was so good as to do me the and was considered one of the most honour of making me a present of his late learned men of that country, was publication, two volumes in folio “De one of the most illustrious Paduan sedibus et causis morborum,” of which there have been three different editions pupils. within the three years, being in the highest Not less important was the part estimation throughout all Europe, and all of French students; Monsieur de Mon­ copies of the late edition already bought taigne tells us in his diary that in 1580 up. more than 100 French gentlemen lived in Padua in order to frequent the Very noteworthy is the importance schools. in Padua of the Polish students, The government of the Republic especially in the sixteenth century defended with the greatest authority when after the spread of the Reforma­ the rights of the students who could tion in Germany it was necessary for freely send embassies to the Doge of the Polish students to go to Italy in Venice. When Pope Pius iv published order to complete their studies. Be­ the Bull “In sacrosancta” which pro­ tween the years 1544 and 1550 a hibited non-Catholic students from great part of the teachers of the obtaining the degree in medicine which university of Cracow went to Padua, was then conferred in church and leaving their schools; a Polish his­ in the presence of the ecclesiastical torian notices that often there is to authorities, the graduate taking the be found in the acts of episcopacies oath on the gospel, the Republic of this time, near the name of certain instituted the conferment of degree high clergymen, the remark “Profi- by the authority of the college of ciens in Italiam studii gratia” (gone physicians, and to the energetic pro­ to Italy in order to study). In the test made by the Vatican, Venice high places of the kingdom only those answered through Fra’ Paolo Sarpi, who had studied at Padua could be the renowned scientist and Coun­ accepted, and we can calculate that cilor of the Republic, that it was the number of Polish students in not thought necessary that an excel­ Padua in the second half of this lent physician should be profound in century was more than 1500. Nicolaus theology. The old Paduan University had with the work of Galileo. These thus assumed with great dignity a physicians of the Renaissance, who political function. It had seen the wrere at the same time humanists, men transformation of the hall of an old of letters and artists, saw with prophe­ inn called II Bo’, namely at the Sign tic mind the solution of the great of the Bull, a name which among problems of life; the great blind man the university students is current to whose doctrines were solemnly con­ this very day, into the magnificent demned by the High Court of the historical hall in which thousands of Holy Office of the Inquisition in inscriptions and of coats of arms tell Rome had seen beyond his time the stories of masters and students. and beyond the limits of human At the end of the sixteenth century a knowledge; he affirmed that the laws great international current started of nature are written in mathematical from Padua to all the important characters and that in order to achieve centers of culture in the world. the truth it is first necessary to put ex­ The bright epoch began in Padua perience before any discussion. From with the work of Pietro d’Abano, a the Padua of the Renaissance, from physician and philosopher, had its the university where anatomical and climax with Andrea Vesalius and physiological teaching had had the Girolamo Fracastoro, the founders most important success, the beginning of anatomy and pathology, and closed of experimental science was initiated.