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Home , Dioscorides (Stoic), Galenic corpus, Social cleansing, Taddeo Alderotti, Tetrabiblos, Tommaso Garzoni

The Pennsylvania State University

The Graduate School

College of the Liberal Arts

THE SECRETS OF HEALTH; VIEWS ON HEALING FROM THE EVERYDAY LEVEL TO THE PRINTING PRESSES IN EARLY MODERN 1500-1650

A Dissertation in

History

by

John Gordon Visconti

@ 2009 John Gordon Visconti

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of

August 2009

ii

The dissertation of John Gordon Visconti was reviewed and approved* by the following:

Ronnie Hsia Edwin Earle Sparks of History Dissertation Co-Advisor Chair of Committee

A. Gregg Roeber Professor of Early Modern History and Religious Studies Dissertation Co-Advisor Interim Head of the Department of History

Tijana Krstic Assistant Professor of Early Modern History Dissertation Co-Advisor

Melissa W. Wright Associate Professor in and in the Program of Women's Studies

*Signatures are on file in the Graduate School

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Abstract

In early modern Venice, and, to a large extent, the entire European continent, medical practitioners from a wide variety of social levels shared many similar and common assumptions about the body, health, sickness and healing. Ideas regarding moderation in lifestyle, physiological balance within the body, the need to physically eliminate badness from the sick body, and the significance of temperature, moisture and dryness, can be found in healing practices across the social spectrum. The that the human body and the heavenly were divinely linked and that good health depended upon a harmonious relationship with can be found at all different social levels of early modern . The main reason for these similarities is that ideas about such things, even at the most scholarly levels, were intuitively derived, intellectually plausible, and commonsensical, hence, they occurred to many different people.

Modern historians of medicine impose artificial distinctions upon early modern healing,

dividing medical practitioners, knowledge, and healing practices up into separate categories for

their own organizational needs. medical did much the same thing.

During the early modern period, scholarly medicine suffered a discursive crisis. In a period of professional upheaval characterized by the expansion and fragmentation of their field, the major players in Renaissance universities investigated the past, seeking by which to affirm

and secure their own scholarly positions at the expense of others. Both then and now, the stories

such people produce oversimplify the rich and complex history of early modern medicine and pigeon-hole its practitioners into narrow stereotypes.

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Table of Contents

Introduction. Divide and Distinguish: An Anatomy of Historical Writing on Early Modern European Healing………………………………………………………1

Chapter 1. Scholarly Medicine during the Late Italian Renaissance: Historical Roots, Tradition and Change…………………………………………………….………28

Chapter 2. Humors, Complexion, Spirits and Energy: The Technical Side of a Philosophical System; Galenic Medicine during the Late Renaissance..…..…………..108

Chapter 3. The Secrets of a Sixteenth-Century Venetian Woman: Isabella Cortese and Alchemical Medicine………………………………………………………………169

Chapter 4. Boundaries, Turf Wars, and Scathing Critiques: Various Types of Medical Practitioners Examine Each Other, 1550-1680………………………….…219

Chapter 5. Regulating the Venetian Medical Marketplace: Charlatans, Mountebanks, Empirics, and Apothecaries—The Institutions that Governed Them and the Laws that Policed Them, 1500–1700……………………………….…..290

Conclusion. The Secrets of Health: Early Modern Views on Healing…………………336

Bibliography………………………………………………………………………...….368 v

List of Figures

“The Humoural System”…...... 136 vi

Abbreviations

ASV Archivio di Stato di Venezia ASP Archivio di Stato di Padua ASF Archivio di Stato di Firenze BNM Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venezia

b. / bb. busta /e fol. folio r. recto v. verso vol. volume vii

Acknowledgements

Completing this dissertation required nine years of work. I incurred many debts during those years. Funds from Penn State University partially offset my research expenses during my abroad. Monies from the Josephine B. Weiss endowment and the Sparks scholarship helped me considerably. But without the support, encouragement, guidance and technical assistance of approximately two dozen people, this project may never have been completed. I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation to the teachers, colleagues, classmates, family and friends that helped me reach the finish line.

No two scholars directly shaped and influenced my academic interests more than Guido

Ruggiero and Ronnie Hsia. After completing an MA degree under his tutelage at the University of Miami, Guido Ruggiero encouraged me to pursue a doctorate at Penn State. Guido served as my thesis advisor for three years in Pennsylvania, before moving on to pursue other interests.

Fortunately, Professor Ronnie Hsia willingly took over as my graduate advisor and thesis chair.

During our years together, Dr Hsia provided first-rate mentoring, professional support and nurturing friendship. I shall always be grateful to both these gentlemen.

Many other scholars contributed to my academic development. The list is long, but I would like to thank, in no particular order, Melissa Wright, Gregg Roeber, Tijana Krstic,

Federico Barbierato, Stephen Ortega, Robert Proctor, Miriam Bodian, Greg Eghigian, Laura

McGough, Michael Krenn and the late Edward L. Dreyer. My interest in early modern natural philosophy in general, and the history of healing in particular, was greatly shaped by Katherine

Park, Steven F. Harris and William Eamon. Rebecca Totaro, Mary Fissell and Deborah Harkness viii taught me a great deal about medicine, health and healing during the early modern period.

Jennifer Silver provided invaluable technical support during the construction of my dissertation.

My years of research in Venice were aided immensely by the guidance and teaching of

Professor Federico Barbierato. Federico’s tireless support helped me overcome the linguistic and paleographical challenges of the Venetian archives. Perhaps more importantly, the friendship offered by Federico’s family, his parents Mario and Irene Barbierato, his wife Chiara and their daughter Daria, helped sustain me throughout those years. Much the same can be said for my friendship with Silvia Ferreti. I will always remember the time we shared together.

I would never have pursued a doctorate without the encouragement and support of my close friend Stephen Ortega. My interest in early modern European history grew up alongside

Dr. Ortega’s work during the late 1990s. But my personal trials and tribulations with graduate coursework, archival research and dissertation writing were made more enjoyable by my dialogue with Stephen throughout the years. In 2002, when a personal problem unrelated to scholarship threatened my studies, Stephen, Nancy and Ana Ortega provided the friendship and support necessary to help me weather the storm. My friend Leah Vincent also helped me through this difficult period. Thank you.

Finally, I would like to thank my family for their unconditional support and unwavering encouragement. My parents, Frederick and Margaret Visconti, have been a tower of strength during my fifteen years of graduate school. My wife, Sarah Lawrence, endured many sacrifices for the sake of my dissertation during our first several years together. In fact, Sarah’s loving support has been the most important influence on my dissertation. Our daughter, Veronica, arrived exactly one month prior to my oral defense. Her arrival has been rather inspiring. 1

Introduction

Divide and Distinguish: An Anatomy of Historical Writing on Early Modern European Healing

This dissertation examines medicine and healing in early modern Venice from 1500 through 1650. Despite its primary focus on Venice, this work will also consider knowledge and ideas regarding the body, health, and sickness among a wide variety of medical practitioners throughout . It will examine university-based medicine and neo-scholarly medical knowledge among amateur healers at the margins of academic society. It will also consider what previous generations of historians called ‘popular healing,’ or methods of curing illness among ordinary people, at the everyday level of life and living. Each chapter considers alleged similarities and differences among various types of prominent healers in early modern

Europe through consultations of contemporary sources. To avoid confusion and distance myself from a potentially pejorative term, I shall refer to the final category described above not as

‘popular healing,’ but as ‘vernacular healing.’

Although Venice shall be at the center of this investigation, many non-Italian sources shall also be considered, and much of this work shall touch upon ideas associated with general western European medicine during the late Renaissance. Venice, in fact, represented something of a ‘European capital of medicine’ during the early modern period. The Venetian ’s

University of Padua, which shall be examined closely in my first two chapters, may have been

Europe’s most influential medical school during the period under consideration. The Republic’s great rate of commercial activity ensured that most major medicines flowed through Venice’s borders. In addition, Venice supported a tremendous early modern publishing industry, from

which poured an eclectic source of learned, neo-scholarly, and vernacular literature on medicine, 2 health, and healing. Virtually all of looked to Venice for innovation within the field of medicine, while nearly all phenomena related to healing within Europe gained expression within the vast borders of the Republic. In short, one learns a great deal about early modern

European health and healing when focusing upon the in Renaissance Venice.

My first task shall be to describe the various ways historians have recently thought about

Renaissance medicine, how historical writing on the has changed, and the forces that

influenced such transformations. After this important bit of table-setting, I shall provide a survey

of scholarly medicine during the late Italian Renaissance. Chapter 1 discusses the historical

roots, traditions, and forces of change affecting university-based medicine during the late

sixteenth century. I contend that during the early modern period, scholarly medicine represented

a bricolage of many different traditions; a wide variety of disparate ideas, not easily

reconciled with each other, were tenuously held together by broader ideas concerning tradition,

expedience and authority. Medical science taught in late Renaissance universities represented an

amalgam of Aristotelian philosophy, Galenic/Hippocratic medical theory and Thomist ,

transmitted in a manner heavily influenced by the educational philosophy and pedagogical

methods of scholastic commentary. But Aristotelian philosophy as understood during the

Renaissance only vaguely resembled the master’s original teaching. Galenic

medicine, as shall be thoroughly explained in Chapter 1, represented a strategically conceived

mixing of several different bodies of knowledge, where questions of and utility

imposed upon interpretation and development. Implicit within both Aristotelian philosophy, as

conceived during the late Renaissance, and Galenic medical knowledge, as understood in the

sixteenth century, were strands of irreconcilable thought, profoundly troubling contradictions,

and controversial questions. 3

By examining scholarly Renaissance medicine from its ancient roots, down through its centuries of evolution and transformation, right up until the major controversies which dominated the period considered in this paper, I hope to develop a critical perspective from which to consider historical writing on medicine. I argue that during learned medicine’s discursive crisis in the late Renaissance, the major medical scholars at universities responded in much the same way modern historians of medicine have done; both generations of scholars re- examined the distant past, seeking information by which to affirm and secure their own professional positions at the expense of others, producing partial, rhetorical, and reductive portrayals of western medicine. Both then and now, when faced with a sea-change within their respective fields (modern historians of medicine, as shall be explained below, have recently witnessed tremendous change within their discipline), scholars produced partial stories of medicine’s history, while stereotyping various medical practitioners into overly narrow compartments.

The second chapter carefully analyzes Hippocratic/Galenic medicine, or late-Renaissance manifestations of ‘humoural theory,’ which, as explained above, occupied the inside track in a field of competing medical during the period under consideration. My goal, in part, shall be to describe and explain the body of knowledge and sets of practices taught in late

Renaissance medical schools. Here, readers will learn of the blood, phlegm, yellow and black bile of humoural theory. My sources shall include early modern texts, and the ancient texts upon which they draw, during the Renaissance. A good deal of the chapter shall be devoted to the technical aspects of a humoural medicine, which actually constituted a total philosophical system.

But in a larger sense, Chapter 2 represents a history of ideas. This section explores the 4 ideational relationship between ’s four humours and the ancient European theories of based on four ‘elements’—air, earth, fire and water—and four ‘’—hot, cold, moist, and dry. The chapter considers the ancient western of ‘correspondence,’ often associated with Hermetic and Neo-Platonic philosophy, and its place within Humoural theory.

The chapter describes how Renaissance medical philosophers combined of

‘correspondence’ and relationships among the basic conceptual principles within the humoural model, which were all borrowed from ancient Empedoclean and Aristotelian teachings, to produce within humoural theory.

In Chapter 2, I shall emphasize the fact that pre-modern views of the body, health, and

healing were not necessarily derived from systematic investigation of the body itself. Humoural

theory, in fact, has always been influenced by a great deal of thought outside purely corporeal

and physiological considerations. Many of the model’s fundamental principles—the virtues it

celebrated, such as ‘balance,’ ‘moderation’ and ‘harmony,’ and the vices it warned against, such

as ‘passion,’ ‘overindulgence’ and ‘disorder’—were reinforced in a wide variety of human

activities. Since many of humoural theory’s basic tenets were intuitively plausible,

commonsensical, and self-evident, they struck a wide variety of people as entirely reasonable.

This constitutes an important reason why so many healers separated by vast spans of space and

time have commonly shared so many ideas.

The style of medicine considered in Chapter 3 would appear, at first glance, to differ

considerably from official Renaissance medicine. The third chapter, in fact, differs significantly

from the first two chapters described above. But before talking about difference and distinction,

it shall be necessary to take a step back and consider how modern scholars typically think about 5 the history of medicine. Perceptions of ‘difference,’ as shall be explained below, seem to be the operative .

The next several sections of this introductory chapter shall consider historical writing on medicine and healing in early modern Europe. As I shall argue, previous historians seem to have missed the eerily similar fashion in which early modern people from widely different backgrounds viewed nature, heaven, the cosmos, and the human body in the context of healing.

It is my contention that fundamental similarities, common assumptions, and shared sets of practices emerged and endured among healers at the various social levels in Venice throughout

the early modern period.

* * * * *

Framing consistent theoretical models and establishing meaningful historical criteria for

understanding early modern European healing represents a daunting task. Virtually all early

modern people sought cures for illness. As in the modern world, the basic challenges of

establishing and maintaining health touched nearly every aspect of early modern life. From

Hippocrates right down to contemporary disputes between social and cultural historians, scholars

of medicine have always faced one fundamental challenge: bringing order to a vast array of

unwieldy phenomena. The nature of these organizational challenges has directly shaped the

methodological approaches and theoretical models devised by historians of medicine.

Attempting to organize their historical knowledge, many scholars adopt methods of

compartmentalization, distinguishing approaches to healing and styles of medicinal practice in

order to compare and contrast the similarities and differences among various healers. Doing so 6 necessitates devising organizational such as “medical practitioner” to categorize styles of healing practices. A heuristic category like “medical practitioner” generally describes the educational backgrounds, methodological practices, and professional affiliations, among other things, of a given set of healers. Hence, we read of the university-educated “learned ,” the “barber surgeon,” the apothecary, and the self-styled “empiric.” 1 Some aspects of this category, such as educational background, defy concise description. Consequently, the general metaphysical and epistemological foundations shaping a given healer’s intellectual orientation become categories themselves. Hence, we learn of “religious healing,” “astrological healing,” and “natural magicians” who cure illness. 2 Categories such as “university-educated learned physician” and “licensed medical doctor” can only be reified in contradistinction to perceived

opposites; hence, when reading of legitimately sanctioned and legally authorized healers we also

learn of “quacks” and “charlatans.” 3 Furthermore, weighty categories like “religious healing”

and “natural magic,” packed with meaning and implications regarding spiritual values and

cosmological beliefs, often include practitioners who came under ecclesiastical review, provoked

scholarly debate, or suffered rigid censorship during the early modern period. Both then and

now, when reading of “natural magic” for the purposes of healing, we learn of “black magic,”

and, inevitably, “.” The fact that medicinal practices associated with the categories

discussed above—religious, astrological, and magical healing—varied considerably at different

social levels brings greater complexity to historical reconstructions. The scholarly quest to

accurately describe and characterize healers inevitably results in more labels and categories.

1 The list of relevant examples is long and shall be developed throughout this dissertation. For now, let us consider French, Medicine before Science: The Business of Medicine from the Middle-Ages to the Enlightenment . 2 Grafton, Cardano’s Cosmos: The Worlds and Works of a Renaissance Astrologer. See also Siraisi, The Clock and the Mirror, and Shumaker, Natural Magic and Modern Science.. 3 Porter, Quacks, Fakers & Charlatans in Medicine, and Mirabella, Female Mountebanks and the Negotiation of the Public Space in Early Modern Europe. 7

Hence, we read of “exorcists,” “cunning women,” and “popular religious healing.” 4

These dilemmas of description are not purely the products of poorly conceived historical theorizing. Many medical practitioners did pursue legal licenses to sanction their legitimacy, some early modern healers were tried for witchcraft, and some ordained clerics did perform rituals of exorcism to cure the sick. In fact, many of the labels and categories deployed by contemporary scholars, like “barber surgeon,” “charlatan,” and “witch,” derive from terms used during the early modern period. But the point is that the images of early modern healers and styles of medicinal practice described by contemporary historians have been defined in opposition to each other and subsequently compared. Faced with the challenge of organizing inquiries into a vast sea of fundamentally similar yet significantly different sets of practices, historians have felt compelled to divide and distinguish. Compartments of individual healers and categories of healing styles have concretized in opposition to each other with perceptions of difference serving as their principle basis of specificity. Similarities among “different” styles of healers or shared practices across “distinct” styles of healing serve as fodder for investigations into matters of “influence,” “cultural transmission,” “diffusion,” “adaptation,” or “syncretism.”

In the pages that follow, I would like to discuss some of the shortcomings that have resulted from such approaches to historical reconstruction. In order to do so, it shall be necessary to describe the various ways the history of early modern medicine has been written, how these histories have changed, and the forces that shaped and molded such transformations.

* * * * *

4 Gentilcore, Healers and Healing in Early Modern , and Nagy, Popular Medicine in Seventeenth-Century England. 8

“Traditional histories of medicine” may broadly describe the original genre of scholarly writing within this field. Traditional histories generally describe the lives and scholarship of medicine’s most influential practitioners and researchers. Here, we learn of Hippocrates (c. 450- c. 370 BC), Dioscorides (1 st century AD), (AD 129-c. 200), Joannitius (809-877), Rhazes

(865-925), (980–1037), Arnald of Villanova (1240-1311), (1493-1541),

Andreas Vesalius (1504–1554), William Harvey (1578-1657), Joan Baptista van Helmont (1579-

1644), and Thomas Sydenham (1624-89), to name a few. “Great men” and “great ideas” represent the subjects of this literature. Traditional historians of medicine typically trace theories of the body, health, sickness, and healing practices in the West from their ancient Greek origins, to their exportation to Muslim lands, their re-importation, translation, and subsequent development in Europe (beginning roughly in the twelfth century), and their alleged radical transformation during the period covered in this dissertation. With its emphasis on canonical writings and the significance of translation, the field is textually driven and heavily influenced by philological and etymological considerations. These histories construe medical theory as the product of highly intellectualized debate among scholars, and, like the famous men and canonical texts they investigate, traditional historians of medicine concentrate more on medical theory than actual applied medical practices. 5

Traditional historians generally view the medical teaching of early modern Christian

European universities as one component of a large educational framework, or a subordinate field

submerged in a constraining theoretical matrix dominated by philosophy and theology. In this

sense, early modern medical theory is understood as a product or manifestation of Christian

5The list of relevant examples is long and shall be developed throughout this dissertation. For now, let us consider Bates, ed. Knowledge and the Scholarly Medical Traditions, and Maclean, , Signs and Nature in the Renaissance. See also Siraisi, History, Medicine and the Traditions of Renaissance Learning.

9 thought, rather than an innovative discipline. Viewing medicine as an outgrowth of Christian logic and natural philosophy, traditional historians typically stress the strong ties that existed among a variety of early modern discursive formations in their examinations of medicinal theory.

For example, learned astrological medicine viewed the human body as a microcosm of the universe—an idea prevalent in much early modern natural philosophy. Furthermore, the four humours of humoral theory—blood, phlegm, red bile, and black bile—relate directly to the four basic elements of the Aristotelian universe: earth, air, water, and fire. Emphasizing these relationships allows traditional historians to consider the impact of transformations in natural philosophy, such as the alleged shift from the Aristotelian three-tiered universe and hierarchically ordered cosmos to the mechanistic view of nature, on early modern medicinal theory. In this regard, the story of medicine serves as a crucial theater in the scholarly industry known as the “scientific revolution.”

When analyzing the evolution of western medicinal theory, traditional historians typically emphasize the significance of major intellectual trends and their ideological manifestations during the early modern period. The intellectual movements known as and represent two common examples. Scholasticism and its pedagogical method, which may be described as a formula for fulfilling ’s theory of knowledge—the proper ordering of accepted first principles proceeded by rational argument to demonstrate universally valid conclusions—represented a reactionary influence on the teaching of early modern medicine. For scholastics, properly ordered medicinal knowledge conformed to ancient sources, regardless of the of contemporary healers. Humanism may be simply defined as an early modern style of emphasizing the precise interpretation of language for the sake of understanding ancient texts. In the early modern period, humanists typically attacked 10 scholastic theory as it related to medicine. For many humanists, scholastics uncritically accepted sloppy, imperfect translations of ancient texts contaminated by Islamic languages. By emphasizing such intellectual quarrels, traditional historians often portray early modern medicinal theory as the product of clashes among competing schools of thought, rather than the victory of one group of enlightened thinkers over another less informed collection. 6

Nevertheless, the master narrative, or grand schema for organizing the interpretation and writing of most of these histories, has been a story of progress. Detailing the genius of a relatively small number of scholarly men, traditional historians ultimately reconstruct the genesis of ideas that yielded greater clarity and more realistic understanding of the human body, health, sickness, and healing to the most learned levels of early modern society. Interpreting the past with regards to the present, traditional histories tend to seek those strands of early modern thought presumably constituting the “origins” of modern medical theory. 7 Hence, although as

linguistically rich, detailed, and engaging as the genius they describe, many traditional histories

of medicine seem vulnerable to Butterfield’s critique of whiggish interpretation. 8

Social historians of medicine have concentrated more on medicinal practices and methods of healing and less on the theoretical underpinnings of learned medicine than their colleagues who write traditional histories. Many social histories attempt to determine what particular styles of healing were commonly practiced at specific levels of a given social order.

Whether examining epidemics, spiritually informed public rituals dedicated to health, or the organization and dissemination of state sponsored medical services within a given community, social histories emphasize the significance of social relationships in health-related phenomena.

6 McVaugh and Siraisi, eds., Renaissance Medical Learning: Evolution of a Tradition. 7 Porter, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind . 8 Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History . Butterfield warned that historical reconstructions must not interpret the past with regard to the present. For Butterfield, history should not be viewed as a series of victories or blunders along the high road of progress to the glorious present. 11

Social historians tend to organize inquiries into medicinal practices along hierarchically ordered models of . Such investigations often focus on the institutions into which certain medical practitioners organized themselves, such as the guild, corporation, or “society.”

The rules, regulations, and governing principles within such institutions often describe medicinal practices and approaches to healing. In addition, the social and economic backgrounds of the members of these groups, to the extent that they may be discerned, may shed light on the types of healing practices deployed at specific levels of the social order.

Closely related to the institutions organized by medical practitioners to advance their

collective interests are the corresponding legal structures empowered to police healing practices,

such as the health magistracy, the board of health, or the church. Many social histories of

medicine rely heavily on such bodies for sources. In much of early modern Europe, state

institutions such as London’s “College of ,” Venice’s “ Collegio degli Medici ,” or

Bologna’s “ Protomedicato ,” were assigned, from time to time, the right to license medical practitioners and oversee medicinal practices. In the early modern French cities of Paris and

Montpellier, the faculties of medicine at the major universities were empowered to examine and

license all medical practitioners within their borders. In fact, all of these institutions grew out of universities. For example, ’s “ Protomedicato ” was the judicial arm of the city’s College

of Medicine. 9 Examining the statutory law, legal proceedings, trial cases, and political culture of these institutions, social historians attempt to shed light on perceptions of healing and the medicinal practices, including those deemed acceptable and those prohibited by legal authorities, among healers examined by these bodies.

The underlying assumption framing social histories of medicine is that healing takes place within social contexts, hence, must be understood sociologically. Social historians of

9 See Pomata, La promessa di guarigione . 12 medicine may consider the theoretical components of a given medical tradition, but their stories will ultimately detail the appropriation and adaptation of that tradition within the structures, institutions, social relationships, and ways of life within a given community. Since social historians of medicine tend to search for various styles of healing at different social levels, it is fair to say that these scholars think of medicinal theory in plural terms. At first glance, this would seem to represent a crucial difference between traditional and social histories of medicine— while the former’s exclusive concentration on the “official medicine” of university essentially made scholarly medicine synonymous with “medicinal theory,” the latter’s insertion of medicinal theory into the social order produced a contextual notion of medical history. If the traditional scholar’s history of early modern medicine resembled a path to the present, the social historian’s untidy collection of countless stories seemed to have no particular direction.

Nevertheless, upon closer examination, it seems that until fairly recently, social historians

were heavily influenced by the approaches to historical writing established by the traditional

school. Social historians analyzed the values, beliefs, assumptions, and general knowledge of

various medical practitioners against the larger backdrop of learned, university-based, medicinal

theory. For sources, as indicated above, these scholars consulted legal codes, professional

associations, state institutions, and contemporary publications on early modern medicine.

Whether examining a university-based institution co-opted into a state judicial system or the

legal rhetoric composing a local guild’s charter, social historians consistently dwelled in a

labyrinth of official, political, and propagandistic sources. Even attempts to concentrate on

theoretically non-learned medical practitioners such as the “self-styled empiric” remained partial

when the technical criteria deployed to identify such practitioners relied on legal codes,

educational attainment, and professional affiliations. With “official medicine,” or university- 13 sanctioned, learned medicinal theory, serving as the backdrop against which all healing methods were ultimately understood, healing at the everyday level of early modern life was inevitably portrayed as a pale emulation or watered-down version of “high culture.” 10

The dichotomous image of two opposing medical worlds, one composed of university- educated, licensed, and legitimate practitioners of “official” medicine and the other consisting of the uneducated amateur, quack, or charlatan, which seems to have existed since the earliest histories of medicine, remained the basic framework for most scholarly writing on healing right up until the 1960s. 11 About forty years ago, however, more social historians began to study medicine, and transformations in social history, which shall be described below, changed the way they wrote about healing. Broadly speaking, two main trends began to emerge—one style maintained the dichotomy of “” versus “popular” (a term fashionable at the time but disregarded now) medicine, but argued that views on healing at the everyday level represented more than just poor imitations of learned medicine; views on healing among ordinary folks had a genesis, origin, and evolutionary history quite distinct from the beliefs and practices of university-trained physicians. The second school argued that a much broader collection of individuals actually engaged in the activities previously thought to be the domain of the learned physician; the apothecary and the barber surgeon gave medical advice, the herbalist sold medical remedies, the astrologer and magician, both learned and without formal education, saw clients strictly for the purpose of curing their illnesses; hence, the boundaries once thought to separate

10 Gentilcore, Healers and Healing in Early Modern Italy ; Brockliss and Jones, The Medical World of Early Modern France; and Cook, The Decline of the Old Medical Regime in Stuart London . 11 The popularity of this “high-low” framework gained more attention among social historians with the publication of Carlo Ginzburg’s Il formaggio ed I vermi: il cosmo di un mugnaio del ‘500 (1976) , translated into English and published in 1980 as The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller . The book detailed the story of a miller tried by the Inquisition for heretical views regarding the origin of the universe. Although interpretations varied, for many, Ginzburg seemed to argue that the cosmological views of an ordinary miller represented more than a watered-down view of official religion and learned theology. This type of analysis was readily mapped onto a wide variety of topics in social and cultural history, both in Europe and the United States. 14 levels of medical practice were more fluid than previously believed. By 1987, W. F. Bynum and

Roy Porter were able to confidently suggest that “the frontiers between orthodox and unorthodox medicine have [always] been flexible….So mobile have been their boundaries, that one age’s quackery has often become another’s orthodoxy.” 12 As Mary Lindemann noted, this idea implied

that the views on healing possessed by the apothecary, surgeon, charlatan, cunning woman,

“quack,” and university-trained physician might not have differed all that much. 13

The first school’s point of view dovetailed neatly with contemporary trends in the larger history of science. As Steven Shapin pointed out, during this period, many historians of early modern natural philosophy began to investigate the concrete human practices by which ideas or concepts were constructed. “What do people do when they make or confirm an observation, prove a theorem, or perform an experiment?” became a crucial question. 14 The history of science

as a history of -making practices encouraged scholars to investigate the wide variety of

ways people of different social levels produced knowledge. The view of the scientific revolution

as consisting primarily of a series of highly intellectualized theoretical debates among scholars

came under fire. According to the new views, a wide variety of voices informed debate in early

modern natural philosophy. The artisan’s technical skills, the inventor’s knack for practicality,

the homemaker’s folkloric recipe, all participated, at one time or another, in the same giant project—working on nature to improve the human condition. 15

The second school’s point of view, with its emphasis on the broader collection of individuals involved in early modern healing activities, also helped open the door for the wider variety of scholars interested in the history of medicine. But unlike the first school’s interest in

12 Bynum and Porter, eds., Medical Fringe and Medical Orthodoxy, 1. 13 Lindemann, Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe , 194. 14 Shapin, The Scientific Revolution , 4. 15 This point of view is emphasized in William Eamon’s Science and the Secrets of Nature. Many of Eamon’s sources and documents deal with aspects of healing. 15 all those “players,” for lack of a more precise term, who contributed to the actual construction of medicinal knowledge and healing practices, the second school investigated healing activities as cultural phenomena, emphasizing a variety of new perspectives and raising a plethora of new questions in the process. For example, anthropologists of medicine investigated the multiple roles and perspectives of the patient and sufferer in healing activities. 16 Feminist historians

studied midwifery to shed light on early modern gender relationships and the sexual division of

labor within medical practices. 17 Historians of science dedicated to extending the definition of the social influences upon the production of scientific knowledge (such scholars are sometimes called “externalists”) began to reconstruct stories of medicine and healing, emphasizing the push and pull of religious, political, and economic interests upon early modern medical practitioners.

In short, in its social, cultural, and practical aspects, medicinal and healing practices gained newfound appreciation among historians of early modern Europe. By the 1970s, many historians felt that studying perceptions of the body, health, sickness, and healing might reveal a great deal about life and living in the early modern period. As more social historians began to study sickness and health, medicine and healing as historical categories became subsumed into social history. Histories of medicine became subjected to larger forces of change within the historical profession. Indeed, the radical transformations within social history during the later part of the twentieth century produced new critical perspectives among scholars within the field, many of whom cast doubt on the of all previous histories of medicine.

* * * * *

Virtually every scholarly work on early modern medicine written in the last two decades

16 Porter, ed., Patients and Practitioners. 17 Donnison, Midwives and Medical Men. 16 argues that sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe did not suffer a poor ratio of medical practitioners to everyday citizens. Despite misconceptions to the contrary, Renaissance Europe suffered no dearth of healers. More extensive research, new types of questions, and expanded conceptions of therapeutic practices have uncovered the previously unappreciated healers. In recent years, scholars have taken up the task of organizing their historical knowledge about the newly discovered medical practitioners. 18

Consulting diaries of midwives, memoirs of gravely ill people, inquisition records of heretical healers, treatises on magic and witchcraft, recipe books of folkloric remedies, and advertisements of non-learned healers takes historians in different directions, where little or no common ground exists with which to construct general conclusions about early modern medicine. 19 On the other hand, consulting the legal codes of institutions designed to police medical practice, examining the regulations of structures used to organize various medical practitioners, and reading the published works of early modern learned physicians critiquing contemporary medical practices, allows historians to more neatly distinguish approaches to healing during the Renaissance. 20 The challenge of bringing order to a vast array of disparate phenomena encourages historians of medicine to concentrate on the latter group of sources.

Distinguishing approaches to healing and styles of medicinal practice in order to compare

and contrast the similarities and differences among various healers has emerged as the

operational strategy among historians of medicine. Nouns such as “boundaries” and verbs such

as “separate,” “distinguish,” and “discern” appear frequently in such histories, as scholars

attempt to “draw lines” among medical practitioners.

18 Fissell, Patients, Power and the Poor in Eighteenth-Century Bristol. 19 There are many examples. For now, let us consider Ruggiero, Binding Passions: Tales of Magic, Marriage and Power at the End of the Renaissance. 20 Gentilcore, Medical Charlatanism in Early Modern Italy ; Garcia-Ballester, Medical Licensing and Learning in Fourteenth-Century Valencia, Pomata, La promessa di guarigione. 17

Consider the analytical disposition revealed in the language of William Eamon’s discussion of late sixteenth-century sickness and healing:

Since the line between demonic possession and of natural origin was often

difficult to draw, exorcists and physicians vied over contested jurisdictions. This

ambiguity of social roles and professional identities made it possible for popular healers

to appropriate the role of exorcist, and for exorcists to play the role of doctor. 21

The desire to establish boundaries based on perceived differences may be more keenly

appreciated in the work of David Gentilcore. In describing early seventeenth-century licensed physicians in Italy, Gentilcore explains:

Physicians were specialists of internal medicine, but avoided all manual activities.

There was a tendency for physicians to define themselves in terms of what they were

not and what they did not do. There were not apothecaries or surgeons, whose art was

mechanical and whose knowledge was acquired by apprenticeship or, in the case of

some surgeons, training at hospitals. And physicians were most certainly not empirics,

though the public may not always have been aware of the distinction. 22

Interestingly, Gentilcore’s conclusions regarding the early seventeenth century do not fit

neatly with Nancy Siraisi’s observations regarding thirteenth-, fourteenth-, and fifteenth-century

Italian medicine. Siraisi argues that in late medieval and the earliest stages of the

21 Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, 189. 22 Gentilcore, Healers and Healing in Early Modern Italy , 58. Italics appear in original text. 18

Renaissance, “the separation of medicine and surgery seems to have been least marked in Italy.”

