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The Inquisitorial Censorship of Amatus Lusitanus Centuriae

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The Inquisitorial Censorship of Amatus Lusitanus Centuriae CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Asclepio (E-Journal) Asclepio. Revista de Historia de la Medicina y de la Ciencia 70 (2), julio-diciembre 2018, p229 ISSN-L:0210-4466 http://doi.org/10.3989/asclepio.2018.13 ESTUDIOS / RESEARCH STUDIES THE INQUISITORIAL CENSORSHIP OF AMATUS LUSITANUS CENTURIAE Isilda Rodrigues University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro [email protected] ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6020-5767 Carlos Fiolhais University of Coimbra [email protected] ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1527-0738 Received: 7 March 2017; Accepted: 9 July 2018. Cómo citar este artículo/Citation: Rodrigues, Isilda; Fiolhais, Carlos (2018), “The inquisitorial censorship of Amatus Lusitanus Centuriae”, Asclepio, 70 (2): p229. https://doi.org/10.3989/asclepio.2018.13 ABSTRACT: We analyse the inquisitorial censorship expressed in expurgations of some excerpts of the Centuriae of Medicinal Cures, authored by the Portuguese physician João Rodrigues de Castelo Branco (1511-1568), better known as Amatus Lusitanus. Our sources were the Centuriae II, III and IV (bound together, Florence, 1551) and the Centuria VII (Venice, 1566), both kept in the General Library of the University of Coimbra, Portugal. For the reconstitution of the texts we resorted to other editions available online and to the modern Portuguese translation, prepared from the Bordeaux edition of 1620. We conclude that most of the censored excerpts refer to affections of sexuality, gynaecology and obstetrics, the remaining being related to matters of strictly religious nature. KEY WORDS: Amatus Lusitanus; Centuriae; Censorship; 16th century; Medicine. LA CENSURA INQUISITORIAL EN LAS CENTURIAS DE AMATUS LUSITANUS RESUMEN: En este artículo analizamos la censura inquisitorial expresada en expurgaciones de algunos extractos de Centurias de Curas Medicinales, escrito por el médico portugués João Rodrigues de Castelo Branco (1511-1568), más conocido como Amatus Lusitanus. Nuestras fuentes han sido las Centurias II, III y IV (atadas juntas, Florencia, 1551) y Centuria VII (Venecia, 1566), ambas conservadas en la Biblioteca General de la Universidad de Coimbra, Portugal. Para la reconstitución de los textos recurrimos a otras ediciones disponibles online y a la nueva traducción portuguesa, preparada a partir de la edición de Burdeos de 1620. Concluimos que la mayoría de los extractos censurados se refieren a afecciones de sexualidad, ginecología y obstetricia, el resto se relacionan con asuntos de naturaleza estrictamente religiosa. PALABRAS CLAVE: Amatus Lusitanus; Centurias; Censura; siglo XVI; Medicina. Copyright: © 2018 CSIC. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License. ISILDA RODRIGUES Y CARLOS FIOLHAIS AMATUS LUSITANUS AND THE CENTURIAE Figure 1. Cover of Historia plantarum universalis, by Johann Bauhin and Johann Heinrich Cherler. Amatus João Rodrigues de Castelo Branco (1511-1568), the face appears in a medallion in the left hand side, be- Portuguese Jew who signed his works with the name low, together with those of Pietro Andrea Mattioli or Amatus Lusitanus, was one of the greatest figures of Matthiolus (1500-1577) and Guillandinus, with the medicine of the 16th century (Guerra, 1989; Rodrigues subtitle “Dissentimus” (“we disagree”, a reference and Fiolhais, 2013). Recognized in life, his fame contin- to a violent polemic between Amatus and Mattioli; ued posthumously as shown by the publication of his Guimarães, 2013) face along with those of other famous doctors such as Dioscorides, Pliny and Galen in the frontispiece of the Historia plantarum universalis1 by the Swiss botanists and physicians Johann Bauhin (1541-1612) and Johann Heinrich Cherler (1570-1610) (Fig. 1). Having lived most of his life in exile, errant in territories which belong to- day to the Belgium, Italy, Croatia and Greece, his servic- es were requested by notables as great and diverse as the Pope, the king of Poland, the authorities of the city- state of Ragusa (nowadays Dubrovnik) and the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. His intellectual capacity and his knowledge of medical and pharmacological matters were so wide that he appeared often confronting not only classic authors, but also prominent contemporary peers like, including Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564), the Belgian Professor of Anatomy at the University of Pad- ua, author of De Humani Corporis Fabrica2, who is con- sidered the founder of modern medicine (Rodrigues and Fiolhais, 2015). The work of Amatus has been studied by many re- searchers. Among the non-Portuguese authors who published works on him we list, not being exhaustive, in chronological order: Max Salomon (1901), Harry Friedenwald (1937, 1955), Pietro Capparoni (1941), Joshua Otto Leibowitz (1953, 1958, 1968), Jacob Sei- de (1955), Joseph Néhama (1955), Hirsh Rudy (1931, 1955), Nick Spyros Papaspyros (1964), Luigi Samog- gia (1966), Lavoslav Glesinger (1968), Hrvoje Tartalja recent