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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.

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