The professional separation between medicine and surgery became sharp and strongly

enforced in northern Europe, where craft surgical traditions and the academic study of

medicine appear to have grown up much more independently of one another than was

the case in Italy. 23

Degrees of separation notwithstanding, the point is that Eamon, Gentilcore, and Siraisi all

seek to divide and distinguish medical practitioners and healing practices. If we skip ahead to the

eighteenth century, we find that Mary Lindemann deploys the same analytical disposition for a

survey of European healing, even if she complains about the difficulty in doing so:

Overall, it appears that people in the eighteenth century were less willing than their

ancestors to attribute their problems to spells, cures, or the evil eye, or were unwilling

to do so publicly. Indeed, if they continued to consult magicians or cunning-men and

women (who were now much thinner on the ground because of significant changes in

village structures and the increasing involvement of central governments in local

affairs), they carefully avoided mentioning it. Sympathetic cures remained more

popular, but the boundaries between magical and the natural here are exceedingly

difficult to discern. 24

The research of Siraisi, Gentilcore, and Lindemann relies heavily on legal codes,

23 Siraisi, Medieval & Early Renaissance Medicine, 178-79. 24 Lindemann, Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe, 21. 19 government regulations, and the official sanctioning of medical practitioners. Many recent histories of medicine, in fact, deal with the regulation of commerce within the medical marketplace. In the case of early modern Venice, Michelle Laughran, John Henderson, and

Richard Palmer, among others, have examined the policing and legal regulation of drugs and remedies. Consulting the Public Health Office ( Provveditori alla Sanita ), the College of

Physicians ( Collegio Dei Medici ), and the College of Apothecaries ( Collegio Degli Spezieri ), these scholars examine the licensing of people to sell drugs, the sanctioning of patents for specific remedies, and the prosecution of unlicensed medical practitioners. These historians attempt to demonstrate how various players below the level of licensed physicians, such as apothecaries or self-styled empirics, tried to solidify their standing within the social, political, and economic order of Venetian society. 25 They also attempt to neatly categorize healers into

tidy compartments of historical identity. Their research, methodology, and style of analysis has been structural, quantitative, and positivistic. Gentilcore has established a “Charlatan’s

Database” which lists 1,596 licenses issued to 1,075 different charlatans over 250 years of the

early modern period. Quite simply, for Gentilcore, a “charlatan” is someone with a “charlatan’s

license.”

In the fifth chapter of this dissertation, I examine the Venetian Republic’s attempt to police medical commerce and healing activities. “Regulating the Venetian Medical Marketplace:

Charlatans, Mountebanks, Empirics and Apothecaries—The Institutions that Governed Them

and the Laws that Policed Them, 1500-1700” describes the Republic’s attempt to control an ever

25 See the following works by David Gentilcore: Healers and Healing in Early Modern Italy ; “Apothecaries, Charlatans, and the Medical Marketplace in Italy, 1400-1700;” and “For the Protection of Those Who Have Both Shop and Home in this City.” See also Palmer, “Pharmacy in the Republic of Venice;” Gentilcore, "Charlatans, Mountebanks, and Other Similar People;” Katritzky, "Marketing Medicine: The Image of the Early Modern Mountebank;" and Marchini, ed., I mali e I rimedi della Serenissima and Le leggi di sanita della Repubblica di Venezia . 20 expanding medical marketplace. I focus upon the non-learned healers lacking university degrees, but the chapter sheds light upon the activities associated with a variety of healers across the

Venetian social spectrum. The view gleaned from the perspective of state regulation provides an important conceptual lens from which to consider the various healing practices used to cure early modern illness. But my chapter fundamentally differs from the recent histories described above.

Briefly, I suggest that most of the commercial exchange within the early modern

Venetian medical marketplace took place outside the state apparatus of legal oversight and beyond the scrutiny of public regulation. In Renaissance Venice, a much greater variety of drugs, remedies, and healing prescriptions existed than can be understood by surveys of statutory law.

Hence, unlike the studies described above, my chapter emphasizes the limits of studying state regulation and legal policing of early modern medicine. The studies of an early modern Health

Office might give us an idea of the political objectives, administrative goals, and medical fantasies of a Renaissance legal institution. If we consult other relevant sources in conjunction with these records, however, and consider the political culture in which these laws were conceived, different images of early modern healing seem to emerge. Reflections of Renaissance urban dwellers, reviews of non-scholarly medical publications, and studies of early modern popular culture raise questions not easily reconciled with pronouncements of statuary law.

Acknowledging the limits of documentary evidence left by legal institutions may help us avoid the tendency to impose overly structural conceptualizations of healing back onto the early modern period. The world of Renaissance medicine and the sum total of early modern healing practices bear little resemblance to the stated goals and legal ideals of a typical sixteenth- or seventeenth-century European Health Office. By emphasizing the political culture of early modern patronage society and its influence on the state regulation of the medical marketplace, I 21 open the door to new perspectives on healing practices among the various social levels of

Venetian society.

Historians need not rely upon statutory law, legal records of state regulation, and the

charters of guilds and corporations to investigate the various levels of healing practices within

early modern Europe. Licensed doctors and university published explicit critiques of

contemporary medical practice throughout the Renaissance. For example, in 1578 Laurent

Joubert, the chancellor of the University of Montpellier’s Faculty of Medicine, issued a critique

of medicinal practices among non-learned healers entitled Erreurs populaires . Joubert’s polemic,

which emphasized the differences between professional scholarly medicine and amateur practice,

represented the start of an interesting trend. Indeed, the professor from Montpellier encouraged

licensed physicians throughout Europe to record errors among untrained healers for the purposes

of waging medical war. Over the next several generations, scholarly physicians responded, publishing critiques of fraudulent practice among amateur healers while underscoring the

exclusive legitimacy of university-trained doctors. These ideological attacks represented the self- promotional rhetoric of a professional class seeking to advance their interests at the expense of

their competition.

But enemies of official medicine also wrote books. Neo-scholarly healers, with some

university training but no degree, often attacked their former mentors. Authors of self-help

medical books, remedy vendors, disgruntled professors, and subversive complained

about the tyranny of professional medicine and the misguided ways of scholarly doctors. Hence,

a great deal of information may be gleaned about the various types of Renaissance healers by

looking directly at the books they published about each other.

The fourth chapter of this dissertation considers such sources. “Boundaries, Turf Wars 22 and Scathing Critiques: Various Types of Medical Practitioners Examine Each Other, 1550-

1680” analyzes some of the similarities and differences among prominent Renaissance healers by going straight to contemporary testimony. I use a variety of printed texts to uncover the basic assumptions, common sets of therapeutic practice, and popular remedies deployed by healers at the various social levels of early modern society. The self-promotional rhetoric and ideological critiques exchanged by certain healers are examined to shed light upon the differences said to exist between the various camps of medical practitioners. But like my section on state regulation, this chapter emphasizes the limits of the documentary evidence at hand.

My concern is that uncritical reading of sources like Laurent Joubert’s Erreurs populaires

does more harm than good. The purely dichotomous, binary arrangement of Joubert’s medical

world into two distinct camps—official, sanctioned, scholarly medicine versus illegitimate,

fraudulent, unqualified quackery—affords historians the tightly formatted, readily discernible

conceptual frameworks they think they need to organize their knowledge about the past.

Unfortunately, such readings and styles of analysis ignore more than they consider and

ultimately encourage us to oversimplify the complexity of early modern healing practices. In

Chapter 4, I encourage historians to analyze Joubert’s text as a rhetorical construction. Similarly,

I suggest that contemporary reactions to Joubert’s diatribe be read through the lens of the literary

critic. If we take the sweeping rejection of scholarly medicine by vernacular healers at face

value, we fail to appreciate all those areas in which such men and women did proceed from

university-based perceptions, unconsciously or otherwise, regarding health and healing. The

chapter attempts to critically examine how modern historians typically think about early modern

European medicine.

The third chapter of this dissertation carefully examines a healer who seems to reside 23 between the poles of scholarly and quack. Chapter 3, “The Secrets of a Sixteenth-Century

Venetian Woman: Isabella Cortese and Alchemical Medicine,” features a close reading of an

obscure sixteenth-century natural . By carefully analyzing the metaphysical,

epistemological, and ontological foundations of Cortese’s work, I try to gain insights regarding

the major influences on her natural philosophy. Through a critical reading of Cortese’s biographical passages, I contemplate the social, cultural, political, and economic factors that may

have pulled her work in certain directions. I conclude that Cortese remained heavily influenced by some aspects of learned alchemical medical philosophy. My chapter demonstrates how

strands of Hermetic, Neo-Platonic, and Paracelsian thought appear throughout Cortese’s work.

But this Venetian woman’s theories never conform to any coherent, systematic medical ideology.

The eclectic nature of Cortese’s text has strong epistemological implications for early

modern healing. Unrestrained by reconciliation with any unifying theory, Cortese remained free

to consider ideas from a wide range of sources and to use them however she saw fit. This seems

to be a distinguishing among neo-scholarly Renaissance natural philosophers. However, I

suggest one overarching idea did seem rather important to Isabella Cortese. The notion that

nature, or the universe, heavens, and stars, somehow existed in a meaningful relationship with

the human body, represents a fairly consistent theme in Cortese’s medical literature. In this

dissertation, I suggest that various interpretations of the Neo-Platonic microcosm/macrocosm

theory, which held that the human body represented a miniaturized emulation of the heavenly

cosmos, influenced healers at every level of early modern European society. This crucial idea, as

shall be explained over the next several chapters, represented one of many fundamental

similarities among healers from various educational backgrounds, social class, and cultural

contexts. 24

As a natural philosopher and early modern healer, Isabella Cortese defies neat categorization. But people have tried. The sixteenth-century critic Tommaso Garzoni, as shall be described in Chapter 3, called her one of the “ professori de’ secreti .” Four hundred years later, the “professors of secrets” still receive a healthy amount of scholarly attention from European and American historians of natural philosophy. This dissertation carefully examines several of these natural philosophers, although collectively dubbing them a “group” or a “school” imposes an artificial coherence upon the past. Nevertheless, a few words about the “professors of secrets” shall be necessary here.

During the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries a flood of books, commonly known as “ i libri di secreti ,” flowed from Venetian printing presses. The “books of secrets” tended to consist of annotated recipes, formulas, methods and techniques for solving problems in everyday life. Many of these books concerned the body, sickness, health, and healing. They were generally written by amateur natural philosophers who had some advanced education or formal training with a specific art, such as medicine, , or , but were not necessarily recognized as authorities within their fields. The “professors of secrets” rarely obtained positions in royal courts, university appointments, or work in academies of learning. For example, professors of secrets writing about healing were often former medical students who had never gained licenses to practice medicine.

Many of “ i libri di secreti ” contain an interesting blend of neo-scholarly erudition and artisanal practicality. Much contemporary scholarship on this literary tradition, if we may call it a tradition, assumes that the contents of these volumes made their way down the social scale, into everyday culture and ordinary society. In his influential work Science and the Secrets of Nature:

Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture , William Eamon implies that the 25 professors of secrets demystified the artisanal techniques of non-learned empirical healers,

making their methods more intelligible to more people, including scholars and aristocrats higher

up on the social scale. Once the university-educated students of natural philosophy came to

understand the nuts and bolts of the technician’s tricks, physicians, surgeons, alchemists,

, and the like came to believe that vast groups of people were actually working on

the same project—the investigation and exploitation of nature to solve human problems. 26

Thinkers associated with the “professors of secrets” remain a conundrum for historians interested in stereotyping the natural philosophers of the past. For that reason, several such figures have drawn my attention. The lives and work of Leonardo Fioravanti (1518-1588),

Girolamo Ruscelli (1500-1566), Giambattista Della Porta (1535-1615), and, of course, Isabella

Cortese shall be discussed throughout most of this dissertation. The significance of a group that defies categorization resides at the heart of this thesis.

* * * * *

This dissertation has been written in two parts. The first part, which basically includes the first two chapters, represents a history of ideas regarding scholarly medicine. These sections consider the epistemological and metaphysical components of university based medicine during the late Renaissance. In a sense, the first part of this paper concerns the theoretical side of pre- modern European medicine. But ‘Part One’ also constitutes a sketch of the historical evolution of a learned tradition. Perhaps the most important overarching idea within the first part of this dissertation can be summed up as follows: the way medical history has been written in the past resembles and affects the way we write about the history of medicine today.

26 Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature . 26

If Part One represents the theoretical side of a learned tradition, the second part of this dissertation concerns the practical side of early modern European medicine. The final chapters of this paper consider applied medicine, healing practices, and the of medical practitioners within social contexts. More specifically, the second half of this dissertation focuses upon vernacular rather than scholarly healing.

In the final sections of this paper, I have attempted to understand healing in previous centuries the way a modern medical anthropologist would understand healing today. My goal has been to listen more closely than previous historians of medicine. I have tried to move away from a style of writing influenced by the conceptual and discursive qualities of medicine as a science.

Instead, I have focused upon the political culture in which healing phenomena unfolded. I have tried to read medical publications the way a literary critic would read modern texts, as rhetorical constructions, rather than historical representations of an unambiguous past. In short, I have tried to understand the human phenomena of healing, rather than the art of medicine, in all its social and cultural manifestations.

Unfortunately, the gap between the history of medicine as an intellectual discipline on the one hand, and stories about healing on the other, can be rather formidable. In Chapter 2, readers will learn how scholarly medicine’s curious relationship between ‘theoretical’ and ‘practical’ studies represented a controversial subject during the late Renaissance. Contemporary critics blasted humoural medicine for the glaring inconsistencies between its theoretical foundation and its practical application. Searching for solutions, sixteenth-century historians of medicine discovered the dilemma had ancient roots. The problem also has modern manifestations.

In fact, the distinction between and relationships among scholarly physicians and vernacular healers remains a loaded question in historical writing on the Renaissance. Until fairly 27 recently, as described above, the history of medicine, as a field, concentrated on the learned medicine of universities. When ‘social histories of medicine’ grew out of ‘traditional histories of medicine,’ a shift in historical writing occurred. Since social historians emphasized the different styles of medical practice at various social levels, their work challenged the correspondence between learned theoretical medicine and applied therapeutics. In a sense, the history of medicine expanded into the history of healing.

But this expansion can lead to unwieldy historical writing. These organizational challenges have influenced historians to divide, distinguish, and categorize knowledge and practitioners in reductive fashion. In the process, a wide range of fundamental similarities, common assumptions, and shared sets of healing practices among people separated by vast spans of space and time have been obscured.

28

Chapter One

Scholarly Medicine during the Late Italian Renaissance: Historical Roots, Tradition and Change

Let us imagine, for the sake of narrative, a young man leaving his native Venice to embark upon a program of medical training at the University of Padua. The year is 1566.

Giacomo Baldini is twenty-four years old. During the final preparations for his departure, the young man receives a letter from his father. “Work earnestly,” implores the elder man, “and never neglect any aspect of your studies.” Baldini’s father expresses concern for his son’s

“effortless resettlement” and hopes there will be “no problems regarding his establishment” in the region of Padua. Given the Venetian Republic’s annexation of Padua in 1405 and the strict oversight Venice imposed upon the University’s school of medicine, the young man’s transition to his new home would probably be uneventful. Sorting out the precise details of the new medical student’s first year curriculum, however, would be anything but simple. In the sixteenth century, the University of Padua’s school of medicine experienced a period of significant transformation. 1

No record of Giacomo Baldini’s academic record exists. Nevertheless, we may safely assume the young Venetian’s studies included the following: (1) Christianized Aristotelian logic,

(2) a thorough examination of the “Hippocratic/Galenic system” of medicine, or “humoral theory,” which shall be examined in detail in the following chapter, (3) a consideration of Arabic medical learning, almost certainly centered on the Canon of Avicenna, (4) and its

1 The University of Padua began to seriously organize its approach to medical education around 1260. See Siraisi, Arts and Science at Padua, 23. The Venetian Republic started treating the University of Padua like the Empire’s official medical school in the late fifteenth century, while the Venetian Senate began selecting professors and organizing curriculum following the War of Cambrai around 1517. See Bylebyl, “The School of Padua,” 342-343. See also Randall, “The Development of the Scientific Method at the School of Padua,” 177-206. 29 implications regarding health and healing, and (5) physiology and anatomical dissection. If the first year medical student could not function in , he would have to master the language on the fly. 2 But in any language, Baldini could not be blamed if he found the instructional methods of his mentors confusing, for in the latter part of the sixteenth-century the European university system experienced a period of pedagogical transition. The medieval system of disputatious exhibition, characterized by two or more scholars engaged in vigorous debate largely for the benefit of an audience of students, gradually lost ground to the demonstrative methods of

instruction more closely associated with the modern university system. In some courses, teaching

methods relied upon active student participation, observation and experimentation for the purposes of learning. Diverse pedagogical methods—dialectical, authoritarian, textual,

observational, participatory and experimental—both complemented and competed with each

other in the early modern European medical school. Methods of instruction seem to have varied

from course to course and from year to year. 3

But one thing did not change: the sources consulted were generally quite old. Ancient texts served as the foundation of early modern medical education. In this sense, medical school during the Renaissance possessed an academically conservative, reactionary orientation. The medical university passed along well-established, time-honored traditions of learning. By the sixteenth century, most of the major concepts and therapeutic methods derived from such ideas taught in European medical schools had been originally conceived at least 1300 years before.

2 In the Paduan University system students had to study the liberal arts and classic languages for at least three years in order to qualify as bachelors of science and to progress to the stage of actually learning some medicine. Hence, Baldini must have studied Latin prior to embarking upon his medical education. Nevertheless, in the medical program, he would be expected to master texts translated entirely into Latin and often composed in esoteric, complex language. See Bylebyl, “The School of Padua,” 335-370. 3 See Siraisi, Medicine and the Italian Universities, especially the Introduction, 1-11; “Medical Scholasticism and the Historian,” 140-157; and “Renaissance Readers and Avicenna’s Organization of Medical Knowledge,” 203-206. Carefully conceived verbal exchange among experts for the benefit of an audience of students was often called “agonistic debate.” See also Pedersen, “Tradition and Innovation,” 451-488. 30

Organized “debate” concerning assigned reading, if we may call it debate, generally served to highlight major ideas in selected ancient texts. Even anatomical dissection was less investigative and more demonstrative in its pedagogical purpose; while the surgeon hacked away, the professor directed attention to the evidence supporting ideas outlined in the distant past. 4

Nevertheless, within the larger context of reverence for ancient learning, seeds of change were growing. Like the pedagogical philosophy and educational methodology of Renaissance universities, the very content of medical knowledge taught in early modern schools was transforming in the late sixteenth century. Essential components of traditionally held medical belief came under fire during these years. Firstly, late sixteenth-century medical philosophers began offering a wider variety of interpretations regarding the canonical texts upon which

Renaissance medicine depended. Much of the cohesiveness and consensus of opinion among previous generations of scholars dissolved in the new climate of debate and dispute which characterized professorial discourse during the late Renaissance. Secondly, new trends within literary criticism encouraged many scholars to look critically at the refurbished texts circulating in early modern universities. “Humanists,” as shall be more fully described below, argued that ancient Greek and Roman medical teachings had been contaminated or hopelessly altered by the series of linguistic translations accompanying their exportation to eastern Arabic lands shortly after the decline of the and their subsequent re-importation by western Europeans in the later part of the medieval period. Thirdly, many sixteenth-century medical philosophers began to argue that learned European medicine was overly dependent upon logic, too theoretical, too subtle and insufficiently empirical to have any meaningful value. Finally, under fire from a wide variety of scholarly attacks, the Aristotelian tradition, the intellectual system upon which

Renaissance natural philosophy depended for its most basic models of logical theorizing, began

4 Park, “The Criminal and the Saintly Body,” 7. 31 to come apart. In 1566, first-year medical student Giacomo Baldini might well have appreciated a general outline and introductory discussion of these issues prior to his first class. Such a discussion shall be attempted in this chapter, over four centuries later.

* * * * *

How can we best understand the body of knowledge implied by the phrase “learned early modern European medicine”? What corpora of learning did Renaissance medical students actually study at university? What were the sources of this knowledge? How were early modern students taught to process the information presented in their medical courses? Which philosophies of education and theories of knowledge prevailed in Renaissance universities? How can we characterize the major debates, divisions, and points of controversy among medical philosophers within early modern medical schools?

Properly answering these questions requires historical contextualization. This chapter provides a concise survey of how scholarly medicine during the late Renaissance actually took shape. In the pages that follow I shall offer a general outline of learned, official, university-based early modern medicine from its ancient roots, down through its centuries of evolution and transformation, right up until the major controversies surrounding humoural theory echoed through the classroom walls of Giacomo Baldini’s day. Against the backdrop of this broad survey, a critical perspective from which to consider all those questions raised above may emerge.

As most students of Western Civilization know, the basis of learned early modern

European medicine was Greek in origin. In fact, late medieval views of physical phenomena, nature, and the cosmos were graphically altered by the rediscovery or re-importation of ancient 32

Greek philosophy by western European scholars in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries.

Aristotelian logic, Socratic and Platonic philosophy, Ptolemaic astronomy, and Euclidean geometry, to name a few modes of knowledge construction, provided the theoretical frameworks for Renaissance , , and physics. A newfound appreciation for ancient

Greek medicine, which had been neglected in Europe for centuries, emerged around the same time and had a significant influence on Renaissance education as well.

Medical treatises constitute some of the oldest surviving examples of Greek scientific

writing. 5 and Aristotle mention a learned man named Hippocrates who taught medicine for a fee and wrote books on the subject of healing. 6 Tradition places his birth in 460 B.C. Most historians of medicine agree that the major written works attributed to Hippocrates were produced between 430 and 330 B.C. Hence, we know subsequent generations of learned men organized, compiled, and synthesized Hippocratic works while probably writing under the pen name of Hippocrates. The most comprehensive volume of Hippocratic teachings contained in a single text may be found in a work entitled .7 But the more complete range of

Hippocratic writings, or the Hippocratic corpus , seems to be a collection of early Greek medical

manuscripts organized and named by a librarian from . The collection itself is quite possibly the remains of an ancient medical library.8

Long regarded as the “Father of Western Medicine,” Hippocrates stands in relation to the

science of healing as does to the science of astronomy. Both men were far from accurate

in much of their fundamental thinking, but they approached their subjects systematically, and

5 Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine , 1. Historian of medicine Noga Arikha goes so far as to say that “the art of medicine and philosophy were born at the same time.” See Arikha, Passions and Tempers, 6. 6 Lloyd, ed., Hippocratic Writings , 9. 7See Keller’s Introduction to Hippocrates’ The Theory and Practice of Medicine . 8 French, Medicine before Science , 10. Approximately sixty treatises attributed to Hippocrates date from the late fifth or early fourth century BC. 33 their work provided frameworks for rigorous study among future generations. The Hippocratic collection provides the earliest written examples of meticulously recorded observations, descriptions of patient testimony, and the compilation of data gleaned from collective experiences. The Hippocratic project of recording and organizing information gleaned from rigorous observation raised the possibility of systematic physiological theorizing. Previous forms of healing, or at least previous recorded forms, were entirely spiritual or religious in orientation.

Religious healing would continue to flourish in ancient times and beyond, but Hippocratic approaches to understanding illness marked the birth of “rational medicine.” 9

By moving perceptions of the body, health, sickness, and healing outside the purely

spiritual or supernatural realm, Hippocrates placed medicine on the mantle of a rational, logical,

organized approach to knowledge construction. Just as the ancient Greek philosopher

Empedocles attempted to organize ideas regarding the physical world around concepts of four

elements, so Hippocrates established a conceptual basis for understanding the body based upon

the idea of four basic bodily fluids. 10 Humoural theory and the four humours—blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile—became the cornerstone of Hippocratic medicine.

In Hippocratic medical philosophy, a “humour” ( compositione ) may be best understood

as a physiological concoction of fluid particular to the living organism to which it belongs;

humours represent the specific bodily fluids essential to the physical functioning of an organism.

The status, nature, and quality of interaction among the bodily humours governed an organism’s

9 As shall be discussed below, catchwords like “rational” or phrases like “rational doctor” can be dangerous in the history of medicine. “Rational medicine” can easily mean different things to different scholars. For now, “rational doctor” is meant to imply a healer who views the body as a thing to be examined; for the rational doctor, bodily processes are governed by a readily understandable logic that can be empirically appreciated. Furthermore, the rational doctor believes the body can and will respond to physical and material intervention. The label becomes less tidy and more complex when we consider the rationalist’s faith in empirically derived experience as compared to his use of philosophical logic. Most traditional historians of medicine use this question to divide “rationalists” into several competing camps. 10 Kingsley, , Mystery and Magic, 4. 34 health. This gave medicine something of a mechanical basis; health could be sustained by maintaining the balance of the four basic bodily fluids. 11 For Hippocrates, the body represented a microcosm of the cosmos. The natural state of proper health mirrored the harmony of a well- ordered universe. Moderation in all things—rest, exercise, nutritional intake—and a properly ordered lifestyle maintained the harmonious balance necessary to sustain the natural state of health. 12 Humoural theory gained acceptance and popularity, thanks, in no small part, to the

career of Galen of Pergamon.

Born in Hellenistic Greece, Galen (c. AD 129-200) became physician to the young

Commodus, son of Roman Emperor , and something of a modern day “Surgeon

General” of the Roman Empire. In his address to the Venetian College of Physicians four

hundred years after Galen’s death, Fabius Paulinus described the ancient Greek scholar as

“Prince of the Physicians, second only to Hippocrates.” 13 Galen spent much of his professional

life gathering medical treatises, synthesizing the teachings of others, and publishing edited

commentaries of Hippocratic works, most notably the Aphorisms , which Galen considered

essential. With this work, Galen claimed to be “perfecting medicine,” and his emphasis on theory

aided the movement towards a conceptualization of medicine in terms of specific books. 14 By

AD 500 in the Greek city of Alexandria, there existed a standard syllabus of Hippocratic texts

(mostly those celebrated by Galen) and a Galenic canon, which came to be known as “the 16

11 Humoural theory shall be examined in much closer detail in chap. 2 of this dissertation. For a brief discussion of Hippocratic influence on the fundamental aspects of humoural theory described above, see Ball, The Devil’s Doctor , 52-53. 12 See Nutton, “Medicine in the Greek World,” 11-33, especially 23. 13 Address by Fabius Paulinus to the Venetian College of Physicians, printed in Galeni Opera ex nona lutarum Editione, xvi-xvii. 14 Nutton, “From Galen to Galenism,” 81. See also Nutton, Ancient Medicine , especially “The Life and Career of Galen,” 216-230, and “Galenic Medicine,” 230-248. 35 books.” 15

Galen may have sought legitimacy via Hippocratic association. The Pergamonian physician often attributed his ideas to Hippocratic texts and justified his methods with

Hippocratic reasoning. Although Galen amended much of Hippocrates’ writings and issued debatable interpretations of many Hippocratic principles, he insisted upon the supremacy of

Hippocratic doctrine throughout his life. “Hippocrates was the first known to us of all those who have been both physicians and philosophers,” wrote Galen in AD 191. “I do not know that any one could add anything wiser than what has been said by Hippocrates,” he later concluded.16 As

Galen’s career matured and a core of basic themes emerged in his writings, an image of a

medical man took shape; to quote Roger French, “Galen was the Rational Doctor: the body was

capable of understood and responded to intervention.” 17 Hippocratic inspiration had

transformed into Galenic conviction.

But the five hundred years that separated the death of Hippocrates from the birth of Galen

included the life of Aristotle (384-322 BC). During Galen’s scholarly career, much academic

thought conformed to systems of logic, methods of deductive reasoning, and formulas for

argument fashioned by Plato’s most famous student. Viewed by many as the “Father of Western

Philosophy,” Aristotle’s basic epistemological, metaphysical, and ontological views directly

influenced Galen’s medical teaching. 18 Almost 1500 years later, when Giacomo Baldini would

have entered the medical school at Padua, thoroughly transformed Galenic thought cloaked in a

15 The Galenic Canon, or “the 16 books,” are listed as follows: 1) On sects, 2) Art of medicine, 3) Short book on the pulse, 4) Method of healing, 5) Collection I: Anatomy for beginners, On bones, On muscles, Collection II: The books of causes and symptoms, 10) On affected places, 11) Collection III: The 16 books on the pulse, 12) On the difference between fevers, 13) On crises, 14) On critical days, 15) Method of healing, 16) On the preservation of health. 16 Galen, On the Natural Faculties, bk. 1, 13:175 . The second part of the quotation is taken from bk. 2, 8: 193. See Hutchins, ed., Hippocrates and Galen: Great Books of the Western World . 17 French, Medicine before Science , 41. 18 Barnes, Aristotle , 1. See also Walsh, “Galen’s Writings and Influence Inspiring Them.” 36 revised Christian would enjoy the inside track in a field of competing medical philosophies.

Aristotle might not have recognized the sixteenth-century medicinal discourse

encountered by Giacomo Baldini, but the ancient Greek master’s interest and curiosity would

have been aroused. Aristotle was, in a sense, a medical man. His interests in biology led him to

investigate and contemplate the human body, health, sickness and healing. But he was also a botanist, zoologist, mathematician, political scientist, legal scholar, and psychologist, who wrote

about logic and the arts and sciences. As a scholar-philosopher-teacher, Aristotle believed the art

of medicine to be a subset of natural philosophy. The view held strong down through the ages of

learned western medicine.

As a natural philosopher, Aristotle outlined schema for the objects of scientific inquiry

and the methods by which fruitful investigation may proceed. Aristotelian philosophy prescribed

rigorous epistemological models for the processes of reasoning, demonstration, and verification.

For Aristotle, the purpose of science was to show the connection between an and its cause.

Showing the connection between the “that” and the “why,” as we shall see below, is what

Aristotle termed “demonstration.”

Like and Hippocrates before him, Aristotle liked sets of principles that came

in fours. Much Aristotelian inquiry proceeded from his theory of the four causes: material,

formal, efficient, and final. Every existing object possessed a “material cause,” which is the

matter from which it is composed. For Aristotle, it is impossible to say “what a thing is,” without

asking, “What brought this thing into being?” Hence, the material cause of an object produces

the question, “Out of what has the thing come?” The “formal cause” referred to the discernible

form that defines the object. “What is the object?” became the question most closely associated 37 with the formal cause. The “efficient cause” referred to the agent that produced the transition from material to formal. But inquiries into the formal cause of an object also produce the question, “What is the object meant to be?” The “final cause” concerned the purpose for which such action was completed. 19 These conceptual principles would greatly influence how learned medical men thought about the human body in the early Christian era and throughout the late medieval and early modern period.

If we jump ahead to Giacomo Baldini’s first semester at Padua in 1566, we see the

Aristotelian influence in the earliest pages of a required text. In Book I, Chapter 2 of Avicenna’s

Canon , we find the following under the heading “The Subject of Medicine”:

Since medicine considers the human body from the standpoint of how it is made

healthy and how it sickens, and since we can have knowledge of neither unless it is

known through its causes, we must in medicine know the causes of health and sickness.

Now as health and sickness and their causes are sometimes evident to the senses and

sometimes only perceived by means of evidence afforded by the various symptoms, we

must in medicine gain a knowledge of the symptoms of health and sickness. It is a

dictum of the exact sciences that knowledge of a thing is attained only through a

knowledge of the causes and the origins of the causes. Consequently, our knowledge of

health and sickness cannot be complete without an understanding both of symptoms

and of the principles of being. There are four kinds of cause: material, efficient, formal

and final. 20

19 Aristotle, . For a helpful overview and summation of the points described above, see Irwin, Aristotle’s First Principles , chap. 1. 20 Gruner, A Treatise on the Canon of Medicine of Avicenna, Incorporating a Translation of the First Book . 716. In late sixteenth-century Paduan medicine, Avicenna’s Canon generally served as a tool with which to convey Galenic 38

Hence, the significance of Aristotelian philosophy on Renaissance medicine owes much

to Aristotle’s influence on Galen in the second century AD. 21 If Galenic medicine found its inspiration in Hippocrates, its intellectual and philosophical grounding was moored in an

Aristotelian framework. Galenic perceptions of the body, health, sickness, and healing flowed from an Aristotelian view of nature. Perhaps most importantly for the story of learned western medicine, Galen derived his methods of reasoning, deduction, and verification from Aristotelian methods of knowledge construction.

This part of the story—the relationship between Hippocratic/Galenic medical theory and

knowledge construction in the Aristotelian vein—cannot be underestimated. Hence, while it is beyond the scope of this dissertation to provide a comprehensive analysis of Aristotelian logic, a

modest treatment shall be necessary here. After all, Aristotelianism arguably represents the

dominant intellectual system for the development of natural philosophy in Western history. But

there is something more. Aristotelian logic and philosophy, as understood during the early

modern period, experienced a long and complex historical evolution from its original conception

to its deployment in Renaissance universities. Questions regarding the nature of that historical

evolution constituted major controversies at the University of Padua’s medical school during the

sixteenth century.