papers on aspects of the troubled Amatus bi- (1985), Maria Luz López Terrada and Vicente Salavert ography (Andrade, 2010 and 2012). Fabiani (1999), Lycurgo Santos Filho (1991), Dov Front (1998, 2001), Marija-Ana Dürrigl and Stella Fatovic- Amatus main work, the Curatiorum Medicinalium 4 Ferencic (2002), Jurica Bacic et al. (2002), Alfredo centuriae (Fig. 2) (”Centuriae of medical cures”), is a Pérez Alencart (2005), and Michal Altbauer-Rudnik remarkable work of medicine of the 16th century, as (2009). The Portuguese literature on him is vaster: shown by the large number of editions that followed an updated reference is the recent compilation of the original ones (at least 57 editions are known of works done by João Rui Pita and Ana Leonor Pereira parts or of the whole work; Rodrigues, 2005). The first (2015). Some new publications appeared associated one came out in Florence in 1551 and the seventh in to the celebration, held in 2011, of the 5th centenary Salonica in 1561. Each of the seven Centuriae holds of Amatus birth (Morais, 2011 and Caderno, 20123). one hundred clinical cases, as the title indicates. Each A recent academic project which focused on his bo- case, that Amatus called Cure (Curatio), presents the tanical works, namely comments on Dioscorides, gave story of a patient and indicates the treatment select- rise to two volumes containing various contributions ed according to the clinical picture observed by the coordinated by António Andrade et al. (Andrade et al., author. The clinical evolution is described, in general 2013 and 2015). From the same author see also two accompanied by comments based on his extensive 2 Asclepio, 70 (2), julio-diciembre 2018, p229. ISSN-L: 0210-4466. https://doi.org/10.3989/asclepio.2018.13 THE INQUISITORIAL CENSORSHIP OF AMATUS LUSITANUS CENTURIAE Figure 2. Cover of the book Curationum medicinalium centuriae septem... quibus praemissa est commentatio de introitu medici ad aegrotantem, deque crisi & diebus decretorijs. (Burdigalae: Gilberti Vernoy, 1620). This posthu- mous edition encompasses all Centuriae. A note in the frontispiece indicates that the book has been expurgated medical background. In these comments, the Portu- readers. Pedro Laín Entralgo (1989) remarks that, in guese doctor evokes several classical and contem- the 16th and 17th centuries, not only Amatus but vari- porary authorities, discusses the effect of drugs and ous other European doctors cultivated a new medical attributes the changes to treatments, depending on literature genre, based on case narratives and more the characteristics of the patient and the progression geared for understanding based on seeing and doing. of the disease. The range of topics of the Curatio is Gianna Pomata calls this genre Observationes and extremely vast, including anatomy, clinic, surgery, stresses his historical relevance when she writes that therapy, technical inventions, and new drugs, from “it had become a primary form of medical writing in preparation to administration. the 18th century” (Pomata, 2010; Class, 2014). On this issue it useful to see the discussion of the notebooks The Centuriae belongs to the History of Science for of the Swiss physician Georg Handsch (1520-1595), a the originality of its contents as well as for its well- contemporary of Amatus (Solberg, 2013). thought organization. Amatus clearly deviates from the classic structure of the medical treatises of the Amato lived at a time when the Inquisition was epoch, adopting instead an organization of materials increasing its influence in Southern Europe (Bethen- that will become common from the 17th century on: court, 1994; Marcocci and Paiva, 2013). It is well- the style of a “logbook”, with no clear separation of known that the Centuriae have been at some point topics, noting the cases of patients who come to doc- prohibited by the Inquisition (macrocensorship) and tors’ hands in all relevant aspects: diagnostic, therapy later authorized only after some expurgations,i.e., the and result. His presentation style and language make erasement of selected excerpts (microcensorship). In this script of clinical cases a reference handbook that the sequel of some recent works on the Inquisitori- could be useful in discussions in academic and medi- al macro and microcensorship (Front, 2001; Baudry, cal circles as well as to satisfy the curiosity and help 2012; Costa, 2013), we analyse here the censorship expanding the knowledge of educated layers, if they suffered by this work in the Iberian Peninsula, on the could read Latin, the lingua franca of science at that basis of three copies of the Centuriae (II-IV, Florence, time. The clear and detailed presentation shows the 15655; VII, Lyon, 15656; and I-VII, Bordeaux, 16207) authors concern about informing different types of kept at the General Library of the University of Coim- Asclepio, 70 (2), julio-diciembre 2018, p229. ISSN-L: 0210-4466. https://doi.org/10.3989/asclepio.2018.13 3 ISILDA RODRIGUES Y CARLOS FIOLHAIS bra, Portugal (this historical library also owns the first in which ca. 700 books were censored, was published Centuria of 15518) comparing them with editions of at the behest of Inquisitor Fernando de Valdés y Salas.
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