* * * * *

Aristotle’s attempt to develop a systematic theory of knowledge represents the earliest

formal study of “logic” in western civilization. But the earliest significant influence of

Humoural theory. The Arabic text should not be confused as an alternative to Galenic/Hippocratic medical teaching in this context. 21 Walsh, “Galen’s Writings and Influence Inspiring Them.” 39

Aristotelian logic upon western thought remains debatable. We know that Aristotle left an extensive body of literature after his death in 322 BC. The Aristotelian corpus, in fact, seems to have consisted of two basic parts: one popular and one technical. The popular treatises, which seem to have been published during Aristotle’s lifetime, often consisted of “dialogues,” and pleasing narratives, free of complex language and technical jargon. Blessed with a certain literary elegance, these publications were apparently widely read until their ultimate loss toward the end of antiquity (circa 6 th century AD). Aristotle’s technical writings essentially represented a collection of lecture courses delivered at the “Lyceum” he founded in Athens. These publications were characterized by closely reasoned arguments, systematic theorizing, and detailed presentation of information. Some historians consider these technical treatises to represent an encyclopedic collection of the philosophical and scientific knowledge available during Aristotle’s day. In fact, the availability of such technical treatises may have been limited to a few academic libraries, for exclusive consultation by advanced students.22

Shortly after Aristotle’s death, philosophers and students combined several of his treatises under the title Organon (“Instrument”), suggesting this compilation comprised

Aristotelian logical theory. The list included volumes entitled: a) Categories , b) On

Interpretation , c) Prior Analytics , d) Posterior Analytics , e) Topics, and d) On Sophistical

Refutations . Western styles of inductive and deductive reasoning seem to have been gleaned from selective readings of Interpretation , Prior Analytics, and Posterior Analytics . But direct influence of works like On Politics , Rhetoric, and may be detected in a wide variety of medieval and early modern natural philosophy as well, and these works were not published and significantly disseminated until many generations after the Organon . In fact, it is safe to say that

Aristotle’s most famous works, or the “Aristotelian Corpus” as we know it, was not published

22 See Houghton, Scientific Periodicals: Their Historical Development , especially chap. 1. 40 until the 1 st century BC. 23

Whether fully published and widely disseminated shortly after Aristotle’s death or 250 years after the Greek philosopher’s demise, it is generally thought that the Arisotelian corpus exerted little influence outside the Lyceum. Hence, most historians conclude that the Aristotelian tradition represented one among several competing schools of philosophy in ancient times. In fact, by the 3 rd century AD, Aristotelianism had disappeared entirely as an independent school.

(Neo-, an intellectual system synthesizing Platonic and Aristotelian theory, rose to prominence from the 3 rd century to the 6 th century AD and indirectly kept certain ideas within the original Aristotelian corpus alive. Neo-Platonic interpretations of Aristotle’s original works represented the core of Aristotelian natural philosophy studied by medieval European scholars many centuries later). 24

In retrospect, the tremendous significance eventually assigned to Aristotelian literature and Aristotle’s place within the history of philosophy were not necessarily reflected in the earliest reactions to the ancient Greek’s work. In fact, we may legitimately ask if Aristotle, the

“Father of ,” had ever intended to construct a comprehensive theory of logic with which to outflank all competing schools of thought. 25 After all, Aristotle would not have referred to his style of logic as a “method.” For Aristotle, every investigation had its own particular subject matter, and different types of investigations necessitated different methods of procedure. Nevertheless, subsequent generations of philosophers identified theories of knowledge construction consistently found in the ancient Greek master’s literature and

23 Taylor, Aristotle . 24 See Losee, A Historical Introduction to the , chap. 1. 25 For these ideas I am indebted to my former professor Steven F. Harris. Dr Harris’s course on the Scientific Revolution provided the framework and direction for much of these pages, and I sincerely hope his book, tentatively entitled Establishing Consensus on the Constitution of Legitimate Knowledge in Early Modern Natural Philosophy will be published one day. 41 determined them to be distinctly Aristotelian. Entire generations of western medical students would be reared within the “Aristotelian tradition,” regardless of Aristotle’s original . 26

The difference between the original Aristotelian corpus and “Aristotelianism,” as it took shape in

medieval and early modern Europe, represents a crucial story in the history of learned western

medicine and shall be discussed throughout the following several sections of this chapter.

Explaining how interpretations of Aristotle’s original publications evolved into Renaissance

notions of “Aristotelianism,” however, necessitates a more detailed examination of logical

theorization in the early Aristotelian vein.

What Aristotle described as “analytics,” later generations of scholars dubbed “logic.” The

word “analysis” means to divide or “break up.” Hence, the analytic implies dividing an argument

into its various fundamental parts and examining them separately. After identifying the various

fundamental parts of an argument, the thinker considers their relationship to each other. This brings a certain mathematical element to thought processes; the thinker reasons by the addition

and subtraction of concepts within a sequence of ideas. In a sense, what Aristotelian theory did

for logic and the construction of knowledge, Hippocratic humoural theory did for medicine and perceptions of health—they both put their subjects on something of a mechanical basis.

Aristotle divided the subject of investigation into two parts: the process of discovery and

the task of demonstration. 27 “Discovery,” in the Aristotelian mode, generally consists of empirical investigation of the subject matter. What observations can be gleaned about the object of our attention? The investigator uses the four senses (Aristotelian logic emphasized seeing, hearing, touching, and smelling), takes measurements, records variations, in short, collects any data that may be relevant.

26 See Grant, Aristotelianism and the Longevity of the Medieval World View . 27 Jancar, The Philosophy of Aristotle , 35. 42

But how does one determine relevance? For the first time, reason enters into the

equation. The investigator determines which sets of characteristics, features, or observations

about the object of inquiry merit individual attention. For Aristotle, no general model for such

determination is possible; procedure depends upon the particular subject matter under

consideration. In the case of learned medicine, subsequent generations of medical philosophers

would outline the relevant characteristics, features, and types of observations worthy of note in

common forms of sickness. Hence, following Galen’s lead, medieval and early modern medical

scholars would “teach” the art of medicine, but they would do so within Aristotelian models of

logic.

Aristotle taught that as lists of noteworthy observations take shape, the possibility of

arranging sequential thought arises in the thinker’s . How can one determine the validity of

any thought sequence? Aristotle suggested the concept of “syllogism.” The “syllogistic”

represents Aristotle’s most glorified achievement as a logician. Syllogistic logic, in the

Aristotelian style, would produce the most influential theories of inference and deduction in

scholarly medicine during the Renaissance. 28

Aristotle formally described many syllogisms. The following represents a working

definition of the most basic kind: A syllogism is a formulation of words or ideas, in which, when

certain suppositions are made, something other than what was originally supposed necessarily

follows from the comparison, interaction, or combination of the original words or ideas. The

most famous and simplest syllogism is: When “A” equals “B” and “B” equals “C,” then “A”

equals “C.” 29

The great heuristic potential of the syllogism is that it expresses the relation of the terms

28 See Schmitt, Aristotle in the Renaissance . See also Kefler, “The Transformation of Aristotelianism,” 137-147. 29 Allan, The Philosophy of Aristotle , chap. 1. 43 with which we reason to one another without referring to any particular subject matter. The characters “A,” “B,” and “C” can conceivably be anything. No matter what these letters represent, the thought sequence will retain its validity, so long as one keeps “A,” “B,” and “C” in their proper place. Aristotle elaborated upon his syllogistic theory, identifying types of syllogisms (such as “assertions”), types of sentences (such as “simple” or “compound”), and types of effect various sentences have (such as “affirmation,” “denial,” or “contradiction”). For another simple but telling example, let us consider the notion of “deduction” ( sullogismos ).

Aristotle writes:

A deduction is speech in which, certain things having been supposed, something

different from those supposed results of necessity because of their being so. 30

Each of the “things supposed” represents a premise ( protasis ) of the argument. The conclusion ( sumperasma ) may be considered the “results of necessity.” Again, to cite a famous example, “A” results of necessity from “B” and “C” if it would be impossible for “A” to be false when “B” and “C” remain true.

As described above, by employing the variables “A,” “B,” and “C,” Aristotle divided the process of thought into several different parts, allowing the investigator the possibility of developing sequential relationships among the various components of the thought in question.

But in making observations, collecting facts and gathering ideas, how can the thinker gain a sense of what aspects under consideration actually govern the relationships at hand? How does the observer begin to understand which sets of facts within a certain context drive the dynamic, ultimately influencing all the other facts?

30 See Aristotle, Prior Analytics, 18-20. 44

Aristotle taught that valid thinking requires the establishment of “common ground” among the facts under consideration. He called this common ground “first principles” ( archai ).

For Aristotle, first principles represent , self-evident . Aristotle’s first principles

represent a priori axioms, whose irrefutable self-evident , upon first sight, renders further proof unnecessary. 31

Crucially, the “self-evident” nature of first principle truth depends upon observation and experience. Scientifically gleaned knowledge is true or valid because it is based on readily discernible, objective experience. If a first principle is rendered unrealistic because it is contradicted by experienced , it cannot be a valid first principle. The investigator must re- observe, re-record, and test the new set of ideas over again. This became a basic principle of scientific experiment in western civilization. It also opened the door for late Renaissance critics to claim that scholarly medicine was insufficiently empirical.

But two thousand years separated the “empiricists’ ”critique of scholarly medicine during

Giacomo Baldini’s day from the original conception of Aristotelian logic. Sixteenth-century criticism of Aristotelian influence within scholarly medicine must wait for the pages below. For now, it shall be necessary to explain Aristotle’s prescription for the relationship between first principles and larger theorization.

For Aristotle, the principle ultimately governing the facts will emerge if one makes all the relevant observations, identifies all the irrefutable facts, considers all the possible combinations of factors possible, and returns to considerations of irreversible truth. A common example concerns lunar eclipses. First, the investigator observes that on occasion, the emits no light. After experiencing enough eclipses, some basic ideas take shape: a) some heavenly bodies

31 Irwin, Aristotle’s First Principles , chap. 1. See also Allan, The Philosophy of Aristotle , 33-34. In the history of western natural philosophy, “first principles” have often been conflated with “general principles.” 45 do not generate their own light, b) the can shine light onto naturally unlit bodies, c) when something comes between the sun and a naturally unlit body, the unlit body loses its light. We notice that the moon has no light one night. Therefore, the moon must not generate its own light.

From earth, we can see the moon and we can see the sun. We hypothesize that the earth resides between the sun and the moon. In this example, the thinker has reasoned from a particular fact, to a first principle (the universal truth that “some heavenly bodies do not generate their own light”), back to the particular fact, establishing a new hypothesis (the earth must be blocking the sun’s

light from the moon; therefore the earth resides between the sun and the moon) in the process.

The scientific syllogism consists in reasoning from fact to principle back to fact. 32

In the case of the lunar eclipse, the scientific syllogism represents a “demonstration”

(apodeixis ). Aristotle defined “demonstration” as “a deduction that produces knowledge.” In

Posterior Analytics , Aristotle outlined his theory of valid demonstrations and their role in knowledge production. As described above, for Aristotle, the “demonstration” showed the connection between the “that” and the “why.”

In the balance of Posterior Analytics , Aristotle outlined his description of scientific

knowledge. We have scientific knowledge, according to Aristotle, when we know: “the cause

why the thing is, that is, the cause of this, and that this cannot be otherwise.”33 Hence, scientific knowledge is the knowledge of causes. In addition, only what is necessarily the case can be known scientifically. 34

Such ideas would be as relevant to Giacomo Baldini’s medical education as the blood,

32 See Jancar, The Philosophy of Aristotle, 38-39. 33 Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, 1.2 . 34 Aristotle’s most concise remarks concerning scientia , episteme , the nature of scientific knowledge and related ideas, can be found in Posterior Analytics, 1; Metaphysics , i. I-2, 980b21-83a23; and Nichomachean Ethics , vi. 3- 11 , 1139b14-43b17 . To summarize, scientia refers to ‘certain’ or ‘absolute’ knowledge about a distinctly defined subject, usually achieved by rational demonstrations based upon generally accepted premises (“first principles”) and leading to universally valid conclusions. 46 phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile of Hippocratic theory. But the “Aristotelian logic” Giacomo

Baldini would have encountered in 1566 would significantly differ from the theories of

knowledge originally published in Posterior Analytics .

* * * * *

Twenty centuries after Aristotle’s death and 1500 years after Galen’s demise, medical philosophers at Padua vigorously debated the nature of the relationship between Aristotelian philosophy and humoural theory. Had the shortcomings of Hippocratic teaching been reformed via reconciliation with Aristotelian logic and philosophy? Or had Hippocratic/Galenic theory been hammered into Aristotelian frameworks, with little or no regard for the purely medicinal side of such knowledge? Few agreed.

The best way to approach these basic questions, albeit superficially, might be to take a step back and broadly view the merger, integration, and relationship between these two sets of ideas (Aristotelian logic on the one hand, and Hippocratic medical theory as treated by Galen, on the other). Let us consider two basic aspects of the integration between Hippocratic and

Aristotelian theory as interpreted and subsequently developed by Galen.

On one hand, we must acknowledge the fact that Galen articulated and elaborated upon

Hippocratic teachings within an Aristotelian paradigmatic framework. Galen explained his interpretation of Hippocratic knowledge against the backdrop of the Aristotelian universe. The

Aristotelian cosmos was a finite, closed, unique material sphere completely filled with matter.

Beyond the eighth, or stellar, sphere, nothing existed. Seven enormous concentric crystalline spheres carried the planets around in their orbits. At the very center of the cosmos lay our planet, composed of the four elements of earth, water, air and fire. Combinations of these elements 47 composed all things within the world. Variations between things on earth could best be appreciated by their relative differences concerning heat, cold, dryness, and moisture. The moon’s orbit formed the line, or sphere, of demarcation separating the changeless perfection of the celestial region from the changing and imperfect terrestrial region. On this grand cosmological stage, Galen “explained” Hippocratic teaching regarding the relationship between the human body and the cosmos. Galen wrapped Hippocratic teaching in Aristotelian packaging.

This point of view seems most persuasive when we dwell upon one basic fact: Galen’s affinity for Aristotelian philosophy transcended purely medicinal ideas. Aristotelian thought appealed to Galen on metaphysical terms. For example, Aristotle’s conception of causation rested on the assumption of purpose in the universe. For Aristotle, an enduring logic governed nature. The physical world, natural phenomena and the of the universe were imbued with meaning and tended toward an end. For Aristotle, nature possessed a symmetry in which every object—every mineral, plant and animal—has a definite role in the great chain of being. 35

Similarly, Galen’s “rational medicine” evolved in a purposeful universe. For Galen, the objects of nature—every mineral, plant and animal—possessed a definitive structure, purpose, and role that could be understood and utilized by men. The intractability and pre- of matter inherent in Aristotelian thought rested at the heart of Galenic medical philosophy. 36 Hippocrates

35 Gutek, “Aristotle, Founder of Realism,” 35. 36 See Lloyd, Methods and Problems in Greek Science , especially “The Invention of Nature,” 417-434. Lloyd suggests the ancient Greek development of a theory of nature, or the view that conceives the physical world and the cosmos as ontological entities suitable for empirically driven analysis, constitutes a crucial point of departure for the major ancient Greek philosophical traditions. Once “nature” is perceived as a with a set of dynamics that can be readily understood, new styles of thinking that do not depend upon revelation for foundational knowledge emerge. Lloyd suggests that Aristotelian philosophy represented the most important of these traditions and the Aristotelian treatment of nature the most influential. If one accepts this point of view, then it is the Aristotelian influence, rather than the Hippocratic one, that first puts medicine on a rational basis. I have my doubts, considering that Hippocrates did outline a theory of microcosm/macrocosm, which perceived the human body in direct relationship with nature and the cosmos. What is indisputable, however, is that Aristotle outlined a more complex, developed, and comprehensive theory of nature, the cosmos, and the laws governing physical phenomena than Hippocrates ever did. 48 had said comparatively little about such things. 37

On the other hand, it is only fair to point out that Aristotelian philosophy and logic represented a conceptual language with which to advance ideas while Hippocratic medical theory essentially represented a body of knowledge about sickness, health and healing. Aristotelian theories of inferential and deductive knowledge construction, as we have seen in the previous section and will further explore in the following, provided methods for uncovering truths, locating answers and developing ideas. Seen in this light, the relationship between the two sets of teachings described above seems less a victory of one over the other and more the proper integration of the two. This particular view undermines the idea that Renaissance medicine represented a philosophical system in and of itself. Instead, Galen shrewdly used Aristotelian logic and philosophy to rationalize, justify, legitimize and develop Hippocratic theory.

Roger French has boldly written that “Galen had drawn his doctrine from Hippocrates,

[but] in a sense, his whole medical programme was to find Aristotelian rationality under

Hippocratic medical wisdom.” According to French, Galen’s “Good Story of the Rational and

Learned Doctor” rested on the very fundamentals of the Aristotelian world picture. “The whole purpose of Galen’s treatment of Hippocrates,” wrote French, “was to supply the physical reasons

that lay behind the great man’s medical wisdom.” 38 But that does not mean Galen thought more

seriously about Aristotelian philosophy than Hippocratic theory. It only means Galen chose

Aristotelian philosophy to frame Hippocratic teaching and Aristotelian logic to articulate and

develop Hippocratic ideas. In this sense, Galen built the edifice of Humoural (Hippocratic)

medicine with Aristotelian adobe rather than Platonic plaster or Socratic straw.

Galen explicitly addressed his relationships with Hippocrates and Aristotle in writing. If

37 See Neuberger, “An Historical Survey of the Concept of Nature,” 16-28. 38 French, Medicine before Science , 54. 49 we go directly to the printed sources, we can gain a bit of leverage on the questions raised above.

In many instances, Galen implied that “Aristotelian thought” originated with Hippocratic teaching. In other instances, Galen suggested that Aristotle improved upon ideas originally conceived by Hippocrates. For example, in Book Two of On the Natural Faculties , Galen writes,

Anyone acquainted with the writings of Aristotle, they will appear to him to consist of

commentaries on the Nature-lore [physiology; natural philosophy as it relates to

medicine] of Hippocrates—according to which the principles of heat, cold, dryness and

moisture act upon and are acted upon by one another, the hot principle being the most

active, and the cold coming next to it in power; all this was stated in the first place by

Hippocrates and secondly by Aristotle. 39

Later, in the same volume, Galen adds:

People seem to me to have read none of Aristotle’s writings, but to have heard from

others how great an authority he was on “Nature”…[but] the nature-lore of Aristotle is

shown by an enumeration of the aforesaid doctrines, which emanated first from

Hippocrates, secondly from Aristotle and thirdly from the Stoics. 40

In other areas of the text, however, Galen’s position on the subject shifts. Aristotle becomes more than just a Hippocratic emulator; Aristotle transforms into a seasoned authority that improves upon Hippocratic ideas, for example:

39 Galen, On the Natural Faculties, bk. 2, fol. 3-4. 40 Ibid. 50

I will show that these opinions were shared by Hippocrates, who lived much earlier

than Aristotle. In fact, of all those known to us who have been both physicians and

philosophers, Hippocrates was the first who took in hand to demonstrate that there are,

in all, four mutually interacting qualities, and that to the operation of these is due the

genesis and destruction of all things that come into and pass out of being. Nay, more;

Hippocrates was also the first to recognize that all these qualities undergo an intimate

mingling with one another; and at least the beginnings of the proofs to which Aristotle

later set his hand are to be found in the writings of Hippocrates. 41

Even more to the point, toward the conclusion of Book II, Galen declares:

The origin of diseases and the discovery of remedies, were correctly stated first by

Hippocrates of all writers whom we know, and were in the second place correctly

expounded upon by Aristotle. 42

But if we look beyond Galen’s explicit declarations regarding the relationship between

Hippocrates and Aristotle and simply analyze Galenic medical treatises with this question in mind, a certain undeniable emerges: Galen reconciled Hippocratic medical teaching with

Aristotelian natural philosophy. Even a facile understanding of Aristotle permits one to hear the ancient Greek’s voice in much Galenic literature. It is worth quoting at length Galen’s discussion of animal conception, fetal growth, and birth, in order to appreciate the clear influence of

Aristotelian natural philosophy:

41 Galen, On the Natural Faculties , bk. 1, fol. 2. 42 Galen, On the Natural Faculties , bk. 2, fol. 3-4. 51

The effects of Nature, then, while the animal is being formed in the womb, are all the

different parts of its body; three activities correspond to these effects, namely Genesis,

Growth, and Nutrition. Genesis is not a simple activity of Nature, but is compounded of

alteration and of shaping. Bone, nerve, veins, and all other tissues may come into

existence, the underlying substance from which the animal springs must be altered; one

would be justified in calling this substance which undergoes alteration the material of

the animal, just as wood is the material of a ship and wax the material of an image.

Genesis results from alteration together with shaping. The seed having been cast

into the womb or into the earth, for there is no difference in the universe, 43 then, after a

certain period, a great number of parts become constituted in the substance which is

being generated; these differ as regards moisture, dryness, coldness and warmth, and in

all the other qualities which naturally derive therefrom. Many philosophers and

physicians refer ‘action’ to the Warm and the Cold, and subordinate to these, as

‘passive,’ the Dry and the Moist; Aristotle, in fact, was the first who attempted to bring

back the causes of the various special activities to these principles….

Any sort of scientific consideration to the question of genesis and destruction

requires these derivative qualities. After these qualities come the tangible distinctions,

after them those which appeal to taste, smell, and sight. Tangible distinctions are

hardness and softness, viscosity, friability, lightness, heaviness, density, rarity,

smoothness, roughness, thickness and thinness; all such things have been duly

mentioned by Aristotle.

We know those distinctions which appeal to taste, smell and sight. If we wish to

43 Aristotle makes this point in his De Generatione Animalium I, chap. 1, fol. 17. 52

know which alternative faculties are primary and elementary, they are moisture,

dryness, coldness, and warmth, and if we wish to know which ones arise from the

combination of these, they will be found, in each animal, to be a number corresponding

to that animal’s sensible elements. The name ‘sensible elements’ is given to all the

homogeneous parts of the body, and these are to be detected not by any system, but by

personal and careful observation. 44

Indeed, Hippocratic medical teaching, as interpreted, organized and consolidated by

Galen, is drenched with Aristotelian natural philosophy. The same can be said, to varying

degrees, of Ptolemaic astronomy and Euclidean mathematics. In antiquity, the various theaters of

investigation—those things scholars later called “disciplines”—all represented subsets of natural philosophy. Hence, all such theaters required reconciliation with a master narrative or grand

articulation of the physical world and its governing principles. Aristotelian natural philosophy, as

compiled, organized and published by his students, represented a unifying set of ideas and a

comprehensive explanation of the world’s structure and operation. Galen would not be the last to

make good use of it.

Nevertheless, although extensive, Aristotle’s biological treatises could not provide the basis for a total system of medical philosophy. Hippocratic teaching held greater potential for

such a thing. Galen tied Hippocratic literature to a common source material, the corpus of

treatises attributed to Aristotle, providing a certain epistemological and metaphysical legitimacy

to Hippocratic teaching in the process. But further work remained to be done in order to establish

“rational medicine.”

Aristotelian and Hippocratic literature combined did not specifically address all the issues

44 Galen, On the Natural Faculties , bk. 1, 2-6. 53 and challenges faced by healers during Galen’s lifetime. The sum total of Aristotelian publications, however, provided an impressive range of useful problems and, with a bit of selective interpretation, a potentially useful set of methods for discussing these problems. With a certain amount of implicit flexibility, Aristotelian logic could be used to expand Hippocratic teaching beyond its original parameters. Justified by reconciliation with Aristotelian natural philosophy, Hippocratic teaching would grow through its processing within Aristotelian methods of logic. Galen would orchestrate this colossal synthesis and development.

Ironically, by the time Giacomo Baldini would begin studying medicine, many critics would charge Galen with reductive thinking and oversimplification.

* * * * *

In the fourth century BC, Aristotle may have considered his ideas concerning syllogistic theory as representing one of many viable approaches to problem solving. But eighteen centuries later, most western philosophers relied upon theories of knowledge informed by the Aristotelian syllogistic, as it had evolved and been transmitted through the ages. In fact, in sixteenth-century

European medical schools, many of the basic ideas derived from syllogistic logic would be conveyed and transmitted through the conceptual idea of “signs.” In Prior Analytics , Aristotle wrote, “a sign means a demonstrative premise which is necessary or generally accepted; that which coexists with something else, or before or after whose happening something else has happened, is a sign of that something’s having happened.” 45 Centuries later, St. Augustine of

Hippo issued a Christian interpretation of this Aristotelian concept when he defined a ‘sign’ as

45 Aristotle, Prior Analytics, ii.2 (70 a 5ff), quoted in Maclean, Logic, Signs and Nature in the Renaissance, 149. 54

“that which reveals itself to the senses and something beyond itself to the mind.” 46 During the

early modern period, scholarly medical philosophers referred to signs as ‘ nota ,’ ‘ indicium ,’

‘connotans,’ and ‘ indicans ;’ these words can be found in virtually every learned medical treatise

during the Renaissance. ‘Signs’ came to represent a fundamental part of Aristotelian language

theory, syllogistic logic, and scholarly rhetoric in learned early modern European medicine. 47

Let us consider a basic example Giacomo Baldini would have encountered during his first week of medical education:

All who have milk are pregnant.

This woman has milk.

------

This woman must be pregnant.

In this example, the syllogism is constructed around the relationship between ‘milk’ and pregnancy. ‘Milk’ constitutes the ‘sign’ and pregnancy represents the object of the ‘sign.’ The syllogistic logic used to demonstrate the final truth is deductive. Basic statements of truth (‘first principles’or‘general principles’) combined with instruments of thought or conceptual tools like analogies in thought processes, whether they be inferential, inductive, or deductive, to identify physical states, illnesses and treatments in medical texts. Ian Maclean, Jerome Bylebyl, and

Nancy Siraisi have all suggested that such styles of logic were particularly strong at Padua during the late Renaissance, but that should not obscure the fact that syllogistic knowledge

46 Maclean, Logic, Signs and Nature, 148. 47 Ibid., 149. 55 construction generally typified most scholarly early modern medical philosophy. 48

To further illustrate the use of Aristotelian sign theory in sixteenth-century medical books, let us consider a text published in 1549 by the medical professor Adrien L’Alemant. In an

oft-cited summary of Aristotleian doctrine, L’Alemant wrote:

There are three sorts of demonstrations from signs. The first is inferred, when a cause

unknown to us is proved from a manifest effect, as in this case: as often as these

symptoms are seen, namely difficulty of breathing, a stabbing in the side and

persistent fever, there will be inflammation of the intercostal membrane; pleurisy has

these symptoms; therefore pleurisy is an inflammation of the intercostal membrane.

The second sort infers an effect hidden from us from a sign. Whenever stiffness follows

on from an ardent fever, it causes the fever to go away. But when the bile inflaming the

skin is evacuated through sweat, stiffness occurs. Therefore, when the bile inflaming

the skin is evacuated through sweat, the ardent fever goes away. The third sort assumes

a remote cause, as in this example: anything which is troubled by melancholy is an

animal; a plant is not an animal; therefore a plant is not troubled by melancholy. 49

It all seems simple enough. But as he outlined many different types of syllogisms,

Aristotle also described many different types of signs. The rather elementary examples described by L’Alemant should not be misconstrued to suggest simplicity in Aristotelian logic. In fact, it is

far from clear that Aristotle himself would have been satisfied with the scholarly appropriation of

48 See Bylebyl, “The School of Padua,” 344. See also Siraisi, Medicine and the Italian Universities, especially the Introduction, 1-11, and “Medical Scholasticism and the Historian,” 140-157, as well as Maclean, Logic, Signs and Nature , 157. See also Bates, “Scholarly Ways of Knowing,” 1-23. 49 Maclean, Logic, Signs and Nature, 154. 56 his sign theory and syllogistic logic illustrated above. A rather systematic simplification of

Aristotelian syllogistic theory seems to have occurred during the merger of Hippocratic medical teaching with Aristotelian logic. The main agent of such simplification seems to have been

Galen.

In Ars Parva , Galen divided ‘signs’ into four basic types: a) substantial signs, b) immediate signs, c) accidental signs and d) mediate accidental signs. According to Galen, the first are absolutely true, verifiable by experience; the second have all the appearance of truth, and the last are no more than ‘often reliable.’ 50 Galen outlined four signs of pleurisy, attributing each type of sign described above to certain physical characteristics. The same conceptual divisions exist in Joannitius’s Isogogue , which, as we have seen, represented a refurbished version of

Galenic teachings featured prominently at Padua.

But Galen’s attempt to systematize sign theory reduces Aristotelian teaching to a base level its original architect might not have recognized. We must remember, Aristotle himself would not have referred to his style of logic as constituting a “method” at all. For Aristotle, every investigation had its own particular subject matter and different types of investigations merited different methods of procedure. But no such theory of knowledge would have been serviceable for the art of medicine. Galen had to make Aristotelian logic more practical and utilitarian.

It is my contention that Galen focused on the concept of ‘signs’ within Aristotelian

syllogistic theory for two basic reasons: a). ‘signs’ represented a way to simplify and systematize

a potentially ever-expanding style of logic whose theoretical difficulties might otherwise result in

50 Ars Parva represents a series of Galenic treatises compiled and republished by students over 1400 years after the Pergamonian’s death. Most medical historians believe the basic tenets of thought repeated in a wide variety of Ars Parva editions to have been written by Galen during his time in . In Venice, Ars medica, quae & Ars parva was published in 1544 and is available at the Marciana Biblioteca. Adrien L’Alemant also published a commentary on Ars Parva in 1549 entitled Ars Parva, Galen . See also Ottoson, Scholastic Medicine and Philosophy, and Seigel, Galen’s System of Physiology and Medicine . 57 a paralyzing circularity of thought, and b). the concept of ‘signs’ resembled the notion of

‘symptoms’ among the sick and ailing. I shall elaborate upon the former point here.

While both Galen and Aristotle outlined series of ‘signs’ within models of syllogistic reasoning, Aristotle detailed more signs and generally attributed greater complexity to the theoretical implications of each concept he described. While all four of Galen’s basic signs— substantial, immediate, accidental and mediate accidental—can be traced back to their

Aristotelian origins, many aspects of Aristotelian sign theory remain unaddressed by Galen. 51

Galen seems to have deliberately avoided what Ian Maclean calls the “combinatory logic” in

Aristotelian sign theory, or the idea that certain observations may constitute a plurality of signs

simultaneously. 52 Debates regarding relationships between signs and that which they theoretically suggest, such as “which came first” (the sign or the phenomena) fill many more pages of Aristotelian literature than Galenic writing. How can we understand the difference?

I believe that in order to sketch a practical epistemology for medicine, Galen needed to establish a style of sign theory tending toward the provision of answers rather than the raising of questions. In establishing his theories of knowledge, Aristotle concerned himself with a wide, deep variety of epistemological issues. When searching for a theory of knowledge with which to rationalize, justify and expand Hippocratic teaching, Galen concentrated on the practical aspects of Aristotelian theory. In searching for the roots of early modern medical in

Aristotelian teaching, Robert Hankinson writes, “metaphysics aside, for ordinary, everyday, medical purposes explanation must stop somewhere.” According to Hankinson:

Some things must be accepted as being fundamental in order to articulate a science of

51 See Sedley, “On Signs,” 239-272. 52 Maclean, Logic, Signs and Nature, ” 159. 58

medicine, even though they may not be so. [With regards to Aristotelian theory]

empirics could not concern themselves with the resolution of theoretical difficulties in

the concept of explanation. It would be of no practical use to try to aetiologize

absolutely everything. 53

My point here is not to emphasize the relationship between Galenic treatments of

Aristotelian sign theory and the later growth of medical empiricism. But Hankinson’s point that

“the merger between Hippocratic treatises such as On Ancient Medicine , with Aristotelian philosophy of science, produced a simpler, more practical style of medical theorizing,” is well taken. 54 Galen, as we have seen, largely orchestrated this merger.

Had Galen deliberately distorted Aristotelian sign theory? Perhaps. 55 In 1601, philosopher Joannes Silvaticus wrote, with regards to Aristotelian theory, “the medical art is admitted to be defective in those parts which concern signs, more or less completely conjectural and hardly necessary or demonstrative at all.” 56 But Silvaticus’s concern for “demonstration” may reveal an early modern intellectual ideology more closely related with the anatomy of argument than the development of medical theory. Indeed, appropriating Aristotle’s ideas regarding ‘signs’ into processes of medical theorization involved a certain commodification of complex thought. But Galen was neither the first nor last scholar to selectively interpret a great text for his own practical needs.

Nevertheless, Galen seems to have simplified Hippocratic teaching when combining it

53 Hankinson, “The Growth of Medical Empiricism,” 62. 54 Ibid., 63. George K. Plochmann and Neal W. Gilbert have also both emphasized that throughout the history of western European natural philosophy, scholars working with Aristotelian teaching have tried to reduce complicated thought-structures to sets of simple rules that fellow investigators might employ. See Plochman, “William Harvey and His Methods,” especially 194, and Gilbert, Renaissance Concepts of Method , especially the final four chapters. 55 See Hankinson, “Galen on the Use and Abuse of Language,” 60-83. 56 Maclean, Logic, Signs and Nature, 161. 59 with Aristotelian sign theory as well. Jerome Bylebyl and Ian Maclean have both noted that in

De locis affectis , Galen reduced a wide variety of Hippocratic discourse originally published in

Aphorisms and Epidemics to a small number of primary signs. 57 Hippocrates outlined numerous

ideas concerning a plethora of observations and their possible implications regarding health,

sickness, diagnosis and possible treatment; Galen crunched them into a manageable set of

conceptual relationships.58 Medical philosophers made similar observations regarding Galen during the sixteenth century.

Ian Maclean has noted that in 1601, Italian medical professor Emilio Campilongo, in a work entitled Seu nova cognoscendi morbos methodus , criticized Galen’s work regarding the

reconciliation of sign theory with Hippocratic ideas. Similar sentiments, according to Maclean,

can be found in Joannes Wolf’s 1620 Exercitationes semeioticae in Cl. Galenis de locis affectis

libros . Maclean suggests these medical authors felt a wide variety of diverse factors and considerations regarding prognosis, originally outlined by Hippocrates, had been “reduced to a small number of primary signs” by Galen. 59

These critics did not object to Galen’s general use of Aristotelian natural philosophy and logic in his reorganization and articulation of Hippocratic literature. Our modern notions of plagiarism were not the issue. Instead, men like Campilongo and Wolf argued that Galen distorted both Aristotelian theory and Hippocratic teaching by merging then within his newly developed syllogistic logic. Such dissent dovetailed neatly with contemporary critics who argued that sixteenth-century ‘Aristotelianism’ represented an artificial synthesis significantly different

57 See Bylebyl, “Teaching Methodus Medendi in the Renaissance,” 157-189, and Maclean, Logic, Signs and Nature , 164-165. See also Nutton, “Galenic Medicine,” in Ancient Medicine, 230-248. 58 Smith, in The Hippocratic Tradition , discusses how Galen reworked Hippocratic teaching to suit his own purposes. Also see the general introduction to Hippocrates , vol. 1, especially ix-ixix, and Temkin, Hippocrates in a World of Pagans and Christians . 59 Maclean, Logic, Signs and Nature, 165. 60 from Aristotle’s original literature. The humanist’s point of view, that Aristotle’s writings had been translated, abridged, and re-translated so many times, they had been irreparably corrupted, furthered bolstered such criticism. In sum, many of Giacomo Baldini’s professors would argue that Aristotelian logic ought not occupy such a central place and significant role in contemporary medical philosophy, even if they were not on the cutting edge of the latest philological theory, literary criticism or vivisectionist discovery.

Most medical philosophers during the late medieval period tried to reconcile the differences between “Aristotelianism” and the Galenic tradition. 60 Paduan University medical professor Pietro D’Abano attempted such harmonization with his Reconciler of the Differences

Between and Especially of the Philosophers and Physicians , first published in 1300. 61 D’Abano

wrote, taught and generally operated during a period of medical orthodoxy within the university

system.While monks demonstrated their faith by memorizing vast sections of the Bible, medical

students slavishly worshipped ancient texts. In such fashion, both theologians and aspiring physicians avoided heresy. 62

By the sixteenth century, as we have seen, the winds had changed. Fewer critics suppressed their doubts regarding medical canon. Remarkably, some of these dissenting voices conveyed their suspicion with the very same sets of questions modern historians of medicine ask today—how had Hippocratic/Galenic theory returned to the forefront of learned medical research and teaching in the sixteenth century? How had this knowledge been altered, changed, or

60 Nancy Siraisi has written that the Italian medical philosophers of the late thirteenth century “could have ignored Aristotelian natural philosophy only at the risk of taking medicine out of the mainstream of learned scientific activity.” In studying a cadre of medical professors at Bologna in the late medieval period, Siriaisi has discerned a distinct effort to reconcile the ancient authorities, especially Galen and Aristotle, for the sake of the medical profession, as these professors interpreted things. See Siriaisi, Taddeo Alderotti and His Pupils, 201. 61 De Abano, Conciliator differentiarum philosophorum et praecipue medicorum . 62 Until the last fifteen years or so, most traditional histories of scholarly medicine have portrayed this period of medical orthodoxy as surviving straight through the sixteenth century into the first half of the seventeenth. More recent studies, including this dissertation, see cracks in the old paradigm emerging earlier. 61 transformed over the centuries? How could the integration of Aristotelian thought and

Hippocratic teaching be properly understood? Why was ancient knowledge so important in the first place? The similarities among the doubters of Baldini’s day and modern historians may be underscored by the fact that these questions have yet to be decisively answered, even after four centuries of investigation and debate. Again, historical contextualization would seem to be our only hope. Like the scholars of the sixteenth century, we must re-examine the past to get a better grip on these questions.

* * * * *

Traditional histories tell us that during the eight hundred years or so, following the fall of the Roman Empire in the West till the balance of the Crusades, ancient Greek and Roman teachings were thoroughly neglected in Europe. Barbarian invasions, wars, and lengthy political instability buried the intellectual and cultural hegemony of Hippocratic, Aristotlelian and Galenic knowledge for quite a spell. In fact, most textbooks on Western Civilization would suggest that in 1566, Giacomo Baldini studied a revised body of Galenic thought articulated within a refurbished Aristotelian logic, which had been recovered by European scholars and re-imported from distant lands.

But what do the terms “recovery” and “re-importation” of ancient knowledge imply?

Until the last fifteen years or so, the term “re-importation” generally referred to the final stages of the circuitous path ancient Greek and Latin learning supposedly traveled from the fall of the

Roman Empire in the fifth century to the largely Arabic lands of western Europe and the Near

East over the next few centuries, back to the European west during the early medieval period. A plethora of books and manuscripts traveled eastward, so the story goes, as part of Alexander the 62

Great’s fourth century military conquest from Macedonia throughout a vast area of Western

Asia. 63 But Aristotle tutored Alexander before the young Greek achieved greatness.

Hence, Greek texts traveled eastward where they seem to have been received most efficiently in

the regions of Persia, the area that would later be called the “Middle-East” and Alexandria.

Athens and Alexandria became the world’s centers of scientific learning, but while Athens faded,

education and learning in Alexandria increased. 64

During the rise of Islam in the seventh and eighth centuries, Muslims conquered most of the eastern territory described above and gained access to the original Hellenistic scientific learning tradition. Islam inherited, translated, appropriated, absorbed, and synthesized several intellectual traditions during this process. Indian, Egyptian and Chinese learning was also absorbed by the Muslims during the eighth century. But most scholars in the English speaking world assert the primacy of Greek knowledge when surveying the foreign teachings considered by the various theaters of Islamic-Arabic civilization. As Bernard Lewis writes in a chapter entitled “Science and Technology” in his book The Muslim Discovery of Europe :

The great age of classical Muslim science was initiated by translations and adoptions of

Persian, Indian and Greek scientific works. Though the translation movement ended in

the eleventh-century, the development of Muslim science continued for some time after

that. Muslim scientists added greatly to the material transmitted to them, through their

own researches and through practical experiments and observations in fields as diverse

as medicine, agriculture, geography and warfare. Of the external influences which,

through translations or otherwise, contributed to the development of Islamic science,

63 Wilcken, Alexander the Great , 18. 64 Sigerist, “The Latin Medical Literature of the Early ,” 127-146. 63

that of the Greeks is the overwhelmingly most important. 65

In fact, the four hundred years from the seventh through the tenth centuries witnessed

Arabic translations of virtually all Galen’s literature. Translations of the Galenic corpus were most closely associated with a devoted band of scholars led by Hunain ibn Ishaq. 66 But Arabic scholars did not simply translate the ancient texts from their original Greek to Arabic. Instead,

Muslim medical philosophers generally produced annotated versions of the ancient texts. The medical genre of “commentaries” refers to a translated text with remarks, analysis and summaries from the author re-introducing the original work. Commentaries would represent a crucial form of literature during the European Renaissance, when medical authors advocated or attacked famous voices of the past. But in the history of learned medicine, the importance of the genre during medieval times developed in the Arabic east.

Arabic translators/commentators generally presented ancient Greek knowledge in glowing terms, often adding anecdotes and supportive elaboration to major principles, demonstrating mastery of the subject matter in the process. In his study of Arabic versions of

Galenic literature, Richard Walzer extolled Hunain ibn Ishaq’s astonishing command of the

Greek scientific language. 67 Max Meyerhof also praised seventh, eighth and ninth century

Arabic medical philosophers for their knowledge, spirit and dedication to developing scientific knowledge. 68

Modern studies on this subject emphasize the extent to which Islamic scholars actually

65 Lewis, The Muslim Discovery of Europe , 221. 66 Hunain (809-877) became known to Europe as “Joannitius.” Before his death, Joannitius published an encyclopedic compilation of Galenic medical theory known as the Isagoge . Many traditional histories of medicine consider the Isagoge the most systematic exposition of medical theory produced during the medieval era. 67 Walzer, Galen on Medical Experience, vii. 68 Meyerhof, “New Light on Hunain ibn Ishaq and His Period,” 685-724. Also see Meyerhof, Studies in Medieval Arabic Medicine, as well as Wilkie and Lloyd, eds., “The Arabic Version of Galen’s Ars Parva ,” 145-148. 64 transformed the teachings received from foreign lands. Writing in 1975, Franz Rosenthal argued that the work Islamic scholars performed on Greek texts amounted to significantly more than a transformation of linguistic correspondence. 69 Augusto Beccaria, a leading modern authority on scholarly medical texts in the pre-Salernitan period (sixth to eleventh centuries) and a contemporary of Rosenthal, advanced similar ideas. About forty-five years ago, Beccaria studied a series of texts attributed to Hippocrates and Galen, from their storage in Alexandria to their later consideration by western Europeans. According to Beccaria, the books contained influences of university syllabi found in medieval Alexandria.70 After a careful consideration of thirteenth- century medical texts, translations and university curriculum, Richard Durling concludes “the medieval European medical syllabus was dominated by the Arabist tradition.” 71 Few comprehensive studies have provided detailed evidence to further support such views, however.

What makes the true authorship of pre-Salernitan medical texts, and their subsequent reorganization and elaboration, so difficult to pin down? Unfortunately, several dynamics within the culture of medical publishing during medieval and early modern times, both in western

Europe and the Muslim east, complicate the historian’s task. Medical authors, as we have seen, often attributed their work to famous thinkers for the sake of gaining legitimacy. Other texts seem to have been ‘de-authorized,’ or disassociated from their original author for political reasons. For example, when Christian and Muslim scholars, operating under the scrutiny of their spiritual tradition, sought to appropriate ideas from individuals outside their faith, relationships between original authors and texts were often obscured. In the Christian medieval west, the

69 Rosenthal, The Classical Heritage in Islam, 22. For the most recent treatment of these questions, see Vagelphol, Aristotle’s Rhetoric in the East. 70 Beccaria, “ Sulle trace di un antico canone latino di Ippocrate e di Galeno,” pt. 1, Italia medioevale e umanistica, 2:1-54 (1959); pt. 2, 4:1-75 (1962); pt. 3, 14:1-21 (1971). 71 Durling, “A Chronological Census,” 234. See also Campbell, “The Medical Curriculum of the Universities of Europe,” 357-367. 65 development of scholasticism, as we shall see in the next section, directly addressed this issue.

But before and after the rise of scholasticism, diverse phenomena within the culture of medical publication obscured the relationship between texts and authors.

“In early medieval medical manuscripts,” explains Faith Wallis, “reverence for ancient authority coincides with extraordinary indifference to textual authenticity.” According to Wallis,

“almost all the early medieval texts ascribed to Galen are pseudepigrahia; on the other hand, virtually all the genuine Galenic texts appear as fragments in anthologies, stripped of the original author’s name.” The problem seems to worsen in the late medieval period, when western

European scholars tend to organize collections according to famous authors, while scholars of the Arabic east tend to publish anthologies arranged according to topics and ideas, regardless of authorial citation. 72

Nevertheless, a few generalizations on this subject may be advanced. Today, scholars interested in pre-Salernitan medical texts usually argue that Western Europe’s re-absorption of ancient Greek knowledge from the Muslim east should not be viewed as just another chapter in the “Western Tradition.” 73 “Western knowledge” did not literally become western again until the

thirteenth century and in the case of learned medicine, we may do well to extend this idea to the

fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In this sense, it may be more accurate to say that during the

medieval period, Western Europe “discovered” rather than “recovered” a body of knowledge

originally conceived in Greece, because the teachings had been significantly altered and the West

had no relationship with the knowledge in its new form. Crucially, when late medieval and early

modern Europeans began to appreciate ancient Greek texts once again, many medical scholars

72 See Wallis, “The Experience of the Book,” 107. 73 See Conrad et al., eds., The Western Medical Tradition , especially Conrad, “The Arabic-Islamic Medical Tradition,” 93-138; Rosenthal, “Medicine from the 7th to the 14 th Centuries,” 48-75; and Rahman, Health and Medicine in the Islamic Tradition. See also Wallis, “The Experience of the Book,” 101-126. 66 initially worked with the Arabic translations, rather than the original Greek texts. The Isagoge of

Joannitius and Avicenna’s Canon would represent foundational texts in late medieval and early modern European medical schools. The significance of this part of the story cannot be underestimated and will be considered at length below.

In this brief section, however, I have attempted to emphasize the following idea: in the

history of medicine, this tale of “knowledge transmission,” from the European west to the

Muslim middle-east and back again, must be appreciated as a rich, complex story of

appropriation, dissemination and diffusion. The word “transmission” may play a crucial role in

the narrative structures of older histories of the Scientific Revolution, which always seem to

emphasize the capacity knowledge supposedly has for traveling. But to ask “how did the

knowledge get from Europe to the Muslim world” is to articulate an unconscious lack of respect

for Islamic-Arabic civilization. Similarly, to speak of Europe’s “recovery” or “re-importation” of

ancient learning makes it seem like the Islamic world served as little more than a passive conduit

for European service.

The word “transmission” resembles the word “translation” and the connotation of

“translation” does not do justice to the alterations and transformations Islamic scholars made in

Greek texts. In fact, the translation/transformation period, once thought to consist of about 400-

500 years, is now recognized as having occurred during the period from 800-1500. The

execution and dissemination of scholarly translations took place within another institution crucial

to the history of learned medicine, the medieval and early modern Christian university. In fact,

the appropriation and institutionalization of ancient Greek learning by places like the University

of Padua shall be the subject of the next section, as this aspect of the story represents a

significant transformation in western medical knowledge. But inside and outside the halls of 67 university, one basic historical idea seems undeniable: ancient Greek learning, from its original conception to its discovery by medieval and early modern Europeans, had evolved considerably.

It had been consulted, reduced and augmented by different people of different mentalities, separated by vast spans of space and time. “Modern science,” writes Toby Huff, “is the product of intercivilizational encounters.” 74

* * * * *

During the decade of the 1560s, Giacomo Baldini and his classmates would receive a

thorough indoctrination in the teachings of their distant European ancestors. Baldini and his

generation of students were told a “middle-period” separated them from the ancient authorities

their superiors insisted they emulate. This “middle-period,” according to the late sixteenth-

century scholarly class, represented a time of intellectual neglect, impoverished learning and

general backwardness. Baldini and friends were encouraged to define themselves in opposition

to this seven-century blip on the radar screen of time. 75

Today, historians no longer use the term “Dark Ages” to describe European natural philosophy between the fall of Rome and the revival of learning in the twelfth century. The absolutely dismissive sweep implied by that epithet offends modern sensibilities. 76 It is both

humorous and quite telling to realize that sixteenth- and seventeenth-century men of letters at

Padua would relate well to the idea implied by the “Dark Ages,” which resides quite outside our

historical vocabulary today.

74 Huff, The Rise of Early Modern Science, 242 and 264. Again, Huff’s assessment typifies recent scholarship on this question. 75 Kristeller, Renaissance Thought, 92. Kristeller points out that Humanist scholars consistently wrote of the revival and rebirth of the arts of learning accomplished during their own time after a long period of decay. Also see Burke, The European Renaissance, Centres and Peripheries , especially “The Age of Rediscovery, Early Renaissance,” 18- 47. 76 See Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, 15. 68

Perhaps we are right and they were wrong. But we would do well to consider that modern historians did not invent historiography. In fact, all significant thought about the past, regardless of when it actually emerges, seems to involve compromise, adaptation and appropriation of disparate ideas not easily reconciled with each other. Every time we think and write we operate with theory and all theory is filled with ideological assumptions, whether we are conscious of them or not. Such is the case with historical writing and philosophizing.

The production and evolution of “scholastic philosophy” in European history represents an example of merger, appropriation, and ideologically driven combination of different sets of ideas for the purpose of producing particular meaning. For intellectual historians of medieval

Europe, the term “scholasticism” generally refers to the Christian synthesis of ancient Greek thought with the Catholic doctrine initiated by St. Augustine (354-430) and enhanced by Thomas

Aquinas. The intellectual linkage uniting elements of Greek and Roman classical culture with elements of represents an important development in the history of learned European medicine and deserves our attention here.

In attempting to forge an all-embracing synthesis, Aquinas sought to integrate into the

Christian intellectual tradition two fundamental principles: the significance of divine revelation as the highest source of truth and efficacy of human reason for knowledge construction. 77

Aristotle believed human ideas originated with the senses and that rationality represented the virtue that made human supreme among living things. Aquinas used these ideas to construct a synthesis of belief and rationale, ultimately hoping to buttress faith through reason.

Aquinas taught that Aristotle’s schema for interpretation and knowledge construction could

77 See Gilson, The of St. , especially chap. 1 and his discussion of the Summa Theologiae . 69 become supernatural when infused by grace. 78 For Aquinas, reference to scriptural truths

anchored in spiritual faith completed the Aristotelian formula for learning. Reason needed faith,

taught Aquinas, to achieve the ultimate perfection of knowledge. “I believe in order that I may

know,” became the medieval phrase most closely identified with Aquinian scholasticism. 79 The significance and influence of these ideas on European medical education increased in the centuries between Aquinas’s death and Giacomo Baldini’s tenure at Padua.

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) lived at a crucial juncture in the history and development of scholarly western thought. Latin translations of the Aristotelian corpus were beginning to influence circles of learned European thinkers. Interpretation of Aristotelian literature reopened controversial debate regarding the proper relationship between faith and reason. 80 If great works

of antiquity were gaining newfound attention, much of the tension and conflict implicit within

them were being reawakened. This crisis reared its ugly head just as medieval Europe patented

one of its finest inventions: the university. During the thirteenth century, major schools were

founded in Montpellier, Paris, Madrid, Bologna, Padua, Heidelberg, and Montecassino, to name just a few.

The medieval university grew out of the Church’s desire to institutionalize the instruction of future . 81 Aspiring theologians had been educated in cathedrals and church owned

schools for many centuries. But by the twelfth century, the Church itself may have been

influenced by the growing significance of guilds and corporations in medieval society. Guilds

offered methods for licensing skilled workers, patenting products and ideas, sanctioning

knowledge and authorizing which appealed to a Christian church with a newfound

78 Davies, The Thought of Thomas Aquinas , v-vii. 79 Gutek, “Thomas Aquinas: Scholastic Theologian,” 63. 80 See Maritain, St. Thomas Aquinas , Introduction. 81 See Verger, “Patterns,” especially “The Birth of Universities,” 47-50. 70 interest in growth and development. By the final decades of the 1100s, theological instructors within large schools belonged to the universitas magistrorum , a rather corporate or guild-like

structure where unity implied strength, recognition and legitimacy. As large schools began to

institutionalize and professionalize themselves, new forms of learning emerged in medieval

Europe. Under the watchful eye of the Church, many forms of budding inquiry and newly

appreciated ideas were incorporated into universities for growth, development and proper

Christian nurturing.

After completing his monastic studies and taking an advanced degree at the University of

Paris, Thomas Aquinas agreed to serve as Regent Master of his growing school. Here, Aquinas

would render a crucial service for the future of the Catholic Church and university. Thomas

Aquinas would provide a modus vivendi necessary to settle the recent debates regarding faith and

reason and construct a working for the growing medieval university

system in the process.

Following the organizational template deployed by the earliest medieval Christian

universities, Aquinas treated “philosophy” as an umbrella concept, under which resided a variety

of investigative activities. Virtually all inquiry would be philosophical. But no overarching

system of philosophy, save the Christian faith as revealed by scripture, existed to unite the

various styles of inquiry now incorporated within universities. An educational philosophy,

entirely compatible with Christian belief, but articulated with the language of logic and framed

within the art of pedagogy, would be necessary. How could he construct a theologically valid

theory of knowledge and corresponding educational philosophy, derived from such theory,

sufficient to satisfy all the learned men from the various forms of inquiry recently invited to

university? For Aquinas, a man thoroughly trained in the anatomy of argument, a philosophical 71 system necessitated a readily discernible, consistent argumentative structure with which to produce knowledge. He needed a reliable, or at least well known method of logical theorization, which could accommodate a strong adjunct. Like Galen centuries earlier, Aquinas looked to

Aristotle. Indeed, Thomas Aquinas developed a theory of knowledge construction and corresponding educational philosophy out of works attributed to Aristotle. The “Aristotelian tradition” had grown again.

In constructing an educational philosophy derived from Aristotelian principles of learning, Aquinas countered both the Averroistic interpretations of Aristotle, which he felt left no room for Christian faith, and the Franciscan tendency to reject Greek philosophy entirely, which struck Aquinas as misguided. 82 Hence, right from the start, Aquinas weeded out influences from the Arabic world he deemed undesirable and ignored certain voices within his own Christian domain. Instead, the Christian theologian offered his “scholastic method:” Scientia , or the subject matter of instruction, would represent an organized body of knowledge consisting of (1) first principles, (2) arguments of systematic logical development that supported these principles,

(3) analogies and illustrations that served as illustrative examples, and (4) conclusions. 83 The linguistic devices, such as the metaphors, analogies and general poetics, and the overarching ideas and themes conveyed by them, would conform to Christian scripture and theological teaching. This organizational schema served as the principle method for constructing and transmitting knowledge in medieval and early modern European medical schools. 84

A variety of interpretations exists with regards to Aquinian scholarship, but it is not

82 See Elders, The Philosophical Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, 32-35. 83 Ibid., 68. Also see Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, new ed., especially chap. 1. 84 This basic idea can be found in several volumes. See Ottosson, Scholastic Medicine and Philosophy. For an interesting discussion, see Grant, Were There Significant Differences between Medieval and Early Modern Scholastic Natural Philosophy? See also Kittelson and Transue, eds., Rebirth, Reform and Resilience, especially “The Durabilities of the Universities of Old Europe,” 1-18. 72 difficult to appreciate the Christian theologian’s dependence upon Aristotelian thought.

Nevertheless, Aquinas would do more than simply re-state Aristotelian ideas within the context of the medieval Christian university. A discernible form of educational organization and curriculum foundation emerged from Aquinas’s work. The medieval university student would study in the seven liberal arts: the quadrivium of astronomy, arithmetic, geometry, and music and the trivium of rhetoric, logic and grammar, all packaged in theological language and framed within the overarching structure of the Church. 85 University-based medical knowledge would

reside within the fields of rhetoric and logic. Specified parameters for the focused study of

medicine did not represent a crucial question during the early development of the medieval

university.

Aquinas himself maintained the relationship between the art of philosophy and the field

of medicine outlined by Aristotle fifteen centuries earlier. Medicine would constitute a subset of

natural philosophy. According to Aquinas:

It is the task of the natural philosopher to investigate the primary and universal

principles that govern health and illness; it is the physician’s to put these principles into

practice, in keeping with the idea that he is the maker of good health; the physician

must not limit himself to making use of medicines, but he should also be able to reflect

upon the causes of health and illness. To this end, the good physician begins his

training with the study of natural philosophy.86

85 Baldini, Legem impone sbactis: studi su filosofia e scienza , 12-14. 86 Aquinas, De sensu , 8.277-9.316. Aquinas actually said little else about medicine per se , but he discussed the nature and quality of well ordered scientific inquiry at length, with great implications for the future of scholarly medicine. Aquinas held that the theoretical use of the mind has truth as its object—such thought seeks not to manipulate or co-opt properties of the physical world for human use, but only to understand the world around us. The “practical use” of the mind seeks to guide some activity other than thought for the sake of understanding— choosing in the case of ethics, designing a solid edifice in the case of architecture. Aquinas held that there existed 73

In the early part of the Middle-Ages, medicine had not been taught through institutions.

During these years, the impoverished western European schools failed to develop systematic medical education. But now strands of medical ideas flowed through universities. As the thirteenth century unfolded, the study of medicine began to take on some of the characteristics of what later would be called a “discipline.” How would medical knowledge be disseminated at university? Crucially, Thomas Aquinas would establish a comprehensive method for producing, critiquing, expounding upon and disseminating scholarship.

Scholastic argumentation, as Faith Wallis correctly points out, would be based on reference to authoritative sources. At university, medical knowledge would be disseminated in terms which privileged arguments from authority. 87 This dovetailed neatly with the Galenic sentiments issued in Aphorisms, when the ancient Pergamonian claimed to be perfecting

medicine by moving toward a conceptualization of proper knowledge as derived exclusively

from specific books. Hence, in medieval times, medical knowledge would be accumulated by the

rote learning of canonical texts written centuries earlier. The ancient learning would be

rationalized and justified by styles of logic also served up for uncritical acceptance. The medical

student would develop less of an investigative aptitude and capacity for discovery and more of

many theoretical and practical sciences. Criminal justice, politics, and ethics represented practical sciences. Mathematics and metaphysics represented theoretical sciences. Crucially, Aquinas held that certain discursive activities might represent both practical and theoretical sciences. Physics, for example, might primarily help us gain a better understanding of the physical world, but it might also be used to construct a solid dam or bridge. Hence, latter-day scholastics argued that in the Aquinian mode of thinking, the art of medicine ought to represent a mixture of practical and theoretical science. In the purely Aristotelian vein, scientia , as explained above, referred to certain knowledge about distinctly defined subjects, achieved by rational demonstrations based on generally accepted premises, leading to universally valid conclusions. In medicine, the status of scientia would traditionally be reserved for theoria , or the predicated on ancient learning and logic. Other activities associated with medicine, such as healing practices, surgery and anatomy, would be classified as artes because of their practical goals and their inability to yield universally valid and permanent truths. These views held down to Giacomo Baldini’s day, but not without tremendous controversy. On Aquinas, see Bourke, Aquinas’ Search for Wisdom, chap. 1, and McInerny, Ethica Thomistica: The Moral Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas . 87 See Wallis, “The Experience of the Book,” 103. See also Verger, “Patterns,” 41-45. 74 an informed appreciation of time honored traditions. Appreciating this point necessitates taking a closer look at scholastic pedagogy.

Thomas Aquinas’s most famous work, Summa theologiae , is divided into distinct parts,

themselves subdivided into carefully organized units. 88 The units may be read together, as

constituting the larger narrative, or appreciated independently, as self-contained entities. Entitled

“questiones ,” the organization of such units can be described as follows: each one of the

questiones begins with the clear identification of a problem, followed by citations of various expert opinions concerning the problem. Next, follows the proposal of solutions. Considerations regarding the relative strengths and potential weaknesses of each proposal follow. In conclusion, one solution is proven by a combination of authority and syllogistic reasoning. From such textual organization emerged the scholastic method of “questiones .” 89 The “scholastic questio ” became

the principal tool of text book instruction in medieval Christian universities. In medical teaching,

the style endured through the early modern period, but not without controversy.

The medieval Christian university also resurrected the ancient dialectical method of

teaching. With a bit of fine tuning, the dialectic pedagogy flourished in medical classes.

Required to memorize chunks of ancient texts, students would square off against each other in

organized “debate.” The instructor raised a particular question and participants recited relevant

text. One student pressed critical questions, framed in Aristotelian logic, while the student under

the spotlight defended the recited position. In such fashion, students demonstrated familiarity

with canonical texts and ability to deploy syllogistic logic. 90 Apparently, instructors believed

88 Aquinas, Summa theologiae (Rome, 1268?). A version was printed in Padua in 1473, Summa theological, Pars prima . 89 See Siraisi, Taddeo Alderotti and His Pupils, especially chap. 5, “The Nature of Medical Learning,” and chap. 8, “Favorite Topics of Discussion: The Scholastic Questio as a Tool of Medical Teaching.” Also see Siraisi, Avicenna in Renaissance Italy , and van Liere, “Humanism and Scholasticism in Sixteenth-Century Academe,” 57-107. 90 See Siraisi, Taddeo Alderotti and His Pupils, especially chapters 5 and 8. See also Siraisi, “Medical Scholasticism and the Historian,” especially 143-145. 75 such exercises exposed students to the contours of difficult medical issues, while helping them acquire the critical thinking skills necessary to a medical philosopher. Again, these pedagogical methods endured for several centuries.

But the ancient medical texts revered by scholastics did not come without problems. As every student of Western Civilization knows, the medical books of Greek and Roman antiquity could not be unconditionally embraced by professors of Christian Universities. As interesting as they were, these pagan texts fell into the category of irreligion. These foreign texts could, as

Faith Wallis persuasively suggests, “be subjected, with impunity, to radical and unabashed reworking, dismemberment and de-authorization.” 91 Aquinas and his followers acted

aggressively in this area. Indeed, the scholastic tradition served up certain aspects of ancient

Greek and Roman thought—Galen’s medicine, Aristotle’s biology and theories of logic, to name

a few—but omitted most of the ethics, moral philosophy and general literature authored by the pagans of antiquity. Those aspects of ancient natural philosophy that could be reconciled with

Christian theology were appropriated into scholastic education. Those that could not, or those

that were deemed unimportant, were omitted.

But if the scholastics of Aquinas’s day hoped their strategically selective serving of

ancient literature would gain uncritical acceptance, they would be disappointed by scholarly

sentiment during the sixteenth century. As we have seen, many of Giacomo Baldini’s generation

would raise questions about the “reworking” and “dismemberment” of texts performed by

scholastic translators, educational theorists and pedagogues.

Before specifically examining such critical testimony, it shall be helpful to point out one

more area of appropriation, reconciliation, and common ground among styles of thought from

different eras. The idea concerns Aristotle and Aquinas and it has great implications for

91 See Wallis, “The Experience of the Book,” 125. 76

Renaissance medicine. We have seen that Aristotle believed legitimate ideas had to be discernible to the senses. First principles were self-evident and constitutive components of

Aristotelian logic depended upon empirically derived knowledge about the natural world. As described above, in Aristotelian philosophy, only that which is “necessarily the case” can be known scientifically. Aristotelian knowledge had to be intelligible, sensible and readily discernible.

In a very fundamental sense, Thomas Aquinas agreed. Aquinas believed natural philosophers ought to observe, think, and draw conclusions about phenomena within the physical world. That which could be readily understood ought to be seriously considered. But Aquinas did not believe men should concern themselves with deeper explanations of physical phenomena or those aspects of nature beyond our capacity to readily understand. Aquinas unapologetically declared magnetism to be “an occult virtue which man is not capable of explaining.” 92 For

Aquinas, men should not delve into the causes, reasons, and explanation of phenomena beyond

our capacity to appreciate with the senses. Such things were the domain of the Divine. 93 Hence, if Galen believed, as had Aristotle before him, that the objects of nature—every mineral, plant and animal—possessed a definitive structure, purpose and role that could be understood and utilized by men; if the intractability and pre-existence of matter inherent in Aristotelian thought rested at the heart of Galenic medical philosophy, so be it, but these ideas would not gain

92 Hutchinson, “What Happened to Occult Qualities in the Scientific Revolution?” 237. 93 With these ideas, Aquinas followed his predecessor Augustine, the 5 th century theologian who originally took up the task of reconciling ancient Greek thought with Catholic doctrine. Augustine warned of excessive curiosity and the vices of misguided investigation into nature. Encroaching upon the domain of the Divine constituted an unacceptable form of “hubris,” according to Augustine. These ideas have been discussed in many scholarly publications. See, for example, Blumenberg, The Legitimacy of the Modern Age . See also Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature , chap. 2, “Knowledge and Power,” especially 58-80. See page 60 for Eamon’s discussion of Ecclus 3: 22-23 and Augustine’s Confessions . My copy is St. Augustine Confessions, translated with an introduction by R.S. Pine-Coffin. Pine-Coffin discusses Aristotelian suspicion of curiosity in his introduction, especially 11-12. Augustine’s text contains much on this subject throughout Books 2 and 3. See also Peters, “The Desire to Know the Secrets of the World,” 593-610. 77 elaborate expression in scholastic medical education. Aquinas and his followers selectively appropriated Aristotelian logic and Galenic medical theory for use in medieval universities.

Much has been said about the religiosity built into medieval and early modern natural philosophy. But in a sense, Thomas Aquinas separated theology from the areas of inquiry later associated with “science.” Aquinas selectively used aspects of Aristotelian philosophy and logic to argue that man could study God’s creation without trespassing into the Divine’s domain, so long as one limited oneself to readily understandable aspects of nature.

Arguably, Aquinas’s division of theology from natural philosophy greatly facilitated the development of modern science.94 But this development would unfold in a fashion Aquinas had not intended. A growing body of knowledge, made possible by Christianized Aristotelian inquiry, would exert intolerable pressure on traditional medicine, as conceived paradigmatically, during the late medieval and early modern period. The Aristotelian emphasis on observation and the corresponding logical methods deployed to develop knowledge with such observation would ultimately raise provocative questions within the field. For example, why not open the human body for physical investigation and use our theories of logic to develop more knowledge?

Scholastic education might emphasize the monopolistic legitimacy of philosophically derived knowledge constructed through logic infused with grace, but might not some with a penchant for anatomical dissection forget certain aspects of the equation?

Thomas Aquinas could scrap Aristotelian cosmology because it contradicted Biblical scripture; he could outline an Aristotelian theory of philosophy and logical method and direct it, with solemn prayer, exclusively at those aspects of nature that were readily understandable; he could even develop a theory of teaching and learning devised to shape and mold the nature of

94 Guido Ruggiero makes a similar point in his article “The Strange Death of Margarita Marcellini.” Ruggiero speaks more broadly of the Roman Catholic Church during the early modern period and less specifically of Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. 78 knowledge construction within Christian universities. But Aquinas could not control the direction and nature scholarly medical discourse would take in subsequent centuries.

* * * * *

Discussing early modern medical education, Laurence Brockliss and Colin Jones suggest that “the medical science taught in universities down to the last decade of the seventeenth- century remained largely an amalgam of Aristotelian philosophy, Galenic medical theory, and

Thomist theology, and was transmitted in a manner which combined some new textbook

methods of teaching with the older scholastic commentary. 95 Indeed. But the components of that

“amalgam” were quite complex themselves. Aristotelian philosophy, as understood during the

Renaissance, only vaguely resembled the ancient Greek’s original teachings. Galenic medical knowledge, as we have seen, represented a strategically conceived mixing of several intellectual traditions, where questions of pragmatism and utility imposed upon interpretation and development. Implicit within both Aristotelian philosophy, as conceived during the Renaissance, and Galenic medical knowledge, as understood in the sixteenth century, were strands of paradoxical thought, irreconcilable contradictions, and controversial ambiguities. If examined closely enough, both Aristotelian philosophy and Galenic medical teaching, as conceived during the early modern period, contained the seeds of their own destruction.

By the late medieval period, these intellectual traditions had been neglected, forgotten, rediscovered, exchanged, thoroughly revised, augmented, translated and retranslated many times.

In order to provide an educational philosophy for contemporary universities, Thomas Aquinas reworked Aristotelian philosophy once again. Three hundred years after Aquinas’s death, however, his scholastic method of education faced serious challenges within the university

95 Brockliss and Jones, The Medical World of Early Modern France , 109 (italics added). 79 system. At medical school, the basic components of scholastic education, Aristotelian philosophy and Galenic teaching, were in declining health.

* * * * *

In 1587, one Alessandro Massaria gained promotion to the highest level of medical professorship at the University of Padua. Massaria addressed a large number of colleagues and

students during a ceremony organized to honor the occasion. The newly promoted professor took

the opportunity to seriously address the state of contemporary medicine. According to Massario,

the field’s greatest enemies were a group of subversive professors, confused critics, and

misguided philosophers. Voices opposing Hippocrates, Aristotle, Galen and Avicenna threatened

the very art of medicine, warned Massaria, and should be excluded from the University of Padua.

For the conservative minded Alessandro Massaria, the recent decline in respect for ancient

authorities constituted the medical discipline’s biggest problem. 96

Massario mentioned names. The newly promoted scholar excoriated the French medical philosopher Jean Fernel, whose recent book On the Hidden Causes of Things had criticized scholastic methods of medical education. Worse, Fernel’s medical philosophy consisted of strange concepts regarding celestial spirits, latent heat, total , and the healing potential supposedly implicit within rocks, plants, minerals and virtually all physical components of nature. 97 But Massario spoke at greater length about fellow Italian Giovanni Argenterio, a former medical professor at the University of Pisa.

96 See Siraisi, “Sixteenth-Century Medical Innovation,” 161-180. Much of the text of Massario’s speech is recorded in contemporary Riccobono’s De Gymnasio patavino, fol. 71r. 97 Modern historians have portrayed Jean Fernel (1497-1588) as a less radical medical philosopher than Massario suggested. Although Fernel had many dismissive things to say about traditional medicine during the sixteenth century, some historians suggest the French medical philosopher remained heavily influenced by Galenic teaching throughout his scholarly career. See Sherrington, The Endeavor of Jean Fernel . For the most recent and insightful major work on Fernel, see Bono, The Word of God and the Languages of Man, especially chap. 4, “The Priority of the Text: Bookish Culture and the Exegetical Search for Divine Truth, Fernel versus Harvey.” 80

Giovanni Argenterio (1513-1572) is best remembered as an avid critic of sixteenth- century scholarly medicine. 98 During a long career which featured time at the universities of

Paris and Pisa, with years of practice in Lyon and lengthy employment at the Florentine courts of

Cosimo De Medici, Argenterio expressed ideas about most of the pressing medical questions of

his time. Before his career ended, Argenterio attacked scholastic educational philosophy and pedagogical methodology, humanist criticism, Hippocratic theory, Aristotelian logic, and

Galenic teaching. Alessandro Massaria blasted this native Piedmontese who “had dared to

criticize the logical books, Ethics , Meteorologica , and the entire natural philosophy of Aristotle himself, and at the same time hurled his infinite and unbridled audacity at Hippocrates and

Galen.” 99 Indeed, the centrality of ancient knowledge in scholarly medicine represented

Argenterio’s principle complaint with the art of healing.

“No builder built a house according to the directions laid down by an ancient authority,” wrote Argenterio in 1551. “Because Galen wrote almost infinite volumes,” added the professor from Piedmont, “he must have made many ill-considered statements without thinking

about them…hence, our stupidity should be even more condemned when we receive all his books as absolutely true and attribute equal authority to each one.” 100

Would not the ancients have made greater progress in philosophy if these most learned

men, who strove with one another in interpreting Aristotle and explaining his every

word in a recondite manner, had instead taken up the elaboration and illustration of

98 See Temkin, Galenism: Rise and Decline of a Medical Philosophy , especially 141-152, and Pagel, Paracelsus: An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine , 301-304, in addition to Siriaisi, “Sixteenth-Century Medical Innovation.” See also Nutton, “The Seeds of Disease,” and “The Reception of Fracastoro’s Theory of Contagion,” and Richardson, “The Generation of Disease.” Bonardi’s Lo studio generale a Mondovi (1560-1566) examines the career of Argenterio, 77-82. 99 Siraisi, “Sixteenth-Century Medical Innovation,” 161. 100 Ibid., 168. 81

some part of philosophy treated more negligently by our forefathers? For meanwhile

because we examine with superfluous labor the vacuum, the infinite, the three

principles, and the opinions of the ancients, we are ignorant of the nature of metals and

stones; nor do we know enough about the history of herbs and plants. 101

Alessandro Massaria knew quite enough about the history of Giovanni Argenterio. But

Argenterio still enjoyed some support from Paduan alumni. Bernardino Telesio, arguably one of

the most influential natural philosophers in sixteenth century Italy, had studied at Padua during

the 1530s and had always admired Argenterio’s medical theory. Bernardino Telesio (1509-1588)

is generally remembered as a forerunner of early modern empiricism, or a brand of natural philosophy predicated on direct observation, meticulous record keeping, experimentally tested

ideas and the development of hypothesizes without dogmatic reference to previously held ideas,

systems of rationale or orthodox logic. 102 Many historians associate Telesio with Francis Bacon, who famously described the Paduan philosopher as “the first of the moderns.” 103 Others suggest

that Telesio’s mammoth nine volume work entitled De rerum natura iuxta propria principia

(“On the Nature of Things According to their Own Principles”) represents a more influential

critique of Renaissance metaphysics than anything ever written by Bacon, Thomas Hobbes or

Rene Descartes, for that matter. But many forget that at the outset of his career, Telesio primarily

concerned himself with medicine.

In Quod animal universum ab unica animae substantia gubernatur, contra Galen ,

101 Ibid. 102 See De Franco, Intorno alla natura / Bernardino Telesio, and Kristeller, “Telesio.” See also Boenke, “Bernardino Telesio,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , and Van Deusen, Telesio, the First of the Moderns. 103 Bacon, Opera omnia , vol. 3, 114. See also Van Deusen, Telesio: The First of the Moderns . 82

Telesio dedicated an entire treatise to criticism of Galenic physiology. 104 Although never published, the work circulated in manuscript copies throughout Europe. Telesio’s critique of

Galen included a comprehensive condemnation of Aristotelian natural philosophy. Indeed,

Telesio attacked both Aristotle and Galen for foolishly relying on self-referential reasoning

rather than authentic sense and first-hand empirical research. This basic

conceptualization and critical orientation served as the principle point of view from which

Bernardino Telesio generated much of his subsequent literature.

One of Telesio’s central critiques of Galen involved the ancient Greek’s perception of a

multiplicity of spirits within the human body. For Telesio, the governance of the human body

could not be explained by a plurality of “systems” simultaneously working together, with each

governed by its own particular spirit, as Galen seemed to imply. Instead, Telesio advocated the

medical theory of Giovanni Argenterio, which presupposed the unity of one , or spirit, and judged this influence to be the sole force empowering the body. 105 Alessandro Massaria may not

have been familiar with Telesio’s advocacy of Argenterio’s theory of singular spirit. But the

newly crowned full professor surely read of Bernardino Telesio’s graphic condemnation of

Christianized Aristotelianism and the scholastic philosophical tradition.

After all, Telesio’s systematic assault on Aristotle had been celebrated by one of the late

Renaissance’s most famous natural philosophers. Although best remembered for his political

theory, Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639) greatly prided himself on his medical knowledge.

Campanella studied medical writers from Hippocrates and Galen to Pietro D’Abano, Jean Fernel

and Giovanni Argenterio. He published an eight volume treatise on healing entitled

104 De Franco, Intorno alla natura / Bernardino Telesio, XXII. 105 Boenke, “Bernardino Telesio,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Paginations may vary. Boenke’s discussion resides on page 5 of 11 in my copy. 83

Medicinalium in 1635. 106 Campanella praised Telesio for “having used his arrows to pierce and kill Aristotle, the tyrant of , restoring to mankind the libertas philosophandi (freedom to philosophize) which is inseparable from truth in the process.” 107

Campanella utterly dismissed Aristotelian cosmology. For Campanella, the concentric crystalline spheres allegedly separating the celestial region from the sublunary world were the products of poor imagination. Pathetic attempts to outline a theory of microcosm/macrocosm between the human body and the delusions of some long dead Greek man could only produce falsehoods. Like his hero Telesio, Campanella believed that adequate knowledge of all things only came from direct consultation of the things themselves; misguided reference to external thought, whether it be systems of logic or “laws of natural philosophy,” only separated investigators from realistic opportunities to uncover meaningful knowledge. Aquinas’s scholastic treatment of Aristotelian teaching had done little for Campanella. In fact, Tommaso Campanella specifically criticized scholastic education. For Campanella, sophistical disputes characterized by pointless battles over words and “rational debate” only polluted young minds and retarded intellectual development. 108

Dissatisfaction with scholastic treatment of Galenic medical beliefs predated Telesio and

Campanella at the University of Padua. Pietro Pomponazzi (1462-1525) received a doctorate in medicine from the university and taught at Padua for eighteen years. Like Bernardino Telesio,

Pomponazzi took exception to the Galenic theories of body and soul which generally held currency during the early sixteenth century. But the nature of Pomponazzi’s criticism and the alternative theories he proposed fundamentally differed from the ideas of Telesio and

106 Campanella, Medicinalium libri, i-viii. 107 Campanella, Le poesie; testo criticamente riveduto e commento a cura di Francesco Giancotti , 278. 108 Firpo, Il supplizio di Tommaso Campanella: narrazione, documenti, verbali delle torture. See also Firpo et al., eds., Autobiografie di filosofi: Cardano, Bruno, Campanella , chap. 5, “Tommaso Campanella,” and Ponzio, Tommaso Campanella, Filosofia della natura e teoria della scienza . 84

Campanella. Pietro Pomponazzi was a staunch Aristotelian.

In his 1516 Tractatus de immortalitate animae (“A Treatise on the Immortality of the

Soul”), Pomponazzi put forth an Aristotelian interpretation regarding the relationship between the body and the soul. According to Pomponazzi, the soul could not be inseparable from the body. Nor could there be a plurality of spirits governing the multiplicity of systems supposedly existing within the body. Aristotelian logic dictated that the soul could never perform its activities, including governing the body and directing the intellect, without the physical assistance of the body itself. Hence, to preserve the unity of the individual, Pomponazzi rejected notions regarding the separate existence of the soul. 109 Similarly, in his 1520 On Incantations ,

Pomponazzi systematically critiqued common beliefs associated with healing that involved

natural magic, miracles, charms, oracles and demonic possession with Aristotelian logic.

According to Pomponazzi, the idea of an incorporated entity, such as an angel, demon, or

magically summoned spirit, acting upon a corporeal body, could neither be empirically

appreciated nor rationally demonstrated. 110

For Pomponazzi, the fundamental problem concerned Averroist and Thomist interpretations on Aristotelian doctrine. Medieval treatments of ancient wisdom had taken learned men away from truth and reality. The Paduan medical philosopher also looked suspiciously at Galenic treatments of Aristotelian teaching and poorly conceived methods of scholastic education that invited illogic into the classroom. A key figure in the Aristotelian tradition of the early sixteenth century, Pomponazzi advanced a humanist’s desire for the strict

109 Pomponazzi, Tractatus de immortalitate animae a cura di Gianfranco Morra , chap. 1, “Pomponazzi, l’uomo possiede.” 110 Pomponazzi, Gli Incantesimi, a cura di Cristiana Innocenti [ On Incantations, translated from Latin to Italian with commentary]. 85 return to unabridged Aristotelian teaching in its original articulation and purest form. 111

The Paduan defense of orthodox Aristotelianism did not end with Pietro Pomponazzi’s

death in 1525. Giacomo Zabarella (1533-1589) advanced the cause even more seriously. After

earning a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Padua, Zabarella avidly sought to

defend the superior status of theoretical natural philosophy against the pressures emanating from

the growing practical disciplines, such as medicine, anatomy and applied mathematics. In other

words, Zabarella worked to maintain the Aristotelian distinction between theoretical and practical science, which held the theoretical as superior, and he mainly advanced his arguments

through discussions concerning the relationship between the philosophy of nature and the art of

medicine. 112

Zabarella rejected the Thomist implication of medicine as constituting a mixture of theoretical and practical science. Instead, he concentrated on what Aquinas actually said on the matter, and wholly subordinated medicine to philosophy. In fact, Zabarella claimed medicine could never enjoy scientific status, despite the discipline’s growing prominence among the arts, because medicine’s ultimate purpose and function did not concern the generation of knowledge. 113 Medicine worked toward specific ends, namely the maintenance and restoration of health. True to his Aristotelian loyalties, Zabarella argued that true sciences existed for the sake of knowledge. In purely Aristotelian terms, Zabarella argued that medicine did not explain “first causes,” hence, the medical practitioner could never fully understand the essence of what he encountered. Health could not be fully comprehended, argued Zabarella, and the goal of

111 Pine, Pietro Pomponazzi: Radical Philosopher , especially 34-46. Pine argues that Pomponazzi’s main gripes concerned the Christianization of Aristotelian teaching. See also Kristeller, Aristotelismo e sincretismo nel pensiero di Pietro Pomponazzi , especially 10-14. 112 See Poppi, Ricerche sulla teologia e la scienza nella Scuola padovana del Cinque e Seicento , especially “ Metodo e tecnica in Iacopo Zabarella ,” 153-166. See also Schmitt, “Experience and Experiment: A Comparison of Zabarella’s View with Galileo’s.” 113 See Mikkeli, An Aristotelian Response to , especially “Arts and Sciences in Zabarella’s Thought,” 21-45, and “The Foundation of An Autonomous Natural Philosophy,” 211-228. 86 medicine could not be achieved, if a physician did not comprehend all the parts of the human body and their nature, composition, purpose and function. 114

Zabarella dismissed the sixteenth-century medical philosopher’s critique of

Aristotelian/Galenic theories on the soul out of hand. The physicians misunderstood Aristotle,

who never attempted to explain physiological dynamics or corporeal phenomena via discussion

of the soul. Hijacking Aristotelian principles and re-territorializing the ancient master’s theories

to pursue their own practical questions, contemporary medical philosophers distorted Aristotle’s

teaching. For Zabarella, Aristotle outlined a science of the soul to enrich the art of natural philosophy, not explain the human body. 115

Crucially, for the purposes of this chapter, Zabarella did not share Pietro Pomponazzi’s

suspicion of Arabic treatments of Aristotle. In fact, in his largest treatise on Aristotelian

teaching, Opera logica (1578), Zabarella followed Averroes in order and arrangement of topics.

Although he concentrated on the original Greek manuscripts, rather than Latin translations,

Zabarella did not dwell on the significance of language. 116

The lack of a linguistic component in Zabarella’s criticism warrants attention. Language constituted a major trump card in professional debates among medieval and early modern medical philosophers. Etymological and philological debate, issues concerning translations, the relevance of literary criticism to the interpretation of ancient texts, the significance of rhetoric— all these linguistically based issues—often fueled professional infighting among opposing medical scholars. Even Giovanni Argenterio, who fundamentally opposed early modern medicine’s reliance on ancient knowledge, framed much of his criticism in arguments

114 Ibid., 212-213. 115 See Kessler, “The Intellectual Soul,” 485-534, especially 530-34. 116 I have consulted the Minerva company’s Frankfurt edition entitled Opera Logica by Jacopo Zabarella (as Giacomo Zabarella was often referred to following his death). See also Kessler, “Zabarella, Jacopo (1533-1589),” 836-839. 87 concerning language. As Nancy Siraisi has shown, “In the preface of his Opera [Argenterio’s

major publication], Argenterio characterized the professors of the most outstanding academies in

the world, as the vulgar would believe, as grammarians rather than physicians , because of their

emphasis on Greek philology and Latin rhetoric.” According to Siraisi, “Argenterio explicitly paralleled humanist philology with the scholastic questiones method, asserting that neither provided a valid method for achieving real knowledge in medicine.” In a long running feud with a medical philosopher named Dr. Tubingen, Argenterio derisively referred to his opponent as

“grammatics Tubingensis .” 117

Analyzing Argenterio’s remarks regarding the distinction between physicians and

grammarians shall be the purpose of the next section. One basic quality remained common to pre-modern humanists, scholastics, orthodox Aristotelians and even empirically oriented physicians: they fought their battles in a language of textual criticism. The significance of texts

and language also distinguished the scholarly medical practitioner’s mental world from that of

the vernacular healer outside university.

* * * * *

In 1453, Niccolo Leoniceno graduated from the University of Padua with an advanced

degree in medicine. A doctor’s son, Leoniceno worked for a licensed apothecary and studied

medicine at Vicenza before enrolling at Padua. After graduation, Leoniceno moved on to the

University of where he taught medicine for many years. But Leoniceno lacked the

unconditional respect for tradition generally associated with high learning during the

Renaissance. In fact, by the time his career ended, Nicolo Leoniceno had earned a reputation as a

staunch critic and master reformer of contemporary medicine.

117 Siraisi, “Sixteenth-Century Medical Innovation,” 169. 88

Leoniceno’s desire to improve fifteenth-century European medicine emerged from linguistic concerns. A close look at his university career reveals a penchant for philological studies. Leoniceno’s mastery of Greek enabled him to appreciate the differences between the original ancient texts scholarly medical philosophers supposedly revered and the Latin translations they actually studied. By the time he reached fifty, Leoniceno dedicated himself to acquiring as many important texts as possible, mastering Arabic, providing new translations, and spreading the call for reform. 118

By the end of the fifteenth-century, many perceived Nicolo Leoniceno as “the restorer of ancient medicine.” Leoniceno issued new translations of Hippocrates’ Aphorisms , most of

Galen’s famous “Sixteen Books,” as well as treatises attributed to Aristotle. As Daniela Carrara

explains, “Leoniceno was committed to a program of restoring medical knowledge to its pristine

form.” The professor from Ferrara criticized the Romans of Galen’s day for poorly translating

ancient medical texts from Greek to Latin. Leoniceno hurled the same critique at the medieval

scholars of Aquinas’s generation. But “the great restorer” saved his most vivid invective for the

Arabic commentators such as Joannitius, Averroes and Avicenna. Nicolo Leoniceno pushed for

the elimination of “barbarian texts,” that is, Arabic medical works, from sixteenth-century

European universities. According to Leoniceno, the Arabic author’s misunderstood the ancient

works; they added words where none were necessary, failed to elaborate when appropriate, and

imposed their own misguided ideas upon the texts they mistreated. For Leoniceno, the medieval

Arabic medical philosophers represented the “corrupters” of the ancient tradition. 119

Many colleagues followed Leoniceno’s lead. Humanists with medical education, or

medical philosophers with humanist sympathies, began publishing new translations of the most

118 See Carrara, La biblioteca di Nicolo Leoniceno: Tra Aristotele e Galeno, especially 7-11, 14, 18-27, 35. 119 Ibid., chap. 2. See also Nauert, “Humanism as Method: Roots of Conflict with Scholastics,” 427-438, especially 438, where Nauert uses the expression ‘barbarian texts.’ See also Nutton, The Rise of Medical Humanism . 89 revered ancient texts. Between 1495 and 1525, new Greek editions of the major Hippocratic,

Aristotelian, and Galenic texts popular in European medical schools rolled off the printing presses of Venice, Basle and Paris. Historians often speak of this period’s imperialist clashes and religious conflict, but as the new century dawned, a different sort of “war” also raged in

Europe.120

Thousands of scholarly publications describe the intellectual distinctions and professional quarrels between early modern humanists and scholastics. 121 The following considerations may be advanced: a). during the medieval period, scholasticism emerged as the dominant intellectual tradition in western Europe and the greatest influence on institutions of higher education, b). humanism, or at least the style of humanism represented by Nicolo Leoniceno and his admirers, basically grew out of scholasticism and represented a critical reaction to scholastic thought, c). humanism pressed for total reform of the traditional model of , d). humanism questioned the validity of the scholastic theory of knowledge and the scholastic quest for absolute truth, and e). humanism constituted a fundamental challenge to the entire medieval intellectual tradition.

The history of scholarly medicine is a history of ideas. Many ideas had been developed

and exchanged from Hippocratic times down through the early Renaissance. One idea held up

rather well: ancient texts possessed authoritative wisdom. But now a fundamental challenge to

this basic notion emerged within the intellectual trend of humanism. Humanists claimed most

scholastics could not properly read the texts.

120 Criticism of traditional late medieval education, or scholasticism, had been expressed by earlier generations of humanists like Petrarch, Valla, Erasmus, and Vives. But it was during the reign of Pope Leo X (1513-1521) that Italian Humanism is regarded as having ushered in a “Second Golden Age.” Quarrels between humanists and scholastics heated up around the turn of the sixteenth century. 121 Some of the most famous authors include Paul Oskar Kristeller, Hans Baron, Eugenio Garin, Giuseppe Toffanin, Roberto Weiss, Eric Cochrane, and Charles Nauert, but the list grows each year. 90

As Charles Nauert explains, “the humanists dismissed medieval learning as worthless trash, the product of a barbarous and incompetent age, an incompetence symbolized by the inability of the scholastic doctors to consult the original Greek texts.” 122 In 1547, humanist

Martin Acakia spoke of medicine in the Middle Ages as “buried and overwhelmed in a great gloom.” 123 Sixteen years earlier, Johann Guinther rejoiced in the knowledge that “medicine has been raised from the dead.” The humanist Guinther declared that “Hippocratic and Galenic

teachings, hitherto both almost utterly corrupted, are only now at long last rescued from darkness perpetual and silent night.” 124

According to Nauert, “Humanists now [c. 1500] wanted to intervene at the very outset of

the interpretative process by insisting as grammarians, that the grammarian—the humanist expert

on languages and on the reconstruction of texts—had to establish the text itself and explain to

those who could not read the original what the words really meant.” 125 With new forms of

literary and textual criticism, predicated largely upon expertise in grammar, humanists staked

claim to the interpretative processes upon which all traditional medical learning depended. A

new set of self-appointed masters emerged.

Scholastic medical philosophers spent long years of study with syllogistic logic and dialectical argumentation, memorizing vast tracts of ancient and medieval texts. If they worked with politically tailored versions of intellectual discourse, they either did not realize it or chose not to dwell on those aspects of “Christianized learning.” In fact, the faithful scholastic believed only his intellectual method and the authoritative text mined with it, produced absolute

knowledge. The humanist considered the existence of “certain knowledge” an assumption—a

122 Nauert, “Humanism as Method,” 435. 123 Cited from Durling, “A Chronological Census of Renaissance Editions and Translations of Galen,” 239. 124 Ibid., 239. 125 Nauert, “Humanism as Method,” 436. 91 fallacious one at that—but for the scholastic, absolute knowledge represented the essence of natural philosophy; recall the Aristotelian principle that survived Aquinian editing: only that which is necessarily the case can be known scientifically. Technically, humanists and scholastics disagreed on the nature of knowledge and the object of science.

In medieval and early modern Europe, as today, graduating from medical school required great sacrifice. Scholastic medical philosophers struggled to accept humanist critiques of their professional opinions. When challenged by the nihilistic sweep of humanist criticism, scholastics commonly rejected their detractors on professional grounds. The humanist philosopher with medical interests lacked the advanced degree from the high faculty of medicine; the critic had not the qualifications necessary to pass judgment. The medical philosopher with humanist sympathies had been intoxicated by the destructive drug of grammar; his focus had long since been derailed from the proper study of the body to the trivial study of sentence structure. Neither man constituted a legitimate medical philosopher. They were grammarians.

Humanists and scholastics attacked each other on dozens of major points. Scholastics justifiably argued that humanism did not represent a systematic philosophy or method of knowledge construction. Humanists critiqued traditional education, complained scholastics, but offered no comprehensive solution. Humanists countered by suggesting that while scholastics thought their intellectual method, educational philosophy, and pedagogical methodology comprehensive and totalizing, a realistic look indicated otherwise. Scholasticism was, by definition, selective, partial and limited. Humanists attacked the scholastic process of extracting isolated statements from a text and then treating those sentences as accurate reflections of the author’s opinion, without attention to what the sentence implied in its original context. More fundamentally, humanists formally objected to the literary strategy that resided at the heart of 92 scholasticism’s academic project: the selective appropriation of ancient texts.

As students of literature, humanists studied the ancient texts in greater detail than scholastics. Humanists read Hippocratic, Socratic, Platonic, Aristotelian and Galenic volumes in their original form, prior to scholastic treatment of the texts. As literary critics, humanists approached the books as textual constructions, suitable for analysis, not mystical sources of wisdom, worthy of unconditional acceptance after a bit of scholastic seasoning. As there existed different schools of scholastic thinkers, various styles of humanist thought emerged and interpretations varied. But most humanists quickly seized on the partial, unbalanced and strategic interpretations of ancient texts by scholastic educators.

After all, in Metaphysics , Aristotle wrote:

Experience is the knowledge of particulars, but not of universals….It is not man the

physician cures except incidentally, but Callias or or some other person

similarly named, who is incidentally a man as well. So if a man has theory without

experience, and knows the universals, but does not know the particular contained

within it, he will fail in his treatment; for it is the particular that must be treated. 126

Why had scholastics not emphasized this passage? Could not these words be interpreted

as stressing the significance of experience and particulars over grand philosophical theorizing

and universals? Might not this passage be used to emphasize the importance of observation,

empirically derived knowledge and crucial distinction among particular details? Let us recall that

Aristotle had once written that “a first principle contradicted by experienced reality could not be

a valid first principle.” But over fifteen centuries later, scholastic Aristotelianism held that the

126 Aristotle, Metaphysics , i.I, 980, b 14-24. 93 eternal and immutable first principles taught in medical school could not be overturned by mere experience. In fact, scholastic medical philosophers did not study the particular, corruptible elements, but their “common form,” the universal, which necessitated comprehension by the intellect. Scholastic medicine always emphasized theory over experience. 127 Paduan medical students were not encouraged to contemplate the significance of empirically derived knowledge, even though Aristotle had penned thousands of pages about such things. Those aspects of

Aristotelian logical theory had not survived the scholastic institutionalization of ancient learning.

Nevertheless, by the sixteenth century, many medical professors argued that scholarly medicine was overly dependent upon logic, too theoretical and insufficiently empirical. The final section of this chapter considers the University of Padua’s two most famous examples.

Understanding the major issues, questions and controversies surrounding scholarly medicine during the late Renaissance necessitates considering the careers of Andreas Vesalius and William

Harvey.

* * * * *

In December 1537, the University of Padua granted Andreas Vesalius the degree of

Doctor of Medicine Cum ultima diminutione (“With Highest Distinction”). The next day saw

Vesalius recognized by the Senate of the Venetian Republic, crowned “Professor of Surgery,” and declared the most authoritative anatomy specialist at the Paduan university. But almost five hundred years later, historians of medicine still struggle to describe Vesalius’s relationship with anatomical authority during his own time.

There can be no doubt Vesalius changed anatomical studies. Prior to the year of his birth

(1514) candidates for advance degrees in medicine were formally required to display knowledge

127 See Ottosson, Scholastic Medicine and Philosophy, 87. 94 of anatomy gleaned almost entirely from text books. Arabic translations of Galenic anatomical studies by Joannitius and Avicenna generally served as the authoritative texts. In 1514, however,

Nicolo Leoniceno published a collection of Galen’s anatomical works translated from the original Greek directly into Latin, eliminating the Arabic influence. The new editions created a stir in anatomical studies.

Seventeen years later, at the Medical Faculty of Paris, Johan Gunthier published a

Greek/Latin translation of Galen’s most thorough work on anatomical procedure, De Anatomicis

Administrationibus . Although primarily a language specialist, Gunthier did hold the title

“Professor of Anatomy.” A student of Gunthier, eighteen-year-old Andreas Vesalius once remarked, “I would not mind having as many cuts inflicted upon me as I have seen him

[Gunthier] make on man or brute.” 128 For Vesalius, Gunthier had not performed enough actual dissection to lead an anatomical studies department.

Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) cut a different trail. From Paris to Louvain, to Padua,

Vesalius performed live anatomical dissections for medical students, university professors and patrons of education. In addition, the Brussels native would publish illustrated picture books, complete with anatomical plates, detailed explanations and esoteric analysis. In 1538, Vesalius published an imposing illustrated anatomical treatise later called Tabulae Anatomicae Sex . The

same year, Vesalius published a volume entitled Institutionum Anatomicarum Secundum Galeni

Sententiam ad Candidatos Medicinae Libri Quator , which amounted to a reworking and

expansion of Gunthier’s Galenic anatomical translations. The following year, Vesalius published

an anatomical treatise entitled the Venesection Letter . This work finds Vesalius entirely in line with the contemporary views of medical humanists; the art of medicine had been corrupted during the “Dark Ages” and the more recent reliance on polluted texts, but now the pristine

128 O’ Malley, The Illustrations from the Works of Andreas Vesalius , 13. 95 truths of the ancients were being restored and properly appreciated. In 1543, Vesalius published his own Magnus opus . That year marked the initial printing of De Humani Corporis Fabrica .129

Historians have labeled Fabrica everything from the ‘most influential book in

Renaissance natural philosophy’ to ‘the beginning of modern science.’ For generations, scholars

seeking to narrate the history of science as a story of progress have singled out Fabrica as a

crucial bridge linking past to present. Kuhnian interpretations of “scientific revolution,”

complete with abrupt shifts, suddenly ruptured discourse and great leaps forward, depend upon

such notions of great texts. In the 1540s, so the story goes, Copernicus’s De revolutionibus and

Vesalius’s Fabrica changed scholarship in general and natural philosophy in particular. With

Fabrica , scientific knowledge construction significantly shifts from dogmatic reliance on

authoritative sources and theories of rational logic, to empirically derived ideas and

experimentally tested hypotheses. With Fabrica , natural philosophers truly begin to investigate

nature. 130

The truth remains elusive. Firstly, Fabrica ’s remarkable complexity makes it difficult to evaluate as a unified text. Simultaneously an anatomical atlas, an illustrated picture book, a manual for dissection, a , a dictionary of anatomical concepts, and a comprehensive analysis of the body, the book defies categorical description. “The complex structure of the book,” writes Nancy Siraisi, “has always made it difficult to evaluate

129 I have used Vesalius, De Humani Corporis Fabrica; On the Fabric of the Human Body: A Translation of De Humani Corporis Fabrica, translated by William Frank Richardson in collaboration with John Burd Carman, hereinafter known as Fabrica . 130 Modern scholars often criticize “traditional histories of science” for their teleological stories of progress that allegedly analyze the past with regards to the present. A common example and target of much criticism is Butterfield’s The Origins of Modern Science . For a more recent example, see Fenster, Mavericks, Miracles, and Medicine, especially chap. 1, “The Art of Medicine, Andreas Vesalius, Observation and Anatomy.” Randall’s The School of Padua and the Emergence of Modern Science and Kearney’s Science and Change, 1500-1700 , especially the chapters on Vesalius and William Harvey, are two other examples extremely relevant to this chapter. 96 relationships and priorities among its various components.” 131 Secondly, while Vesalius expands upon Galenic anatomy and respectfully raises some question about the ancient Greek’s vaguest anatomical principles, Fabrica can also be read as an endorsement of Galenic teaching. As

Siriaisi points out, Fabrica is meant to be read alongside Galenic anatomical manuals. Much of

the volume’s pedagogical narrative directs the reader to Galenic text and assumes the reader’s

familiarity with Galenic concepts. “Rather than precluding continued direct study of Galen,”

remarks Siraisi, “Fabrica demands it.” 132

Indeed, one basic quality unites the various components of Fabrica : the consistent reference to Galen’s famous On the Usefulness of the Parts . In Fabrica , Vesalius selectively expands upon certain Galenic ideas, enthusiastically supports others, indirectly refutes others still, and ignores many altogether. Vesalius’s colleagues and students began to wonder about his relationship to Galen. What did Vesalius’s project and method imply for Galenic anatomy as understood within scholastic medical philosophy?

Vesalius himself wrote, “As the Gods love me, I yield to none in my devotion and reverence for Galen, no one can nor should enjoy any greater pleasure than praising him.” 133 A short time later, the Paduan professor added, “I am almost as afraid to argue about his [Galen’s] authority as I would be tacitly to doubt the immortality of the soul in our holy religion.” 134 As

Charles D. O’Malley explains, “Although much has been made of the Vesalian anti-Galenism,

this has been grossly exaggerated and represents a complete misunderstanding of Vesalius and

his times.” 135 Yet, how can we understand the relationship between Vesalius and Galen as

131 Siraisi, “Vesalius and Human Diversity,” 63. 132 Ibid., 65. 133 O’ Malley, The Illustrations from the Works of Andreas Vesalius , 13. 134 Montagu, “Vesalius and the Galenists,” 234. 135 O’ Malley, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 7. Andrew Cunningham presents a slightly different point of view, emphasizing the idea that Vesalius believed himself engaged in something quite novel. See Cunningham, The Anatomical Renaissance , especially 7-10. 97 revealed in printed texts? Why should this question be so difficult to answer?

The problem concerns the period of agonizing transition experienced by scholarly medicine during the sixteenth century. Opposing voices consistently spoke past each other. The culture of early modern university—the requirements of legitimacy, publication, advancement and respect, further complicate matters. The various forces simultaneously pulling Vesalius’s work in different directions and professional constraints imposed upon him by university make it difficult to conclusively demonstrate deliberate programs within his publications.

These ideas become more apparent when we systematically consider the questions, and challenges facing Vesalius as he attempted to develop his anatomical program. To begin, Vesalius had to respect Galenic authority. No other anatomical paradigm existed at university. Ideational development within natural philosophy flowed from consideration of, and subsequent reaction to, established bodies of thought. Aristotle had written that “there is no science that does not from preexisting thought.” 136 Scholastic theories of logic did not believe in innate knowledge. Hence, up-and-coming thinkers could not introduce entirely novel

ideas without foundation. Instead, they wrote within the genre of “commentaries,” which

allowed them to explain their ideas with regards to established knowledge. Legitimate analysis

required basis in previously established thought, even if such analysis occasionally undermined

or challenged conventional belief. 137

Siraisi has cast doubt on Vesalius’s alleged subversive tendencies by pointing out that he wrote Fabrica not for an introductory audience, but for “ eruditi viri .” 138 But the conventionally

136 Aristotle, Posterior Analytics I, I, 7IAI. 137 By the middle of the sixteenth century, authors of “commentaries” were writing in a more critical fashion than their medieval predecessors. Vesalius’s treatment of Galen is certainly less flattering than the reflections offered by Joannitius and Avicenna. In this sense, the genre of commentary writing had changed. This shift represents part of the increasing tension experienced within scholarly medicine during the late Renaissance. Nevertheless, at medical school, scholarly thought on any subject still proceeded from discussions of established authority. 138 Siraisi, “Vesalius and Human Diversity,” 64. 98 ambitious, self-promoting Vesalius spoke to the highest levels of state and university at an early age. A combination of unusual talent, well placed professors, and good fortune placed Vesalius before the Venetian Senate and in the top publishing houses before his thirtieth birthday. Sensing opportunities for greatness, Vesalius wrote strategically. A straightforward manual designed to influence impressionable minds would not have served him well. Pursuing promotion, tenure, legitimacy and fame necessitated respectful, conciliatory language and deference before authority. 139

But the path to fame remained tricky. Vesalius’s work raised controversial questions concerning the limits of legitimate inquiry. Did not his intensive investigation of the human body potentially encroach upon the Aquinian prohibition against excessive curiosity? In scholastic knowledge construction, as explained above, legitimate inquiry concerned that which could be readily understood. Vesalius’s efforts to explore the body on a deeper level raised technical questions about the human body and theoretical questions about natural philosophy.

In addition, Vesalius’s work stirred provocative debate concerning the scholastic conception of scientia versus artes. Attempting to advance the significance and status of anatomical studies, Vesalius needed to rationalize and justify his requests for money, time, space and publication contracts. Professing to simply correct Galenic errors did not constitute a viable strategy. Instead, Vesalius cautiously implied that his new anatomical program would lead to a kind of knowledge about the human body that did not necessarily have any directly practical, therapeutic objective. In discussing his findings concerning the bony structure of the eye,

Vesalius remarked, “if we contemplate the fabrica of man in this fashion, we will grasp things which may not greatly conduce to the usefulness of the art of medicine, but demonstrate the admirable industry of the great Creator and which without doubt were sedulously and studiously

139 See Montagu, “Vesalius and the Galenists,” 234. See also French, Medicine before Science, 143. 99 examined by the ancient professors of anatomy.” 140 Hence, Vesalius elevates anatomical

dissection from a practical art to a discursive practice, capable of yielding knowledge normally produced by the theoreticians of scientia . Would the methodological practices and technical processes of the art remain subordinate to the study of text and the contemplation of logic for

long? Would the discipline remain a subset of natural philosophy?

William Harvey may have been less concerned with such grand questions and more interested in the specific technical details of Vesalius’s anatomical work. Nevertheless, Harvey’s career would have tremendous impact on the biggest questions surrounding scholarly medicine during the late Renaissance. Walter Pagel once suggested “the foundation of modern scientific medicine began with William Harvey’s study of blood circulation between 1615 and 1619 as inspired by Andreas Vesalius’s method of pictorial representation within anatomical studies.”141

During the period in which Pagel wrote, many historians of science presented Harvey’s work as unprecedented, revolutionary, and entirely opposed to conventional thought. Cardiovascular theories aside, William Harvey’s true place in history stemmed from his fundamental opposition to Aristotelian teaching and scholastic philosophy.142 Indeed, much documentary evidence survives to support such thinking.

William Harvey (1578-1657) graduated from the University of Padua with a doctorate in medicine at the age of twenty-four. At the height of his fame, Harvey declared, “I profess both to learn and to teach anatomy, not from books but from dissections; not from the positions of

140 Siraisi, “Vesalius and Human Diversity,” 66. 141 Pagel, “William Harvey and the Purpose of Circulation,” 22. 142 In his 1953 essay, “The Reaction to Aristotle in Seventeenth-Century Biological Thought,” Pagel himself wrote, “Seventeenth-century scientific thought is often represented as the fruit of antagonism to Aristotelian and scholastic philosophy…..Such a view calls for qualification—at all events in the sphere of seventeenth-century biology.” See Underwood, ed., Science, Medicine and History , 489. 100 ancient philosophers, but from the very fabric of nature.” 143 Harvey described certain ideas of

Aristotle as “erroneous and hasty conclusions; like phantoms of darkness…they suddenly vanish before the light of anatomical inquiry.” 144 Harvey also criticized Galen, dismissing the ancient

Pergamonian’s teaching as “self-contradictory, contrary to experience, contrary to reason, and contrary to experiment.” 145 Indeed, William Harvey seemed to possess all the qualities for the precursor of the modern scientist: the free-thinking disposition, emancipated from ancient

dogma, self-assured, confident in his own method and powers of observation, satisfied with

nothing less than empirically derived knowledge and experimentally tested ideas.

Closer inspection reveals otherwise. While he labeled Galen “self-contradictory,” Harvey

himself also wrote, “the authority of Aristotle has always had such weight with me that I never

think of differing inconsiderately.” 146 After years of studying early modern medicine, Mary

Lindemann concludes, “Harvey saw the body much as Galen did, as a vessel filled with vital

forces.” 147 The most prolific Harveian scholars view the former Paduan student, professor, physician, anatomist and medical philosopher as a staunch Aristotelian. 148

Different historians of medicine emphasize different aspects of Aristotelian theory in

Harvey’s work. For example, Walter Pagel stresses the influence of the late sixteenth century style of Paduan Neo-Aristotelianism on Harvey. According to Pagel, Harvey’s cardiovascular theories stem directly from three Aristotelian tenets: (1) the macrocosmic / microcosmic

143 Harvey, Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis et sanguinis in animalibus . See “Epistle dedicatory to Dr. Argent,” Preface, iv. 144 Pagel, “William Harvey and the Purpose of Circulation,” 197. 145 Plochman, “William Harvey and his Methods,” 202. See also Payne, Harvey and Galen: The Harveian Oration, 1896 . 146 Pagel, “William Harvey and the Purpose of Circulation,” 28. 147 Lindemann, Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe , 74. 148 See, for example, Pagel, New Light on William Harvey , especially chap. 2, “The Harveian Aristotle and the Aristotelian Harvey,” 13-33, and chap. 7, “ Harvey Aristotle and Medieval Revisionism,” 74-87, as well as Pagel, William Harvey’s Biological Ideas , especially chap. 1, “The Influence of Padua, Aristotle ovum, Aristotelianism,” 19-51. See also Whitteridge, William Harvey and the Circulation of Blood, and French, William Harvey’s Natural Philosophy . 101 relationship between the universe and man, (2) the virtuous nature of circular , and (3) the cyclical of fluids in nature—evaporation, condensation, and evaporation once more. For

Pagel, these mainly cosmological considerations, which were quite popular among Fabricius and

Andreas Cesalpino, two dedicated Aristotelians who instructed Harvey, reside at the heart of

Harveian theory.

“He [Harvey] was a true pupil of the school of Padua,” explains Pagel, “and a staunch

Aristotelian.” 149 According to Pagel, the Paduan Neo-Aristotelian style of natural philosophy did not represent some conceptual language with which Harvey rationalized his cardiovascular theories in post-hoc fashion. On the contrary, Aristotelian philosophy drove William Harvey’s biological theories.

George K. Plochmann prefers to emphasize a purer textual relationship between

Aristotelian literature and Harveian theory. For Plochmann, Harvey’s doctrines concerning the circulation of the blood can be directly traced back to passages in Aristotle’s Organon as well as the “theory of the four causes” established in Book I of Metaphysics and Book II of Physics . In addition, Plochman tends to emphasize Harvey’s use of Aristotelian theories of logic, as opposed to Pagel’s emphasis on Aristotelian cosmology. “We must think of Harvey as making use of

Aristotelian concepts in heuristic fashion, and then, finding them fruitful in his preliminary dialectical examination of possibilities, making certain of them principles in his demonstration of the circulation of blood.” Plochmann concludes, “this methodological reading of Harvey’s relation to Aristotle seems to make sense.” 150

Gweneth Whitteridge sees Harvey as a rational, unemotional, unapologetic empiricist who simply believed himself to interpret Aristotle better than his Paduan colleagues. Whitteridge

149 Pagel, “William Harvey and the Purpose of Circulation,” 28. 150 Plochman, “William Harvey and His Methods,” 208. 102 portrays neither the controversial metaphysician described by Pagel nor the dedicated textual

researcher of Plochmann. Instead, Whitteridge describes an anatomist who took Aristotle’s

emphasis on empiricism to heart, developing a relatively new theory of the body with the best set

of tools he could find in ancient texts and the freshest cadavers in Italian medical schools.

I shall make no effort to determine the superior argument. Instead, I would like to

emphasize a crucial similarity among the three hypotheses described above. All three historians

indirectly emphasize the various interpretations of Aristotelian theory possible to a late

Renaissance medical philosopher. Aristotelian natural philosophy had a multi-dimensional presence within early modern medicine. A plurality of interpretations regarding Aristotelian

teaching existed within scholarly Renaissance medical debate. Different scholars emphasized

different aspects of Aristotelian literature. There existed different types of “Aristotelians” and people invoked Aristotelian theory for different reasons. Emphasizing this almost paradoxical

complexity may constitute our best chance of gaining an accurate understanding of early modern

scholarly medicine.

As a discursive formation, scholarly medicine during the early modern period represented

a bricolage of many different intellectual traditions; a wide variety of disparate ideas, not easily reconciled with each other, were tenuously held together by broader ideas concerning tradition, expedience and authority. Like any complex area of inquiry, scholarly medicine constituted a work in progress—its practitioners were trained in theories of logic and ideational development—and a collective critical voice within the profession attempted to promulgate new ideas, thereby producing constant discursive evolution. This collective disposition, however, could not be easily reconciled with the conservative orientation at the heart of university based scholastic medicine. As we have seen, learned medicine’s official theory of knowledge, 103 scholasticism, generally aborted the development of novel ideas and new directions.

Scholasticism’s conservative influence and medicine’s dominance by the larger discourse of natural philosophy may have produced tension in the wide variety of medical students anxious to distinguish themselves at university. Nevertheless, thinkers from different backgrounds and various academic interests were united by certain things during the early modern period. Deep respect for the distant past characterized the intellectual disposition of the Renaissance scholar.

Greatness resided within antiquity, waiting for the resourceful researcher to uncover the pristine knowledge of yesteryear. This basic mindset received a boost with late medieval developments within the intellectual trend of humanism. As we have seen, with a set of hermeneutics emphasizing language and literary analysis, humanism established the foundation for a powerful critique within Renaissance medicine: the ancient texts underpinning scholarly medical discourse required re-examination, cleansing and a new set of interpretations.

But the renewed search for original texts led to other troubling discoveries. The historical construction of Renaissance medicine now came under critical scrutiny. The merger, appropriation and ideologically driven combination of different intellectual traditions that produced scholarly medicine now became historical phenomenon suitable for analysis. Hoping to outflank their professional opponents, academics from different scholarly backgrounds now hunted for ammunition to support polemical arguments against each other. Universities presented

‘rational medicine’ as beyond reproach, but scholars within university began to critically examine the nature and historical evolution of medical philosophy, mainly to sure up their place within the discipline.

To a certain extent, early modern scholars began to contemplate the very ideas emphasized in this chapter. Aristotelian philosophy, as consulted, debated and deployed during 104 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, represented only a selective portion of the ancient

Greek’s original writings. Galenic medical knowledge, as understood during the early modern period, represented a strategically conceived combination of Hippocratic teaching with strands of

Aristotelian theory, where pragmatic questions governed interpretation and development. The rise of the medieval university added another layer of controversial complexity to scholarly medical discourse. The appropriation and institutionalization of ancient learning by Christian schools necessitated a theory of knowledge and philosophy of education to organize, expand, transmit and control a wide variety of disparate ideas. Scholasticism forged a working synthesis of different traditions and a functional operationalism for the medieval Christian university. But scholasticism could neither provide an invulnerable model for future discursive production nor shield itself from the insightful critics who sensed its anti-intellectualism.

At this point in the narrative it is tempting to portray the alleged battle between humanists and scholastics as a bi-polar dynamic framing scholarly medicine’s historical evolution. But there existed different types of humanism and different types of scholasticism. Renaissance humanism did not constitute a new philosophy that replaced a dying scholasticism, thus ushering in the modern intellectual disposition of university. Nor did the “empiricist’s approach” associated with Andreas Vesalius and William Harvey replace the over-intellectualized rational medicine of the early Renaissance with practical modern science.

It was more complicated than that. We have seen how Giovanni Argenterio and Pietro

Pompanazzi both rejected sixteenth-century treatments of Aristotelian teaching, but for entirely different reasons. Alessandro Massaria demanded renewed respect for medical knowledge gleaned from antiquity, but recent Latin translations of ancient texts satisfied his interests. On the contrary, many humanists scholars insisted only the original Greek versions of ancient medical 105 literature constituted true philosophical wisdom. Philologists emphasizing such ideas indirectly propped up Galen. But humanists specializing in rhetoric criticized traditional interpretations of

Galen’s Hippocratic/Aristotelian synthesis. When reading modern histories of the Renaissance one meets humanist scholars interested in medicine, medical philosophers influenced by humanism, and ‘humanist medical philosophers,’ but the differences could easily outweigh the similarities among men from these categories.

We have seen how Bernardo Telesio and Tommasso Campanella criticized scholasticism’s rational medicine, predicated upon speculative philosophy, as described by the ancients. For these men, Aristotelian logic could never drive the art of medicine; theory ought to be derived from experience. William Harvey’s methods seemed the very embodiment of the

‘new empiricist’s’ approach. But Harvey considered himself an Aristotelian; his methods and theories were driven by Aristotelian logic. In retrospect, Harvey seemed most influenced by certain aspects of Aristotelian logical theory underemphasized by Galen and deliberately omitted by Thomas Aquinas. Nevertheless, Harvey proceeded in Aristotelian fashion as he established

the groundwork for a science of anatomy that would replace that of Galen. Such paradox typifies

the history of medicine.

* * * * *

In an imposing recent study, Ian Maclean argues against the popular portrayal of

Renaissance scholarly medicine as a static, monolithic, inflexible body of belief, doomed to

implode by the late sixteenth century. Instead, Maclean finds a ‘loose logic’ deployed in early

modern medicine and a ‘relaxed structure of thought’ among medical professors. Regarding the

interpretation of signs, for example, Maclean suggests that broadly based conceptual schema 106 allow for a variety of ‘valid readings’ to emerge simultaneously. According to Maclean, no overarching system of thought truly exerted tyrannical control over the students and practitioners in medical schools. Instead, a highly manipulatable theoretical foundation allowed creative thinkers to diagnose intuitively while justifying their actions in post-hoc fashion. For Maclean,

the malleable, flexible nature of Renaissance scholarly medicine reflects the health, adaptability

and vigor, rather than the demise, of the tradition. A clear implication emerges from Maclean’s

work: we ought not abandon the intensive study of scholarly medicine during the early modern period. 151

Maclean’s philological skills, research habits, breadth of knowledge and sheer intellectual capacity warrant respect. But his argument seems forced. One wonders if Ian Maclean might not be reacting to the recent marginalization of his brand of medical history. Recent scholarly studies of medicine focus on the social, cultural and anthropological roots of healing phenomena. The material culture of healing processes, the commercial influence of the medical marketplace, the relationship between vernacular and learned healing, the gender dynamics between healers and patients, now constitute the questions most readily entertained by publishing houses. Old-

fashioned masters of ancient Greek and Latin texts have seen their popularity wane. We have

moved away from doctrinal approaches to medical history.

Ironically, Ian Maclean may be experiencing something akin to the plight of the scholarly

medical philosophers he studies. Like Dr. Maclean, early modern medical philosophers from a

variety of backgrounds came under attack in the late sixteenth century. Sensing the

marginalization of their expertise, many re-investigated the past, as Maclean has done, with

renewed vigor, for evidence of self-affirmation. Both in the sixteenth century and today, renewed

151 Maclean, Logic, Signs and Nature, especially chap. 5, “The Arts Course,” and chap. 7, “The Content of Medical Thought;” see also 332 and the entire “Postscript,” 333-342. 107 efforts to reconstruct scholarly medicine’s history have produced richer, more insightful, and ultimately more complex understandings of the discipline. As the ideological battles continue, our appreciation for scholarly Renaissance medicine’s multi-layered complexity grows.

The nature of that multi-layered complexity remains debatable. One can approach early modern scholarly medicine from a number of different perspectives. Many modern scholars attempt to explain the demise of scholasticism’s Galenic medicine. Others, like Ian Maclean, try to demonstrate the full richness of the art, its adaptability, capacity to endure, and ability to survive. Most historians try to explain how we got from there to here.

But some ideas should remain common to any serious investigation of western medicine’s history. The following set of generalizations may be advanced: during the

Renaissance, scholarly medicine consisted of a tenuous mixing of several intellectual traditions wrapped in an educational philosophy designed to control thought. Centuries of selective appropriation, culturally determined development and ideologically driven refinement produced a complex, unwieldy discourse wrought with dangerous fissures. The stepchild of natural philosophy, developments within scholarly medicine required constant reconciliation with a larger discourse quite unconcerned with practical questions facing healers. Dissent, disagreement and lack of consensus characterized scholarly medicine’s body of practitioners. Most medical philosophers primarily concerned themselves with their place in the profession rather than the

trajectory of the discipline. 108

Chapter Two

Humors, Complexion, Spirits and Energy: The Technical Side of a Philosophical System; Galenic Medicine during the Late Renaissance

By January 1568, medical student Giacomo Baldini might have wondered when he would actually begin studying the human body, health, sickness, healing, and the technical aspects of curing illness. In all likelihood, Baldini would have finished his second year of medical school at the University of Padua. Yet during the second half of the sixteenth century, European medical students generally did not focus upon the internal dynamics of the human body, disease, and healing practices before they had completed at least two years of advanced training in language, logic, rhetoric, and natural philosophy. While it may seem anachronistic to think early modern students impatiently anticipated the more focused aspects of purely medical study, modern historians have uncovered evidence of such dissatisfaction. 1 Then, as now, many students preparing to embark upon graduate training seem to have only vaguely understood what the pursuit of advanced degrees actually entailed.

Nevertheless, as the creeping darkness and moist chill of the Paduan closed in on

Giacomo Baldini, the opportunity to directly study Galenic medicine and humoural theory would

unfold before him. It would take at least one year before he could realistically be expected to

gain intellectual ownership of the fundamental principles, major precepts, and subtle nuances of

this system of medical beliefs. I shall attempt to describe the most important points of such

knowledge over the next sixty pages.

* * * * *

1 Puschman, History of Medical Education , 251-256. 109

During the late Renaissance, for the purposes of instruction, the University of Padua divided the Galenic/Humoural medical system into two main parts: the theoretical and the practical. The ‘theoretical’ represented the overarching framework and general context in which the art of healing was understood. As explained in the previous chapter, as a university discipline, medicine remained subordinate to natural philosophy, yet medicine itself constituted a philosophical system. ‘Theoretical medicine’ represented the coherent, unified body of rationally

ordered knowledge necessary to such a philosophical system, complete with its own set of

epistemological, metaphysical, and ontological foundations. During the Renaissance, ‘theoretical

medicine’ subsumed ‘practical medicine.’ Hence, the ‘practical branch,’ which broadly refers to

the technical treatment of sick patients, constituted a subset or aspect of the ‘theoretical.’

The ‘practical’ component of humoural theory, however, should not be understood as the purely clinical side of medicine in any modern sense; students working in ‘practical medicine’

did not master applied healing techniques while their colleagues studying ‘theoretical medicine’

labored in the rhetoric, logic, and philosophical studies of Baldini’s first two years at Padua.

Instead, both branches combined bookish intellectual studies with technical challenges of applied practice; neither area was practical in the sense of ‘clinical.’ This rather perplexing relationship

of theoretical and practical medicine represented a controversial subject during the Renaissance,

and modern scholars still fundamentally disagree on the distinction between the two branches of

study. Hence, the subject requires careful consideration and further elaboration.

The professor of theory outlined the general principles of health and sickness while

describing the theory of the body upon which humoural medicine depended. As Jerome Bylebyl

observes, “the professor of theory instructed students in general explanatory principles of health 110 and disease, namely physiology and general pathology, as well as introducing them to major elements of medical practice, which included semiology, hygiene and therapy.” 2 Instructors in the ‘practical branch’ covered much the same territory, but they conveyed their major ideas mainly through narratives on disease. Pathology and nosology represented the major areas of emphasis in ‘practical medicine.’ Understanding how and why the body malfunctioned served as the general context for instruction within this branch of study. Early modern medical students also learned the skills of ‘bleeding,’ ‘cupping,’ ‘lancing,’ and ‘bone-setting,’ among other things, while gaining a basic understanding of most contemporary surgical procedures. 3 In fact, one

could earn an advanced degree in surgery and gain “exclusive legal rights,” in some European

states, to perform medical operations. But scholarly medical philosophers and proud collegiate physicians rarely practiced surgery. In early modern Europe, medical surgery generally constituted an artisanal skill. Most ‘barber surgeons’ learned their trade in craft-apprenticeship systems. Such men lacked prestigious university degrees. 4

At university, however, the similarities between ‘theoretical’ and ‘practical’ medicine outweighed the differences in one very important sense. Both served mainly to rationalize and justify the philosophical underpinnings of humoural theory. One could argue that the practical

side of the humoural system served mainly to reify and affirm the most demonstrable ideas

within the theoretical system. A tourniquet slowed the bleeding of an open wound, but its

greatest value concerned its capacity for demonstrating arterial and venous circulation. Giacomo

Baldini’s first year textbook at the University of Padua, the Canon of Avicenna, deals explicitly

2 Bylebyl, “The School of Padua,” 338. 3 These techniques shall be further described in the section on healing practices contained in this chapter. 4 Laws prohibiting surgery by anyone other than a licensed medical practitioner were virtually meaningless in medieval and early modern Europe, as they were rarely ever enforced. Surgery shall be further described in the section on therapeutics later in this chapter. For a concise overview, see Ambroise Paré: Ten Books of Surgery , especially the Introduction. 111 with the relationship between theoretical and practical medicine:

When, in regard to medicine, we say that practice proceeds from theory, we do not

mean that there is one division of medicine which we know, and another, distinct

therefrom, by which we act. We mean instead that these two aspects are both

sciences—but one deals with the basic principles of knowledge, the other with the

mode of operation of these principles. The former is theory; the latter, practice.

Theory is that which, when mastered, gives us a certain knowledge, apart from any

question of treatment. The practice of medicine is not the work which the physician

carries out, but is that branch of medical knowledge which, when acquired, enables

one to form an opinion upon which to base the proper plan of treatment. Theory

guides to an opinion, and the opinion is the basis of treatment. Once the purpose of

each aspect of medicine is understood, you can become skilled in both theoretical

and applied knowledge, even though there may never come a call for you to exercise

your knowledge…. 5

Indeed, many licensed physicians only “exercised applied knowledge” reluctantly. Most prescriptions consisted of suggestions and advice regarding healthy lifestyles. Medical philosophers outlined regimens of health for those who strayed from the path of proper living.

5 Gruner, A Treatise on the Canon of Medicine of Avicenna , 91. This version of Avicenna’s Canon was originally translated by Gruner and later annotated by Michael McVaugh. In the 1930 version of this volume, Gruner describes Avicenna’s Canon as a “summary” of the Galenic medical system, “an exhaustive compilation and systematization of all the scattered knowledge contained in Galen’s writings.” Historians of Renaissance medicine have found these writings to be commonly used in the best early modern medical universities, and Bylebyl had determined the Canon of Avicenna to be a basic text at Padua in the late sixteenth century. See Webster, ed., Health, Medicine and Mortality . In his 1930 translation of Avicenna’s Canon , Gruner wrote, “such treatises helped set the tone of Western medicine in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; however much they might emphasize the importance of practical knowledge, or the nature of medicine as an ‘art,’ the effect of their very structure was to favor the logical element over the clinical” (Introduction, ii). 112

Cutting, draining, burning, and lancing represented last resorts for professional healers who diagnosed and prescribed in fashions modern patients would consider indirect, passive, and, quite probably, futile. Scholarly Renaissance physicians preferred the eloquence and safety of broad, sweeping, general language to the risky, untidy practice of physical intervention.

Although not uncommon, even medicinal prescriptions such as herbal concoctions, dietary

supplements, or chemical solutions were not routinely deployed. 6

If professors of university medicine fashioned themselves as “medical philosophers,”

more concerned with providing intellectually coherent and rationally ordered accounts of the

human body’s composition and physiological processes than prescribing cures for illness, then

the distinction between theoretical and practical medicine ought to be easily understood. Sharp

distinctions between scholarly medicine and vernacular healing outside university might also

follow from such considerations. But a carefully balanced examination of the major concepts,

significant ideas, basic assumptions, and fundamental practices associated with humoural

medicine leads us elsewhere. A purely doctrinal understanding of Renaissance medicine

inevitably leads to dichotomous analysis—‘theoretical’ versus ‘practical,’ ‘scholarly’ versus

‘vernacular’—but a more comprehensive understanding of medicinal discourse may allow us to

appreciate the common assumptions, basic perceptions, and fundamental ideas that a wide

variety of early modern healers actually shared. From the university classroom to the anatomy

lab, from the licensed apothecary shop to the botanical gardens, from the printing shop to the public medical marketplace, from the major city’s licensed physician to the countryside’s

6 In a famous passage on therapeutic methods, Galen wrote, “Health consists in natural activities, illness consists in unnatural ones; health consists in the natural conditions, illness consists in the unnatural conditions; health consists in the dispositions, and illness consists in them too.” Clearly, for Galen (and his early modern emulators), health depended upon a lifestyle, frame of mind, and set of physical activities, including diet, most closely related to and efficiently aligned with the harmony of nature. The strategic manipulation of the body, whether in the form of surgical intervention or the introduction of foreign substances, often aroused suspicion among such medical philosophers. Today, people espousing such views of the body, health, sickness, and healing are often said to possess a ‘naturalist’ view of medicine. See Hankinson, Galen on the Therapeutic Method, 30. 113

‘cunning woman,’ early modern healers shared many basic ideas, even if the actors and players from different social levels expressed them in various discursive and conceptual languages.

Such ideas shall be developed over the next several chapters of this dissertation. In this brief section, however, I will be satisfied to have re-emphasized, in a fairly elementary fashion, the fact that the ‘theoretical’ component of humoural medicine subsumed the ‘practical’ in early modern medical schools. More shall be said about both branches, and the relationship between them, in the pages that follow. It is to a more detailed examination of the theoretical system that I shall now turn.

* * * * *

Basic medical textbooks used in early modern medical schools generally divided the theoretical system into three major parts: the study of the ‘naturals,’ the ‘non-naturals,’ and the

‘contra-naturals.’ Galenic ideas regarding health, sickness and healing flowed from a consideration of these phenomena. As explained above, the concept of the ‘humuor’ came from

Hippocratic texts. Adopted by Galen, the ‘humour’ became the constitutive component of

Galenic, or “humoural theory.” A humour ( compositione ), the reader will recall, may be best understood as a physiological concoction of fluid particular to the living organism to which it belongs; humours represented the specific bodily fluids essential to the physical functioning of living organisms. The status, nature, and quality of interaction among the bodily humours governed an organism’s health. As shall be described below, the Galenic system featured four different humours—blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. Humours, among other things, constituted one of the seven ‘naturals.’ The other six included ‘elements,’ ‘qualities,’ ‘members,’ 114

‘energies,’ ‘operations,’ and ‘spirits.’

The ‘elements’ were four in number: fire, air, water and earth. The quartet dovetailed neatly with the fundamental elements of matter outlined in Aristotelian philosophy. In this sense, the human body constituted a microcosm of the universe, an idea common to ancient, medieval, and early modern natural philosophy. But the elements also contained ‘qualities,’ the third of the seven ‘naturals.’ ‘Qualities’ described the physical characteristics and nature of substances, gases, and fluids. Fire was hot and dry , air, hot and moist , water, cold and moist and earth, cold and dry. The four humours—blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile—also possessed qualities. Blood was hot and moist , phlegm, cold and moist , yellow bile hot and dry , and black bile, cold and dry . Hence, the concept of ‘qualities,’ the third of the seven ‘naturals,’ did not represent an idea separate and distinct from the other six concepts within its subgroup. The other six ‘naturals’ possessed ‘qualities,’ while qualities themselves represented one of the seven

‘naturals.’

The rather confusing organization of these conceptual schema should not distort the following basic points: (1) the human body was composed of the four elements (air, earth, fire, water), (2) each of the four elements possessed a pair of the four basic qualities (hot and cold, dry and moist); each element consisted of a combination of two basic qualities, (3) direct relationships, packed with meaning and implication, existed among and between these sets of constitutive components.

We have already seen that fire, one of the four elements, combined two qualities, ‘hot’ and ‘dry.’ We have also noted that blood, one of the four humours, combined the qualities of

‘hot’ and ‘moist.’ To complete this introductory set of fundamental relationships, we must note that the element air was said to correspond to the humour blood, the element water corresponded 115 to the humour phlegm, fire corresponded to yellow bile, and earth corresponded to black bile.

One must understand the humoural notion of ‘correspondence’ to properly grasp pre- modern European medicine. Hence, a brief word of explanation shall be necessary here. In humoural theory, ‘correspondence’ implies more than similarity, congruity, or any indirect notion of association or affiliation. Rather, for scholarly pre-modern physicians,

‘correspondence’ implies divine interconnectedness and sacred interrelation. For the humoural theorist, two things ‘correspond’ when they exert influence upon each other, affect each other, or respond similarly to certain forces within nature. The relationship between two corresponding things is fundamental; the integrity of nature’s laws depends upon the consistency and dependability of the relationship between corresponding properties. Although, to my knowledge, never explicitly described in any foundational medical text, this principle of correspondence represents a cornerstone of humoural medicine.

Renaissance medical philosophers combined perceptions of correspondence and relationships among basic conceptual principles to produce meaning within humoural theory.

This fact becomes clearer if we think of the four elements and the four qualities as fundamental characters or conceptual building blocks within a system of meaning production. Every basic principle either ‘corresponded’ to another fundamental character, was constituted by two other basic concepts, or represented part of the composition of another basic idea. Nancy Siraisi has complained that “the application of even the most basic concepts of the Galenic system was often confusing.” 7 This fact, of course, stems from the plethora of basic ideas and conceptual principles at the base of the model and the curious fashion in which they overlap, intersect, and

relate to one another. But the potentially painstaking interdependence of the various concepts

within humoural theory brought a paradoxical beauty to the system—it allowed Renaissance

7 Siraisi, Taddeo Alderotti and his Pupils, 262. Also see Nutton, Galen: Problems and Prospects , especially chap. 1. 116 medical philosophers to yield a plurality of interpretations regarding physical phenomena, framed against the backdrop of one eternal relationship: the ‘correspondence’ between the human body and the heavenly cosmos. The larger ramifications of this point shall be discussed throughout the balance of this chapter and the rest of this dissertation. For now, however, it shall be necessary to further outline the basic precepts of humoural theory.

The term ‘complexion,’ or ‘temperament,’ referred to the balance of the qualities, hot,

wet, cold, and dry, resulting from the mixture of the elements within the human body. 8 Not

everyone possessed the same quantities or similar distribution of humours. The preponderance of

certain humours over others determined the ‘temperament’ of each individual. 9 Health, as shall be described in greater detail below, depended upon maintenance of proper humoural balance, or harmonious complexion. Dyskrasia , which may be translated as “disease,” described a state of humoural imbalance, defying the body’s krasis , or standard constitution and healthy complexion.

Curing a disease involved restoring the natural balance within the body by returning the humours

to their proper “mixing,” or eukrasis . The process of re-balancing the humours had to consider

8 By the sixteenth century, competing medical philosophers issued various interpretations of ancient texts regarding such things. At the risk of oversimplification, some scholars viewed complexion as arising from the mixture and integration of the four humours. Others saw complexion as arising from the relationship of the qualities composing the four humours. For some, the humours did not survive intact when they came together; they were partly destroyed, but their qualities emerged in the process. Pietro Torrigiano, who published in Venice in 1571, suggested that this was what Avicenna failed to understand in his famous Canon . In Conciliator , Pietro d’Abano insisted there was a significant difference between ‘complexions’ and ‘temperaments.’ Ottosson suggests, “the difference between the simple theory of the four humours [Hippocratic] and the Galenic [humoural theory during the Renaissance] conception of complexion lies in the fact that the former does not distinguish between the qualities and the substance of qualities, whereas scholastic medicine emphasizes this difference by applying Aristotelian principles.” See Ottosson, Scholastic Medicine and Philosophy, 142. That may well be true, but sixteenth-century humanists undermined many scholastic interpretations. As we have seen in the previous chapter, it was a time of debate and transition. This chapter shall attempt to convey the most common interpretations in relatively simple fashion. For more on Torrigiano, see Siraisi, Taddeo Alderotti and his Pupils, especially 156-168. For more on d’Abano, see Ottosson, “The Natural Philosophical Foundation: The Idea of Complexio ,” in Scholastic Medicine and Philosophy, 129-154. Also see Siraisi’s Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine for a concise discussion of “complexion,” “temperaments,” and humoural balance; especially 101-103. For a broader treatment of the relationships among the elements, qualities, and humours, see Klibansky et al., Saturn and Melancholy . 9 These ideas are basic to Hippocratic/Galenic/Humoural theory and can be found in a plethora of texts. See, for example, Hippocrates, Nature of Man , especially 21-23, and Galen, On the Natural Faculties , xvi. Avicenna’s Canon , bk. 1, and Joannitius’s Isagoge also feature entire sections on the temperaments. 117 internal and external factors including the patient’s present relationship to nature and the physical world, his or her lifestyle, and his or her temperament. 10 Temperaments themselves, as explained above, were generally believed to be constituted by humoural complexion.

Returning to the seven ‘naturals’—humours, elements, qualities, members, energies, operations, and spirits—which constituted one of the three major compartments of the Galenic theoretical system, we must briefly describe the final four concepts on this list. ‘Members’ refer to the physical components of the body: the organs, bones, muscles, cartilage, and the like. The

‘principal members’ were the brain, heart, and liver. ‘Fundamental members’ were thought to be those body parts that provided corporeal structure yet produced no energy or physical nourishment, such as bones, muscles, and tendons. Certain members depended upon other members for energy, sustenance, and governance. The concepts of energies and spirits were curiously interrelated. The ‘energies’ were said to be three in number: ‘animal energy,’ the

‘spiritual’ and the ‘natural.’ Yet, the spirits were also three in number, and two of the three

‘spirits’ referred directly to the ‘energies,’ while the concept of ‘spirits’ itself constituted one of the three types of energy. The three ‘spirits’ were described as the ‘natural spirit,’ which originated from the liver, the ‘vital spirit,’ which originated from the heart, and the ‘animal spirit,’ which had its origin in the brain. For now, it must suffice to say that the ‘energies’ referred to the inanimate forces that inspired the body to perform its basic functions such as respiration and . The ‘spirits,’ on the other hand, represented substances manufactured in the heart, liver, and brain via the processing of inspired air. ‘Spirits’ were transmitted

10 Again, these standard ideas gained expression in most important early modern medical texts, although by the late sixteenth century, a variety of interpretations began to emerge. See Joannitius’s Isagoge , 707-709. For secondary sources, see Arika, Passions and Tempers, 8. See also Lindemann, Medicine and Society , especially 6-10, and Porter, Disease, Medicine and Society in England, 18-19. A few of the most common articulations of humoural theory, as regards the individual’s relationship to the physical environment, shall be explained below. 118 throughout the body by the arteries. 11 ‘Spirits’ subsequently compelled, directed, and ordered the body’s ‘energies,’ which exerted inspirational influence on the body themselves. The concept of

‘operations’ referred to the general functioning and basic activities of the various systems

composing the body. In modern times, ‘operations’ would refer to the constant re-initiation of the

respiratory, circulatory, and digestive system, as well as the overall conduct of physiological

affairs.

‘Non-naturals’ constituted the second of three major subdivisions within the Galenic

theoretical system. The ‘non-naturals’ represent those things in the realm of nature not directly

related to the constitution of the body. The ‘non-naturals’ were six in number: (1) air, (2) sleep

and waking, (3) food and drink, (4) rest and exercise, (5) excretion and retention, and (6) the passions or emotions. If good health, as briefly described above, depended upon maintaining proper humoural balance or harmonious complexion, then such balance would be best obtained by practicing moderation in the indulgence of the six ‘non-naturals.’ A healthy lifestyle

necessitated avoiding exhaustion, overeating, too much alcohol, psychological and emotional

anxiety, excessive passion, and even immoderate cravings. As Mary Lindemann points out, these

sets of ideas were not only fundamental to humoural medicine at university, they were prevalent

11 Late sixteenth-century students would have encountered these ideas in Joannitius’s section entitled “The Spirits” in Isagoge , 706, and “On the Spirits” in Avicenna’s Canon , bk. 1, 226. For secondary sources, see Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine , 101, and Paster, “Nervous Tension: Networks of Blood and Spirit,” 107-124. I will briefly describe one controversial point here. Galen believed the spirits were transported through a network of hollow canals within the body thanks to the presence of a gaseous substance called “.” For Galen, pnuema represented a certain magical air produced in the heart and dispersed throughout the human body. Healthy circulation depended upon maintaining an adequate level of pneumatic density. Galen acknowledged that arterial and venous incisions produced spurts of blood, but he attributed such outpourings to changes in pressure caused by the cuts themselves. For Galen, the invisible gas pneuma could not be readily observed, but it supported the mostly hollow network of veins, arteries, and nerves throughout the body. By the late sixteenth century, however, Galen’s pneumatic theory and his view of the relatively hollow network of veins, arteries, and nerves came under attack. Vesalian anatomy and Harveian theories of circulation probably undermined such ideas, although contemporaries were reluctant to declare so in print. Nevertheless, while Galenic theory along pneumatic lines circulated in required texts, many modern historians think such ideas were dismissed by late Renaissance medical philosophers. Arikha suggests the “hollow network” theories and pneumatic explanations of circulation were largely discarded by the turn of the seventeenth century. See Arikha, Passions and Tempers , 25-28. See also Furley and Wilkie, Galen On Respiration and the Arteries, especially the introduction and chap. 1. 119 in everyday interpretations of health and illness among ordinary Europeans. 12 Such

considerations shall be important to this dissertation and will be discussed in greater detail in the

chapters that follow. For now, however, it shall be necessary to offer a few brief remarks about

the ‘non-naturals’ within the framework of humoural theory.

First year student Giacomo Baldini most certainly would have noticed the disparate,

unwieldy nature of the six ‘non-naturals.’ The mixture of unrelated physiological, psychological,

and environmental conditions provided an unusual conceptual basis for theorizing and schematic

knowledge construction. After all, air constitutes a physical , food and drink represent

nutritional elements, while rest and exercise refer to living activities. Excretion and retention

would appear to represent involuntary physiological activities, unless one considers the extent to

which bodily processes might be affected by maintaining moderation with regards to drinking

and eating. As often is the case, one set of supposedly fundamental Galenic concepts is

inextricably intertwined with another set of ideas from the same theoretical model. Again, the

curious overlapping and interdependence of ideas presented as conceptual building blocks within

humoural theory provides for an unusually flexible system capable of yielding a plurality of

diagnoses and prescriptions regarding health.

But if the relationship among ideas regarding food and drink, rest and exercise, sleeping and waking, excretion and retention problematized conceptualization within the Galenic system, ideas regarding the passions and emotions invited thought from outside the physiologically based model of the body. A regimen demanding moderation of passions and emotions necessitated the qualification of immoderate wants, the restraint of orientations toward pleasure, the control of lust and sexual impulses: in short, a form of mental discipline characterized by the policing of

12 Lindemann, Medicine and Society , 10. See also Garcia-Ballester, “On the Origin of the ‘Six Non-Natural Things’ in Galen,” 105-115. 120 human desire. Such a conceptual framework invited spiritual counseling and opened the door to a wide variety of thought pertaining to “health,” appropriate behavior, and the proper human activities necessary to maintain a life well lived.13 To be sure, like many ancient, medieval, and

early modern European discursive formations, humoural theory, as interpreted during the

Renaissance, was shot through with spiritual thought and heavily influenced by ideas pertaining

to faith and religious belief. The fact that many modern historians of medicine draw overly sharp

distinctions between “religious healing,” at both learned and everyday levels, and humoural

theory raises questions and considerations for future sections of this dissertation. For now, it

must suffice to say that the Galenic theory of non-naturals opened the doors of humoural

medicine to a wide variety of “external thought”—that is, ideas outside the purely physiological

range of consideration—regarding proper living and healthy lifestyles. The theory of non-

naturals, as interpreted during the Renaissance, helped establish a medical philosophy capable of

yielding a near infinite set of interpretations regarding regimens of health.

‘Contra-naturals’ constituted the third and final part of the Galenic theoretical system.

‘Contra-naturals,’ or things ‘against nature,’ referred to pathological conditions of all kinds, but

if one had to define the concept with a single term within humoural language, the word would be

“disease.” Technically, the ‘contra-naturals’ were three in number: ‘disease,’ the ‘cause of

disease,’ and the ‘concomitants’ or ‘sequels of disease.’ But a cursory glance at Galenic literature

on the ‘contra-naturals’ reveals that the concept refers to a wide variety of sickness. Furthermore,

the translation ‘against nature’ may be taken quite literally when attempting to understand the

humoural concept of ‘contra-naturals.’

Since medicine constituted a subset of natural philosophy, humoural perceptions of

13 Writing in 1608, physician Fabio Paulino argued that sexual intercourse represented a seventh “non-natural.” Paulino based his arguments upon interpretations of Galen and Avicenna. See Maclean, Logic, Signs and Nature, 253. 121 sickness and disease were conceptualized in terms of nature. In Joannitius’s Isagoge , sickness is

defined as a “defect in temperament outside the course of nature, and injuring nature, whence

arises as efficient condition of harm which may be felt.” 14 Earning a medical degree from the

University of Padua would testify that the physician understood the intellectual foundations of

‘physic,’ a term derived from the Greek word for nature, ‘ovio .’

The relationship between scholarly Renaissance medicine and natural philosophy, in fact, may be best illustrated through considerations of sickness and disease. Etymological and philological considerations represent the best way to go. The Latin word for ‘healer,’ as commonly used during the early modern period, is medicus . The word may also be translated as

‘medical man,’ or one who practices healing techniques. The Latin word physicus , however, which represents the root of ‘physician,’ literally means ‘natural philosopher.’ 15 As we have seen previously, the university-trained Renaissance medical practitioner viewed himself as one thoroughly familiar with every major aspect of natural philosophy; hence, every medical doctor came with an intellectual tool kit loaded with ideas transcending the purely physiological and corporeal notions of health and healing.

One may push these questions further back by exploring the philological issues at hand.

Isidore of Seville (c. 560-636), whose writings were featured at the University of Padua during the late sixteenth century, represents an important medieval link between ancient and early modern natural philosophy. In his great work Etymologies , Isidore defines philosophy as

“knowledge of human and divine matters joined with a zeal for proper living,” listing logica , ethica , and physica as its principal branches. Isidore identifies physica , as “the investigation of

14 Joannitius , Isagoge, 711. 15 Harold Cook makes these points in a 1996 essay which emphasizes the relationship between scholarly Renaissance medicine and natural philosophy with regards to sickness. See Cook, “Physicians and Natural History,” especially 91. 122 nature” and “the inquiry concerning causes,” including “the causes of heaven and the power of natural things.” 16 According to Isidore of Seville, the four branches of physica were the liberal

arts of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.

But Isidore’s Etymologies includes a tract entitled De medicina . In this section, Isidore issues a full account of humoural theory, stressing the relationship between the humours and the four elements, and the microcosmic/macrocosmic correspondence between the body and the cosmos. Here, Isidore’s explains medicine’s exclusion from the fundamental branches of philosophy. “Medicine,” according to Isidore of Seville, “is more comprehensive than the other liberal disciplines,” because the medicus must be familiar with each of the liberal arts. 17 The doctor must understand arithmetic to comprehend the periodicity of diseases; geometry to understand the various influences of locales on health; music because of its healing properties; and astronomy, because of the health-related influences of the stars on the . Isidore remained faithful to Aristotelian syllogistic logic and stressed the significance of grammar and rhetoric to the physician.18 Throughout Etymologies he emphasized that philosophy represented

the overarching framework that ordered all the liberal arts, but in De medicina , he suggested that medicine represented the most comprehensive of the arts. Hence, Isidore concluded De medicina by designating medicine as “the second philosophy,” or the “philosophy of the body, just as philosophy is regarded as the medicine of the soul.” 19

Medicine was philosophy, and philosophy sought to medicate. But philosophy did not

16 Bylebyl, “The Medical Meaning of Physica,” 24. Bylebyl uses Isidori Etymologiarum sive originum libri XX 2.24.1-16. Also see Sharpe, Isidore of Seville: The Medical Writings , 55-61. I have consulted Isidore’s writings through a special volume in Harvard University’s History of Science Department entitled “Medicine and Society in Medieval and Renassiance Europe.” Although this book contains the passages quoted above, it is not a commercially published volume. Variation in pagination makes citation difficult. Hence, I refer to the Bylebyl and Sharpe sources. 17 See Bylebyl, “The Medical Meaning of Physica,” 25. Bylebyl uses Isidore, Etymologiae , 4.8. 18 Sharpe, Isidore of Seville: The Medical Writings: An English Translation with an Introduction and Commentary, published by the American Philosophical Society (Philadelphia, 1964), especially 22-28. 19 Bylebyl, “The Medical Meaning of Physica,” 24-25. 123 concern itself with medicine per se . Philosophy concerned itself with nature. Hence, humoural

theory, or ‘medical philosophy,’ would be conceptualized and developed on a stage backed by a

giant mural of the physical world. 20 Sickness and disease would be viewed as dysfunctions

between human bodies and the natural world, which constituted, in a sense, transgressions

against nature itself. In fact, at times medical philosophers seemed to think more about nature,

and the style of logic traditionally used to describe physical phenomena, than about the human body. Nevertheless, medical scholars hammered out a theory of human biology and a corresponding medical philosophy predicated on “knowledge of human and divine matters joined with a zeal for proper living.”

* * * * *

Developing human biological science and a working theory of the body necessitates raising many fundamental questions. Few are more essential than the differences between the sexes. Not surprisingly, most humoural texts referred to perceptions of nature when analyzing sexual differences. In fact, most early modern humoural texts spelled these differences out clearly and concisely at the outset. Consider the following, from the opening chapter of

Joannitius’s Isagoge :

Of the Difference Between Male and Female

The Male differs from the Female in that he is hotter and more

20 “One had to be a good natural philosopher and a good physician in order to know nature properly,” declared the scholarly naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi in 1570. See Findlen, Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture, 60. 124

dry; she, on the contrary, is colder and more moist. 21

Descriptions of difference, or fundamental distinctions, were typically expressed in terms of the Empedoclean (and later, Aristotelian) ‘qualities,’ hot, cold, moist and dry. As described in the second major section of this chapter, the four elements, air, earth, fire, and water, believed by western natural philosophers to constitute all physical matter in the natural world, consisted of combinations of the four basic qualities (hot and cold, dry and moist). Hence, all matter ultimately consisted of various combinations of ‘hot,’ ‘cold,’ ‘dry,’ and ‘moist’ qualities, and that included the human body. The best way to distinguish between the two basic types of human bodies (male and female) then, would be in terms of their ‘qualitative composition.’ In fact, the more basic the question, such as sexual difference, the more likely the answer would be conceptualized with the diametrical opposition of these basic quality pairs.

Similarly, the difference between sickness and health would be explained in terms of the core qualities, hot, cold, moist, and dry. In a treatise entitled On the Causes of Disease , Galen wrote, “there are four simple and four composite diseases, arising from an immoderate increase of the hot and the cold, or from some clash between one or another of these things, such as between the dry and the moist.” According to Galen, “a combination of such things may increase together, such as the hot at the same time as the dry, or cold and dry, or hot and moist…[but] should they increase to such a degree of excess, [they shall] cause a disease.” 22 Again, the

opposition of the basic qualities explained physical phenomena.

21 Joannitius, Isagoge , 711. Hunain ibn Ishaq’s ideas on this subject come directly from Hippocrates. They can be found in Hippocrates’ Aphorisms and The Nature of Man, as well as virtually all texts compiled by Galen, including Ars Medica and Ars Parva. See Galen of Pergamon, On the Natural Faculties, bk. 1; Hutchins, ed., Hippocrates and Galen: Great Books of the Western World; and Hippocrates, The Theory and Practice of Medicine , especially the Introduction by Emerson C. Keller. 22 Galen, “On the Causes of Disease,” cited here in Grant, Galen on Food and Diet, 46. Humoural conceptualizations of illness and the causes of disease shall be discussed in further detail below. For now, I will be satisfied to stress the significance of the basic qualities to humoural theorization of sickness. 125

But the second most fundamental question of human biology, which came prior to considerations of health and sickness, concerned aging. Galen outlined four ages: adolescence, the prime ( juventus ), decline ( senectus ), and decay ( senium ). The period of adolescence, according to Galen, was hot and moist, during which the body increases and grows up to the twenty-fifth or thirtieth year. The prime, which is hot and dry, followed. During this period, “the body remains in perfection without any diminution of bodily force,” and it lasts from the thirty- fifth to the fortieth year. “Next comes decline,” taught Galen, “which is cold and dry.” During this period the body begins to lessen and decrease, although the bodily force is not abated, and the period lasts to the fiftieth or sixtieth year. Decay finally succeeds. “Decay is cold and moist, with the appearance of the phlegmatic humour, and during this period the bodily forces are abated, and the period concludes with the end of life.” 23 Presumably, the same set of qualitative phenomena unfolded in the lifespan of a sublunary star or the existence of a tree within the

forest.

How and why should this correspondence be so? The question is most simply answered by taking a step back and broadly viewing a few ideas within the development of western natural philosophy. We know Empedocles outlined a theory of matter dependent upon the principles

‘hot,’ ‘cold,’ ‘moist’ and ‘dry’ around the same time the notion of the four elements—‘air,’

‘earth,’ ‘fire,’ and ‘water’—also gained currency (approximately twenty-six centuries ago). We

also know that Hippocrates lived shortly afterwards, when these ideas presumably flourished.

Hence, given the interrelationship between the ‘principles’ and the ‘elements’ within natural philosophy, it seems reasonable to conclude that Hippocratic humoural theory and the

micro/macro view of the body and the cosmos grew up together. Four centuries later, these ideas

still flourished.

23 Joannitius, Isagoge , 711. 126

In his tome On the Humours , Galen wrote, “To begin at the beginning: the elements from which the world is made are air, fire, water and earth; the seasons from which the year is composed are spring, , winter and ; the humours from which humans and animals are composed are yellow bile, blood, phlegm and black bile. 24 In his later work On the Natural

Faculties , Galen wrote, “the causes by which everything throughout nature is governed are the

Warm, Cold, Dry and Moist.” 25 A certain implication resides within these remarks: not only is the body built out of the four elements, which are themselves composed of various combinations of the four principles, but the behavior of these elements within the human body corresponds to the interaction of these elements within nature.

We can reach a comparable if not similar conclusion if we scrutinize the relationships among conceptual schema within the humoural system, but the result can be less than satisfying.

Readers will recall that within humoural philosophy , though not necessarily natural philosophy,

humours constitute one of the seven ‘naturals.’ The other six ‘naturals,’ as described above,

include ‘elements,’ ‘qualities,’ ‘members,’ ‘energies,’ ‘operations,’ and ‘spirits.’ Elements, of

course, consist of ‘qualities,’ but ‘qualities’ do not represent an idea separate and distinct from

the other six concepts within this subgroup. In fact, the other six ‘naturals’ posses ‘qualities,’

while ‘qualities’ themselves represent one of the seven ‘naturals.’ This is where the curious

overlapping and interdependence of ideas presented as conceptual building blocks within

humoural theory automatically produces correspondence. This system is self-referential in its

linguistic and conceptual organization.

Humoural theory would seem vulnerable to the late nineteenth/early twentieth-century’s postmodern critique of language. Nietzsche, Foucault, and others would argue that no ‘truth’ or

24 Cited from Grant, Galen on Food and Diet, 14. 25 See Galen, On the Natural Faculties, II, 8-9, in Hutchins, ed., Great Books of the Western World, 197. 127

‘reality’ exists outside of language; instead, malformed perceptions of such things emerge from within the cracks and fault lines of linguistically determined logic. Derrida would argue that the words and concepts of humoural theory have no direct correspondence to ‘reality;’ instead, they correspond to each other. Early modern natural philosophers might have thought their word games brought them closer to ‘reality,’ but they were simply privileging the conceptual languages they employed, or the technologies of their own self-fashioning. Trapped within the webs of language, humoural philosophers had no way of getting outside their linguistically

determined production of meaning. 26

Such may be the case. But it is also true that humoural theory did evolve over centuries and it is possible, in fact quite interesting, to examine developments within such theory to gain a better appreciation for how and why it developed as it did. Perhaps there can be no ‘post-modern

history.’ But humoural theory has a history, or perhaps many histories, and attempting to

reconstruct a few may help us understand how our ancestors made sense of life and living.

If we recall a basic argument of my first chapter—that Galen developed Hippocratic

humoural theory with Aristotelian logic—we may gain a sense of why Galenic/humoural theory

ultimately concentrated on certain physiological questions. For example, in most standard

Renaissance medical texts—such as Avicenna’s Canon, Joannitius’s Isagoge, and Galen’s Ars

26 Those elements of postmodern theory that concentrated on language, such as the work of Ferdinand de Saussure and Jacques Derrida, worked out some very complex theoretical critiques. Saussure emphasized the imperfect space between ‘signifiers’ (words) and the ‘signified’ (that which words profess to represent) and insisted that hidden transformations and distortions resulted from the use of language. The word ‘fire’ is not literally identical to the hot, reddish-orange phenomenon it attempts to describe; metaphors and analogies compound the problem while forcing us to rely more and more on systematic imperfection. For many postmodernists, language represents an impossible barrier to the truth, as perceptions of reality remain the products of linguistic imperfection. For my purposes, this is perhaps a complex way of saying that early modern natural philosophers never really achieved any significant distance from that which they attempted to investigate; instead, they invested perceptions of nature with their own values and predispositions and articulated preconceived views with fancy, but faulty, linguistic systems. For the most concise treatment of this subject, see “Postmodernism and the Crisis of Modernity,” in Appleby et al., Telling the Truth About History , especially 204, 208, 211, and 213. See also Patton and Smith, eds., Jacques Derrida: Engaged, and Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, as well as Kramer, “Literature, Criticism and Historical Imagination,” 72-97. 128

Medica —elaborate, complex discussion of human biology featured two closely related issues, nutrition and digestion. Humoural theory had much to say about the consumption and processing of food. In fact, the mechanical processes of digestion touched off an entire range of physiological questions and inferences that struck right at the heart of humoural theory. How does one thing (food) become another (humoural matter)? Packed with implications regarding

‘matter,’ ‘form,’ and purposeful transformation, the question served Aristotle fans well. Readers will recall that the great master’s “Theory of the Four Causes”—material, formal, efficient and final—concerned the physical transformation of things within nature and the cosmological meaning implicit in such phenomena. Judging by the amount of literature devoted to digestion, we may say that this subject represented the third most significant component of human biology within humoural theory.

Pre-modern medical philosophers could not readily see the biochemical processes of digestion, but they could reach general consensus regarding the influence certain foods had on the human body. 27 Armed with a broad sense of general relationships framed within a model of

cause and effect, medical philosophers developed a body of biological theory. The fact that this

‘biological theory’ was speculative and philosophical did not concern most early modern,

medieval, and ancient thinkers. As a discursive field, biology’s evolution into an empirically

driven science characterized by microscopes and chemical equations remained many years away.

But pre-modern natural philosophers could be quite comfortable with the questions

commonly associated with digestion. The most fundamental Aristotelian logic emphasized how

the question ‘What is this thing’ incurred the larger question ‘What brought this thing into being?’; pre-moderns could explain how the ‘agent’ that transformed one thing to another was

27 Similarly, pre-modern physicians could not explain the chemical reactions that took place when drugs and medicaments were introduced into the body, but they could, via collective experience, gain a shared sense of the impact certain medicinals had on patients. 129 imbued with meaning and purpose. The contemplation of digestion inspired such questions and ideas. What happened when food entered the body? How did food sustain us? How can we understand the transformation of food into humoural matter (or whatever it is that sustains us)?

Aristotle suggested the ‘efficient cause’ referred to the agent producing the transition from material to formal, but inquiries into formal causes always produced the question ‘What is this object meant to be ?’ The ‘final cause’ concerned the purpose for which such action had been taken. In humoural theory, digestion produced humours. The ‘purpose’ of digestion raised some exciting considerations.

Hippocrates outlined a theoretical explanation of digestion. Collected in the stomach, newly ingested food became heated in the initial stages of digestion. While cooking, food began a slow journey through the veins connecting the stomach to the liver. In the liver, the heating process finally transformed the food into chyle , a chemical composition unique to human beings.

Thanks to the heat of digestion, chyle combined with the ‘vital spirits’ of the healthy body to form the humours—blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile—which were exported to the heart first and the brain afterwards. Such represented the technical explanation inherited by Galen.

With Aristotle’s ‘theory of the four causes,’ Galen, and later generations of medical philosophers, imbued this explanation with notions of ‘purpose,’ ‘essence’ and cosmological meaning.

Humours represented the principle and essential components of the human body. Brought into existence by digestion, humours intiated, maintained, and sustained human physiology. But in a larger sense, interaction among humours reproduced the natural dynamics of the heavenly cosmos in human form. Such represented the essence and purpose of humours. Armed with the full weight of the Aristotelian tradition, Galenic medical philosophers attributed the initiation 130 and development of humours to digestion.

Once individually created, the humours collectively interacted; a body’s relative health

depended upon the quality of their perpetual dance. Each humour possessed a color, flavor and

character of its own, yet survival necessitated a certain amount of humoural harmony. Was not

the same true of the relationship between individual citizens and social collectives?

Understanding humoural interaction necessitates a closer look at the characteristics of each

humour. It is to a more thorough examination of blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile that I

shall now turn.

* * * * *

‘Humoural blood’ originated in the liver. Produced during the process of digestion, the

humour ‘blood’ fundamentally differed from the blood residing within the venous system.

Venous blood helped provide the density necessary to support the body’s physical integrity,

while transporting humours throughout the body. But humoural blood constituted one of the body’s four physiological pillars. In fact, of the four constituent humours, blood enjoyed perhaps

the most positive image.

Associated with the element ‘air,’ blood represented the most basic, indispensable,

ubiquitous element within the body. A healthy body required quantitative harmony among all the

humours, regardless of their individual composition, but ‘blood’ seemed inherently endowed

with special qualities distinguishing it from phlegm and yellow and black bile. Perhaps because

it commanded a central role in the distribution of the crucial quality ‘heat,’ blood consistently

conjured up images of splendid health. In his initial description of the four humours, Joannitius 131 described blood as “the best of them.” 28 Centuries earlier, Galen had written “blood produces a cheerful nature.” 29

A great deal may be said regarding the physiological potential of blood within humoural theory, but the following characteristics remain basic: blood was thought to be thick, dense, sweet in taste, and red in color. Although fundamentally ‘hot’ and ‘moist’ (both generally positive qualities), humoural blood somehow possessed the virtue of neutrality; blood did not tip the body’s scales in any significant qualitative direction. Children and adolescents were believed to be endowed with large quantities, or high percentages, of humoural blood. Indeed, reading through Galenic texts, one often gets the impression that the other three humours—phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile—represent byproducts or offshoots of blood’s production.

Nevertheless, like any humour, too much blood threatened physiological imbalance and ill health. Danger loomed when blood dominated the body’s other three humours.

Like blood, phlegm was also thick in viscosity. In fact, many basic humoural texts portray phlegm as a residue formed during the concoction of blood. Phlegm corresponded to

‘water’ in nature. Like water in the physical world, pockets of phlegm emerged everywhere within the body. Phelgm’s ubiquitous nature sustained life, for physiological processing depended upon this invaluable fluid. But as an individual humour, phlegm’s negative attributes seemed to outweigh her positive virtues. Associated with old age, decay, and deterioration, the presence of phlegm often indicated a disadvantageous set of circumstances. Many common

illnesses, such as the head cold and the fever, announced their unwanted presence with the

appearance of phlegm. A ‘phlegmatic disposition’ or ‘phlegmatic temperament’ generally

described a slow, sluggish, feeble individual. The ‘phlegmatic mind’ lagged behind as well.

28 Joannitius, Isagoge , 718. 29 Galen, On the Humours , cited in Grant, Galen on Food and Diet, 17. 132

“Phlegm causes a lazy and stupid nature,” declared Galen. 30 Indeed, the negative image

associated with phlegm, or mucus, in modernity, possesses ancient roots.

Physicians associated phlegm—cold and moist, as described above—with ‘winter.’ In an

age that lacked modern heating, where agriculturally determined societies struggled for

sustenance, such an association could be less than flattering. 31 Either salty or sweet to the taste, phlegm remained anything but neutral. Greenish or yellow in color (not to be confused with

‘yellow bile’) phlegm always seemed to be imbued or infested with something; the implication

rarely pleased healers. Expectorants represented the best way to eliminate excessive phlegm.

Physicians generally interpreted streaks of unusual color in urine or bits of seemingly foreign

matter in stool to as signs of rejected phlegm. Nevertheless, the body could not maintain

humoural balance and homeostasis without this cold and moist humour. 32

The liver produced yellow bile . Warm, dry, thin, light, buoyant: these represent some of

the adjectives used to describe yellow bile in major humoural texts. Generated during the production of blood, yellow bile ultimately collected in the gall bladder, although it remained broadly diffused throughout the body for the sake of humoural balance. Associated with

‘summer,’ youth and adolescence, yellow bile represented the volatile, unrestrained, intemperate

humour. 33 “Yellow bile possesses a nature that is angry,” warned Galen. 34 Many humuoral texts refer to yellow bile as chole —the attribute of ‘cholerics,’ who were fierce, quick-tempered,

argumentative and aggressive. In this sense, yellow bile’s association with youth and immaturity

30 Ibid., 17 31 Humoural medicine’s emphasis on balance notwithstanding, ‘heat’ always enjoyed a more positive connotation than ‘cold.’ Live bodies were warm; corpses were cold. The humours themselves were concocted, or “cooked,” by the healthy body’s innate heat. 32 In the standard Paduan textbook Isagoge , Joannitius describes five varieties of phlegm. ‘Salt phlegm,’ ‘sweet phlegm,’ ‘acrid phlegm,’ ‘glassy phlegm,’ and a fifth type, which he fails to label explicitly, all differ in dominant qualities, color, and tastes. Needless to say, they all influence the body differently. See Joannitius, Isagoge, “Of Phlegm,” 705. 33 Gruner, A Treatise on the Canon , 656. 34 Galen, On the Humours , cited in Grant, Galen on Food and Diet, 17. 133 seems natural and self-evident. Indeed, humoural philosophers believed yellow bile to be prominent in young bodies, less so during middle age, and sparse in older folks.

Such simplicity exists within humoural texts. But confounding complexity exists as well.

In fact, with regard to “color,” Galen identified seven types of “yellow” bile. “There is yellow, which people call basic,” explained the Pergamonian, “but there are pale-yellow, red, leek-green, yolk-yellow, verdigris and woad too.” 35 For this reason, ‘yellow bile’ is sometimes referred to as

‘red bile’ in humoural texts. 36 Such medical books rarely emphasize the differences among the various types of ‘yellow bile,’ but a practitioner seeking to render alternative interpretations can find much to work with in Galenic literature. 37 Not surprisingly, many modern secondary sources mistakenly locate yellow bile’s production in the gall bladder. 38 Perhaps it is appropriate that

yellow bile tasted ‘bitter,’ for its existence confounded many students of humoural medicine.

When overheated, yellow bile converted to black bile and sickness ensued. Left to exist

in proper, healthy proportion to the other humours, yellow bile helped fortify the venous blood

dispersed throughout the body. But the quirky, unpredictable, fierce, insolent connotation

attached to yellow bile implied danger for a system fully dependent upon balance, equilibrium,

and harmony.

Galen considered black bile “a topic over which some have spent far longer than necessary for the art of medicine.” But Galen himself wrote an entire treatise entitled On Black

35 Ibid., 16. Also see Galen, On the Natural Faculties , xix. 36 See Joannitius, Isagoge , 701, for example. Many other examples exist. 37 “The transformation of phlegm into blood is achieved by innate heat, as external heat only putrefies the material and decomposes it,” wrote Avicenna, in a text commonly used at Padua during the Renaissance. “Yellow bile does not have this function,” claimed the medieval Muslim scholar, “since unlike phlegm it is not converted into blood by innate heat; but it resembles phlegm in undergoing putrefaction and decomposition under the influence of external heat.” See Gruner, A Treatise on the Canon , 30, taken from “Doctrine IV, Book I: What a Humour Is, and What Kinds There Are .” This explanation does not seem easily reconciled with Galen’s discussion of yellow bile in On the Humours , yet both texts were valued at Padua during the Renaissance. 38 See, for example, Arikha’s otherwise fine volume, Passions and Tempers, 10. Isidore of Seville suggested that yellow bile was generally separated from the blood of the portal vein, passed on to the gall bladder and thence to the duodenum. See Sharpe, “Isidore of Seville: The Medical Writings,” 55-64. 134

Bile .39 During the early modern period, medical philosophers followed suit, consistently

theorizing about the ‘dark humour.’ A few basic ideas will suffice here: black bile emerged

during the concoction of blood or yellow bile. Such production generally took place in the liver,

although black bile occurred elsewhere in the body. Ultimately stored in the spleen, black bile

remained ‘cold’ and ‘dry.’ Associated with autumn, black bile represented the humour of

‘maturity.’ Perhaps most famously, black bile, or melaina chole , became associated with the

‘melancholic’ disposition. The melancholic tended to be self-contained, introspective, quiet, shy,

and sheepish. But too much black bile, or conspicuous melancholy, could easily mean delirium,

madness and insanity. “No fly or other living creature would wish to have a taste of black bile,”

warned Galen. 40

If blood enjoyed the most positive image among the humours, black bile suffered the worst. Black bile represented the only humour explicitly derived from previous humours, even if scholars argued about the specific creation of melaina chole . Conspicuously high percentages of black bile caused death. Although half of nature’s ‘quality’ quartet, black bile’s constitutive features, ‘cold’ and ‘dry,’ generally possessed negative physiological connotations. The body lost heat with age and dried up in death.

Nevertheless, black bile closely resembled humoural blood. Indeed, according to most interpretations, black bile owed its existence to blood. Joannitius divided black bile into two forms, ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal,’ suggesting “the normal form is the sediment or residue of good blood.” 41 Feeling compelled to distinguish between the two humours, Galen wrote “black bile remains distinct from blood in that it does not congeal.” Black bile did escort undesirable

39 Galen, On Black Bile , cited in Grant, Galen on Food and Diet, 19 for the quote, 19-37 for the treatise. Naturally, Galen had a good deal more to say about black bile in publications such as Ars Parva and Ars Medica . 40 Galen, On Black Bile , cited in Grant, Galen on Food and Diet, 22. 41 Joannitius, Isagoge , 718. 135 elements out of the body, however, during several physiological processes. In healthy bodies, black bile ‘purified’ humoural blood. 42 But overly dark blood implied sickness. The implication corresponded well with black bile’s negative image.

In summation, one must remember that each humour corresponded to two of the basic qualities associated with its element. Blood corresponded to air and featured ‘hot’ and ‘wet’ qualities. Phlegm corresponded to water and remained ‘wet’ and ‘cold.’ Yellow bile’s element was fire, and ‘hot’ and ‘dry’ constituted its qualities. Earth corresponded to black bile; ‘cold’ and

‘dry’ represented the dark humour’s qualities. The diagram on the following page illustrates these relationships.

42 Siraisi, Medieval & Early Renaissance Medicine , 106. Joannitius suggested, “the useful portion of black bile draws the blood together, thickening and strengthening it.” See Joannitius, Isagoge , 718. 136

Summer Yellow Bile Chlorine Fire Youth

Hot Dry

Spring Autumn Blood Black Bile Sanguine Melancholic Air Earth Childhood Adulthood

Wet Cold

Winter Phlegm Phlegmatic Water Old Age

The Humoural System 43

43 This sort of diagram did not commonly appear in ancient, medieval or early modern texts. Instead, many pre- modern texts expressed relationships within humoural theory through the use of convoluted arrows and lines. Images like the one shown above convey the basic ideas more clearly and have been used in modern secondary sources. For one like it, see Wear, Knowledge & Practice in English Medicine, 38. 137

A person could live a century under the relative domination of any humour, provided the subordinate humours were adequately represented. Even the body dominated by black bile might see old age. Such a person would be ‘melancholic,’ but could be generally healthy nonetheless.

A person could live with yellow bile’s relative dominance too; blood and phlegm might also enjoy the advantage in a fairly healthy individual. Problems arose when the ‘cold’ became frigid, or the ‘hot’ boiled over, or the ‘dry’ became parched and the ‘moist’ downright wet. 44

Although general balance or broad equilibrium represented the key to health in a system predicated on harmony and order, virtually all human bodies experienced relatively minor

disequilibrium. In fact, perfect humoural balance represented a near impossibility. The finely

tuned, ultra-sensitive human body experienced change with each deep breath, every bit of food

or drink, and each deep thought. The constant flux represented a good thing too, for the final

curtain descended when the humours stopped dancing.45

Flux, of course, implied action, fluidity, and perpetual motion. For the humoural philosopher, the body constituted a living hydraulic system characterized by the constant swirl of liquid matter. William Harvey’s theories of arterial and venous circulation brought great controversy around the turn of the century; his pumping heart shot blood through a network of corporeal highways unlike anything described by the ancients; but humoural philosophers had always assumed movement and transience of bodily matter. 46 In fact, health directly reflected the

44 These basic ideas reside within virtually every major humoural text. See, for example, Avicenna’s Canon , especially Doctrine 4, chap. 1, “What a Humour Is, and What Kinds There Are,” 91-95. See also Hippocrates V , “Diseases,” I, 2, vol. 5, especially 102-104. 45 Galen called the vital ongoing interaction among humours “disharmonic mixing.” Most commentators interpreted his remarks to mean that constant humoural activity kept the body alive. “It is vital that the humours change,” wrote Galen, “just as the elements must change into one another, not always keeping the same process of change, or maintaining a balanced increase.” See Galen, On the Humours , cited in Grant, Galen on Food and Diet, 15. 46 From Hippocrates down through Aristotle, Galen, the medieval era, and the early centuries of the Renaissance, humoural philosophers generally believed blood seeped through pores within the heart, much like water through a sponge. The idea of a pumping heart, which shot freshly nourished blood around the body, only to have such blood return, would have been foreign to Galen. Although humours were thought to be exported by the stomach and liver 138 efficiency with which the fluids of life traveled through the living organism.

Coughing, sneezing, and shivering all reflected hydraulic congestion. It would take “germ theory” and perceptions of bacteria to understand sneezing as the physical elimination of undesirable foreign elements. In the sixteenth century, the sneeze represented a bodily reaction to

obstruction of perfectly natural matter. The physical exasperation associated with sneezing

reflected the frustration of congestion, blockage, or some dysfunctional delay. Although quite

common, constipation struck fear in the hearts of victims. The irregular body’s assembly line

failed to process; extended breakdowns had grim implications. Not surprisingly, purgatives and

evacuations represented common approaches to restoring productive order. 47

Nevertheless, in spite of all the movement, most bodies featured a distinguishable disposition. In fact, a body’s ‘dominant temperament’ could be largely predetermined. Two phlegmatic parents rarely produced a non-phlegmatic child. But a ‘dominant temperament’ might evolve as well. Sufficient time spent eating and drinking certain things, thinking certain and feeling certain feelings, under the influence of a particular clime, might seal one’s fate as a generally melancholic, choleric, sanguine, or phlegmatic individual. But ‘temporary temperaments’ could emerge in contradiction to one’s generally ‘dominant temperament.’ With the right combination of behavior and experience, a body’s typical humoural disposition might be temporarily overcome; a phlegmatic individual could experience sanguinity, a melancholic person might become choleric, and so on. Fortunately, such changes rarely lasted long, for these variations essentially constituted “sickness.”

Nevertheless, the humoural body’s relative health varied plenty. The question “How are

through the body’s transmission system, venous and arterial circulation of blood was not understood prior to the late Renaissance. As described above, certain “spirits” were thought to travel throughout the body, but they did so through a largely hollow system of veins. 47 Such things will be described in greater detail in the section on therapeutic methods below. 139 you feeling today?” carried greater significance in centuries past. A closer examination of those factors influencing humoural dynamics shall be the focus of the next section.

* * * * *

“I think that one cannot know anything certain about nature from any other quarter than from medicine,” wrote Hippocrates, in approximately 400 BC. “This knowledge is be attained when one comprehends the whole subject of medicine properly, but not until then.” 48 In his first

great medical tome, entitled On Ancient Medicine , Hippocrates established the basic principles of

his ‘humoural theory,’ thoroughly grounding his ideas in one basic principle: understanding man

represents the key to understanding nature and the universe. Years later, in Nature of Man ,

Hippocrates would operate from the same principle, but with a slightly different emphasis. Now,

understanding how man’s body corresponded with natural phenomena represented the central

challenge of humoural theory. The humours varied according to the —blood increased in

spring and summer, whereas both yellow bile and black bile increased toward autumn. Phlegm

increased in winter and decreased in summer, because it was “the coldest constituent of the body.” 49 A crucial relationship within humoural theory gained articulation and emphasis—the

nature, organization, and interaction among the body’s humours corresponded to external

dynamics; forces outside the body directly influenced human physiology. Factors such as season,

climate, and diet affected one’s humoural disposition. Broad and wide with great potential for

expansion, the humoural theory of the body took on a rather malleable shape.

Approximately 400 BC, some say Hippocrates, some say an unknown author writing

48 The Genuine Work of Hippocrates. See On Medicine , pt. 20. 49 Nature of Man, VII, in Hippocrates IV , 23-24. 140 under the great master’s pen name, published a treatise entitled Airs, Waters, and Places . In this

text, the influence of climate, seasonal change, topography, and vegetation on humoural

constitution and, consequently, the human organism, gained further elaboration. “For with the

seasons,” wrote this ancient author, “the digestive organs of men [and hence, the humoural

constitution of men] undergo change.”

As the season and the year advances, the doctor can tell what epidemic

diseases will attack a particular city, either in summer or winter, and what

each individual may experience from the change of living regimen.

Knowing the change of seasons, and how each takes place, he will know

beforehand what type of year shall ensue. Having made these

investigations, and knowing beforehand the seasons, he becomes acquainted

with each particular, and he may succeed in the preservation of health and

the practice of his art. 50

Like many totalizing systems of explanation, it all seemed too broad to yield meaningful insight. But Hippocrates, or perhaps one of his students, labored on, providing specific detail and graphic examples of the ideas described above. In Part III of Airs, Waters, and Places , the

ancient author declared:

“[S]o that the aforementioned things should be understood in a clear manner, I shall

now explain….A city exposed to hot winds (these are between the wintry rising, and

50 The Genuine Work of Hippocrates ; see Airs, Waters, and Places , pt. 2, 1. See also Mattock and Lyons, trans., Hippocrates: On Endemic Diseases, 56-57. 141

the wintry setting of the sun), and to which these are peculiar, but which is sheltered

from the north winds; shall have plenteous and saltish waters; the heads of the

inhabitants shall be of a humid and pituitous constitution, and their bellies subject to

frequent disorders, owing to the phlegm running down from the head; the forms of their

bodies, for the most part, shall be rather flabby.

Did nature and climate directly determine body and health? The doctor seemed to think so. In describing the fate of such a place he wrote, “the following diseases are peculiar to such a city: the women are sickly and subject to excessive menstruation; many become unfruitful from disease and have frequent miscarriages.” Those children that survived birth were not so well off either. “Infants suffer attacks of convulsions and asthma,” declared the ancient physician. “Males are subject to dysentery, diarrhea, hepialus, chronic fevers in winter, or epinyctis, and of hemorrhoids of the anus.” Such problems yielded some advantages, however, as the physician declared, “Pleurisies, ardent fevers, peripneumonies, and common acute diseases rarely occur, for such diseases are not apt to prevail where the bowels are loose.” 51

Such might be the fate of the inhabitants within the city described above. But life within that particular city determined their collective health. Temperaments, complexion, and basic krasis of the body were entirely impressionable, but not necessarily fixed. In fact, the human krasis was anything but fixed. Like the clouds in the sky and the depth of the , humoural constitution consistently varied. Over five centuries after the publication of Airs, Waters and

Places , Galen expounded upon such ideas. “A particular humour might on occasion metamorphose into one or another sort of humour according to temperature, time, place, age and

51 The Genuine Work of Hippocrates ; see Airs, Waters, and Places , pt. 3, 12 (for both block quotations featured above). 142 diet: for all humours arise and increase at every moment and season.” In his treatise On the

Humours , Galen wrote, “In summer there is a predisposition towards bitter bile, especially

among those people who have leanings towards this condition through age, constitution, diet or,

above all, through external factors.” Black bile might be generated under similar conditions, but

according to Galen, “the surrounding circumstances are even more complicated.” 52

Indeed, the more Galen expounded upon the concepts of temperaments and complexion, the more he linked the physiological to the environmental. In treatises such as On the Causes of

Disease , The Temperaments, and his final book, The Faculties of the Soul , Galen emphasized

specific relationships between the physical world and the relative health of its inhabitants.

Convinced that Hippocrates himself had written Airs, Waters, Places , Galen devoted the final

years of his life to hammering out a systematic theory of environmentally determined health. 53

All such works would be studied closely at the University of Padua during the late Renaissance.

One “external factor” of great significance, of course, would be diet. Several sections above, we saw how and why the phenomena of digestion demanded strong attention from pre- modern medical philosophers; ideas concerning the assimilation of foreign substances within the body fit neatly with Aristotelian logic regarding considerations of ‘form’ and ‘matter,’ ultimately centering the question “how does one thing become another” at the heart of humoural discourse.

Such were the theoretical underpinnings of humoural philosophy and they transcended mere questions of human health. But the influence of diet on the body, as compared to the significance of digestion to humoural theory, may also be readily examined and understood.

Galen suggested, “the prime causes of yellow bile are stress, anger, emotional trauma, labor, physical exercise and insomnia,” but he also added “fasting and hunger” to the mix.

52 Galen, On the Humours , cited in Grant, Galen on Food and Diet, 15. 53 See Wasserstein, ed., Galen’s Commentary on the Hippocratic Treatise, especially the Introduction. 143

“Phlegmatic bile comes about from sleep, drinking water, the consumption of sea food and most diets in general, and viscous edibles that consist of thick particles,” wrote the ancient

Pergamonian. “Blood is generated by meat, fowl, eggs and all those foods that are both wholesome and easy to cook.” 54

Hippocrates had written that “every physician must strive to know, if he wishes to perform his duties, what man is in relation to the articles of food and drink [he consumes], and to his other occupations, and what are the effects of each of them to every one.” According to

Hippocrates, it is “not sufficient to know that a certain article of food is bad, but what sort of disturbance it creates, and wherefore, with what principle in man it disagrees.” 55 An important implication emerged: in humoural philosophy, food was held to be assimilated by the body, whereas medicine, as we shall see in later chapters, was thought to assimilate the body to itself. 56

In the late sixteenth century, university medical students would study many ideas about digestion directly from the pages of Joannitius . Reading through the Isagoge , one sees how little

had changed from ancient down through medieval and early modern times:

Of Foods

Foods are of two kinds. Good food is that which brings about a good humour, and bad

food is that which brings about an evil humour. That which produces a good humour is

that which generates good blood; namely that which is in the mean state as regards

quality ( commixio ) and working. Such is clean, fresh, fermented bread and the flesh of

lamb. Bad food brings about the contrary state, such as old bread, or the flesh of old

54 Galen, On the Humours , cited in Grant, Galen on Food and Diet, 15. 55 The Genuine Work of Hippocrates ; see On Medicine , pt. 20. 56 Siraisi makes this general point, although not with regards to early Hippocratic writing, in her book on the early modern medical philosopher Taddeo Alderotti. See Siraisi, Taddeo Alderotti and His Pupils, 161-162. 144

goats. Foods producing good or evil humours may also be heavy or light. Of the first

kind are pork and beef, of the second chicken, or fish. And of these the flesh of the

middle-sized and more active kinds is better than that of the fatter and scaly varieties.

Certain kinds of vegetables produce evil humours, for instance, nasturtium, mustard,

and garlic beget reddish bile. Lentils, cabbage, and the meat of old goats or beeves

produce black bile. Pork, lamb, purslain, and the attriplex beget phlegm. Heavy foods

produce phlegm and black bile, light food produces reddish bile, and either of these is

evil. 57

And so on. A great many ideas regarding the influence of food, appearing in itemized fashion, may be found in early modern humoural texts. But the relationship between diet and health meant less to Renaissance physicians than it does to modern doctors. Our modern science of nutrition would strike early modern medical philosophers as misguided and poorly conceived.

For them, the consumption of particular food, in and of itself, could not possibly yield significant influence on the body, unless considered in conjunction with other factors affecting health.

Despite the unambiguous language of the passage cited above, most humoural texts qualified the influence of food with contextual questions of climate, season, the alignment of heavenly bodies above and the state of the consumer’s mind below. 58 In fact, the ancient Greek meaning of “diet” transcended the consumption of food and drink. “Diet” referred to the regulation of life’s basic activities—striking a balance between work and leisure, sleep and activity, rest and exercise—

57 Joannitius, Isagoge , 708. 58 “In bodies which are warm either through nature, disease, time of life, season of the year, locality or occupation,” wrote Galen, “eating honey is productive of bile, whereas in opposite circumstances it produces blood.” See Galen, On the Natural Faculties, II, 8-9, in Hutchins, ed., Great Books of the Western World, 195. 145 such were the ambitious goals of a healthy diet. 59 While Hippocrates had suggested that the

skilled physician must know “what man is in relation to the articles of food and drink he

consumes,” in the same sentence he emphasized the significance of “man’s other occupations,

and the effects of each of them to the sum of man.”60 By “other occupations,” the good doctor

meant the sum total of those things one experienced, felt, touched, and thought during the course

of life.

In fact, Galen’s observations regarding the significance of the psyche on physical health

would be more thoroughly emphasized than nutrition during the early modern period. The

emotional and affective dimension of physical health filled thousands of pages in Renaissance

medical texts. The Cartesian distinction between mind and body gained little or no expression

within early modern humoural theory. It is to a brief discussion of what today might be called the psychological side of humoural medicine that we shall now turn.

* * * * *

Modern psychology, of course, began to take shape in the late nineteenth century. Our

ancient, medieval and early modern ancestors used the term ‘psychology’ to mean the study of

the soul. As we saw in Chapter 1, ancient natural philosophers and their early modern

counterparts did not use the word ‘soul’ in the same spirit as later theologians. Instead, for

doctors of yesteryear, the ‘soul’ referred to the mind and its various functions, which included physiological operations. Simply put, the mind and the body tended to be thoroughly integrated

in pre-modern perceptions of the human being.

59 See Pomata, Contracting a Cure: Patients, Healers, and the Law, 60. 60 The Genuine Work of Hippocrates; see On Medicine , pt. 20. See also Precope, Hippocrates on Diet and Hygiene . 146

Like modern human biologists, physicians, and psychiatrists, humoural philosophers believed that mental thoughts and emotional feelings incurred physical reactions within the body.

In his summation of Galen, Joannitius writes:

Sundry affections of the mind produce an effect within the body, such as those which

bring the natural heat from the interior of the body to the outer parts or the surface of

the skin. Sometimes this happens suddenly, as with anger; sometimes gently and

slowly, as with delight and joy. Some affections, again, withdraw the natural heat and

conceal it either suddenly, as with fear and terror, or again gradually, as . And

again some affections disturb the natural energy both internal and external, as, for

instance, grief.

But for the humoural philosopher, the relationships among thoughts, feelings, and physiological dynamics within the body represented more than harmless coincidences. Indeed, thinking and feeling constituted crucial aspects of physical health. As briefly described in the second major section of this chapter, “passions and emotions” represented the sixth category of

Galen’s ‘non-naturals.’ Good health depended upon maintaining proper humoural balance or harmonious complexion and such order necessitated moderation with regards to the six ‘non- naturals.’ A healthy lifestyle required avoiding, among other things, what we moderns might describe as psychological and emotional anxiety.

In Joannitius’s Isagoge , Giacomo Baldini and his late sixteenth-century classmates would study the same set of ideas. Joannitius referred to the “affections of the mind” as the “sixth basic 147 cause of the relation between health and sickness.”61 In an introductory section entitled “Of the

Regimen of Health,” Joannitius wrote:

The regimen of health is of three kinds according as it deals with those prone to illness,

those just beginning to be ill, and weakly persons. The first classes are treated by proper

regulation of the aforesaid six things, for example the six non-naturals.

Those in the second class are treated in two ways: first, by removal of the excess

humour; secondly, by repairing any defect in nature and by counseling adherence to the

proper observance of the non-naturals. 62

The “proper observance of the non-naturals” generally entailed the qualification or modification of one or more activities on Galen’s list. With moderation as the operational virtue,

‘passion’ quickly became the target of suspicion. Then, as now, the concept of ‘passion’ possessed a connotation of excess, immoderate or unwieldy dimension. To feel passion meant to be overwhelmed by emotion; to be passionate implied overdoing, or exceeding the bounds of conventional behavior.

In his treatise, The Passions and Errors of the Soul , Galen equated ‘passion’ with irrationality. Passion resulted from impoverished thought and the misguided feelings accompanying such activity. A healthy lifestyle necessitated emancipation from one’s passions; eliminate anger, fear, desire, jealousy, hate—good health shall emerge when only harmony remains. ‘Reason,’ or the opposite of irrationality, represented the great instrument within this theater of health. As a trained logician, the scholarly physician relied upon reason, and the

61 Indeed, Joannitius relayed Galen’s theory of the “six non-naturals” very closely. See Joannitius, Isagoge , “Of the Causes of Health and Sickness,” 711. 62 Ibid., 714. 148 mental health of a patient constituted a basic responsibility. Gianna Pomata suggests that for the ancient Greek physician and his early modern emulator, control of the emotions and passions that affected physical health fell under the rubric of diet. 63 Modern general practitioners refer patients to psychologists and psychiatrists for particular treatment; in previous centuries the thoughts and feelings generated in the mind constituted the domain of the regular physician. The general practitioner dealt routinely dealt with such things.

The Renaissance doctor might encourage his unhealthy patient to think through the irrational nature of his current state of mind. Like a modern psychologist, the pre-modern physician sought to adjust the patient’s relationship with his own thoughts in the hope of emancipating the victim from mental anguish. Undermine the sources of mental anxiety, so the strategy goes, and health improves. No great distinction between mental health and physical health existed; they were so inextricably intertwined as to be indistinguishable.

As Noga Arikha has written, “the physiological and psychological theory of the four humours emerged out of assumptions about the material basis of our passions and thoughts.”

According to Arikha, the idea that passions represented organic events, in which the dynamics of the body affected the soul and vice-versa, constituted a central feature of humoural theory. “The bloody occurrences of Greek tragedy,” writes Arikha, “were rooted in a mythical culture where diviners could read meaning into the configuration of potent organs. The science of medicine would be built upon this culture; the humoural system provided a rational scheme that encompassed passions, illness, blood and guts, ordering the darkness and disorder of inner life.” 64 A fuller account might stress the harmony and beauty of happy thoughts, good feelings,

and human optimism, for such things occupied an equally important place within humoural

63 See Pomata, Contracting a Cure, 60. 64 Arikha, Passions and Tempers, 9. 149 theory. Indeed, humoural theory represented a positive, hopeful style of philosophical discourse, characterized by reverence and appreciation for the natural world and the human body that mirrored it. 65

But the natural world possessed near-infinite complexity, and the implications of such upon pre-modern medicine were strong. During the later Renaissance, natural philosophers from many walks of life turned their attention to the physical world with greater focus than ever before. As a result, medicine became more environmentally determined. 66 In 1540, by order of the Venetian Republic, the University of Padua opened a botanical gardens dedicated to medicinal development. 67 Other major European states followed suit. Medical philosophers

continued to debate the “psychological” side of the discipline, but environmentally determined

healing, or approaches to curing illness predicated upon medicines derived from the physical

world, grew by leaps and bounds.

The newfound appreciation for nature and the physical world brought complexity to the

65 A series of anachronistic assumptions detract from Arikha’s analysis. The shocking, startling, and potentially upsetting qualities assigned to the human interior, or “blood and guts,” is a relatively modern phenomena, not necessarily shared by significant percentages of early modern, medieval, or ancient peoples. Hence, the “darkness and disorder of inner life,” which may well constitute an important part of Greek tragedies, may not necessarily correspond to the overall nature and general outlook of humoural theorists. Nevertheless, Arikha deserves credit for emphasizing “assumptions about the material basis of our passions and thoughts,” for such ideas do seem to reside at the heart of humoural philosophy. 66 In her book Possessing Nature, Paula Findlen suggests that the sixteenth and seventeenth century witnessed a newfound appreciation of nature among scholarly European philosophers. According to Findlen, natural philosophers began to investigate nature like never before. “Sixteenth and seventeenth-century naturalists perceived nature to be a text,” explains Findlen. “Reading the ‘book of nature,’ which contained the key to unlock the secrets of the universe, was one of the primary activities for early modern natural philosophers” (see 55 and 92). In her sixth chapter, entitled “Museums of Medicine” (241-287), Findlen suggests the newfound emphasis on the natural world had fantastic implications for scholarly medicine. Healing and the art of medicine became more environmentally determined. “From a variety of different perspectives,” writes Findlen, “physicians, apothecaries, and professors of medicine all perceived collecting [the study of the physical world] to be integral to the advancement of medical knowledge” (245). According to Findlen, “increased interest in collecting and studying nature redefined the scope of [legal] authority with regards to the regulation of pharmacy….the new legitimacy of natural history as a field of study gave physicians added credentials to inspect medicines” (247). Findlen concludes that “by the end of the sixteenth-century, no candidate for a medical degree in Italy could graduate without knowing something about natural history….natural history had become part of the ‘expertise’ required to become a physician” (247). 67 The botanical gardens at the University of Padua shall be discussed in more detail in my chapter on drugs and the medical marketplace. 150

Renaissance philosopher’s theory of the body. While scholars developed new ideas about nature, the ancient notion regarding the relationship between the physical world and the human body held strong. In a sense, the working theory of the body became informed by a wider, deeper, and broader set of sources. If temperaments, complexions, and the basic krasis of the body remained fluid in the ancient and medieval world, such things would be anything but fixed in early modern times. Rather, they were, as Noga Arikha observes, “an aspect of nature’s variability.” 68

How humoural philosophers understood “nature’s variability” represented another

question. What ordered the various phenomena observed within the physical world? Was there

order? Interpretations varied.

A thorough investigation of cosmological belief among humoural philosophers is beyond

the scope of this dissertation. Nevertheless, a few words must be said about one potentially

heuristic system and explanatory framework significant to medicine throughout ancient,

medieval, and early modern times: astrology. Giacomo Baldini would not study “astrological

medicine” at the University of Padua; such discourse resided a bit lower on the social scale of

early modern European healing. But astrology still represented an integral part of scholarly

medical philosophy during the late Renaissance. Understanding how and why necessitates taking

a step back and viewing the essence of humoural theory a bit more broadly.

* * * * *

We have seen that Isidore of Seville, writing in the sixth century AD, considered

astronomy one of the four branches of physica and suggested that all medical practitioners

“understand astronomy because of the health related influences of the stars on the seasons.”

68 Arikha, Passions and Tempers, 14. 151

Isidore did not represent the first natural philosopher to propose such ideas. After describing the significance of natural phenomena within the physical world on human health, the ancient author of Airs, Waters and Places explains, “if it shall be thought that these things belong rather to , it must be admitted, that astronomy contributes not a little, but a very great deal, indeed, to medicine.” 69 Hippocrates discussed astrology/astronomy in his earliest works; Galen followed suit when expounding upon the great master. 70

As Anthony Grafton explains, in ancient times, most learned medical practitioners would not prescribe a remedy or perform a surgical operation, at least in theory, except at an astrologically determined propitious time. By the late antiquity, astrologers and astronomers had produced a wealth of esoteric literature with major implications for healers. 71 Like most scholarly knowledge produced during the heyday of ancient Greece and Rome, however, this literature suffered neglect from the end of the fifth through the beginning of the eleventh centuries.

Nevertheless, by the late eleventh century, when Islamic scientific texts gained currency in the West, astronomy and astrology flourished once again. “In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,” writes Grafton, “astrology became a standard part of the curriculum in universities with medical schools.” 72 Indeed, Giacomo Baldini would study the heavenly bodies at Padua

during the 1560s as part of his general education and during his years of focused medical

training.

Many modern people view astrology as a pseudo-science, a silly discourse, or a

conceptual language for the confused. But previous generations of scholarly westerners

69 The Genuine Work of Hippocrates ; see On Airs, Waters, and Places , II, 2. 70 The Genuine Work of Hippocrates ; see On Medicine , pt. 15. Also see Galen, On the Humours , in Grant, Galen on Food and Diet, 19-21. 71 Grafton, Cardano’s Cosmos, 42. 72 Ibid., 42. 152 considered astrology serious science. Astrology represented the practical branch of astronomy; indeed, in classical times and during the early modern period, the two terms were used almost interchangeably. During the Renaissance, astrology could be succinctly defined as the study of the ways in which the celestial bodies affected terrestrial phenomena. Astrologers studied the influence of stars and planets on the natural elements composing the physical world. Such questions generated tremendous interest and attracted widespread attention during the early modern period.

It is not difficult to understand the centrality of astrology to the various disciplines at

Renaissance university. Astrology, or the questions and issues with which astrologers concerned themselves, included sets of ideas fundamental to the Renaissance conception of the universe.

Learned Europeans conceived of the world and explained its workings to themselves with principles central to the art of astrology. The close ties between the central assumptions of astrology and the cosmological views of Renaissance scholars brings us back to the microcosm/macrocosm principle which viewed the “little world of man” as a miniaturized version of the larger cosmos. If we add the Empedocledian, and later Aristotelian, notion that all terrestrial matter was composed of earth, water, air, and fire and that these elements also have their ‘correspondents’ in the four humours of the human body, we bring another piece to the puzzle. If we recall the Aristotelian relationship between the corruptible elemental world below and the superior celestial world above, we have virtually completed the explanatory picture. 73

Man constituted a small-scale replica of the larger cosmos. The various elements of the cosmos

were mixed in man; hence, dynamic interaction among the cosmos could conceivably

“communicate” with man. Here, we have the humoural theory of ‘correspondence,’ briefly

73 According to Aristotle, the superior celestial world above emanated influences upon the corrupt, imperfect, and entirely impressionable elemental, or terrestrial, world below. 153 described above in the third section of this chapter, exemplified in greater detail. Simply put, because man was composed of the basic elements, and because these elements were ruled by the superior powers of the aetherial realm, man too, remained subject to the influences of the stars.

Such logic sent a wide variety of pre-modern scholars back to the classical astrological texts of antiquity. The most authoritative sources concerning astrology in ancient, medieval, and early modern times, both in Islamic civilization and the Latin West, were probably Ptolemy’s

Almagest and Tetrabiblos . In these works, Ptolemy describes the physical principles upon which both branches of study would be based. In discussing astrology’s use for medical philosophers,

Ptolemy writes:

If a man knows accurately the movements of all the stars, the sun, and the moon, so that

neither the place nor the time of any of their configurations escapes his notice, and if he

has distinguished in general their natures as a result of previous continued study…and

if he is capable of determining in view of all these data, both scientifically and by

successful conjecture, the distinctive marks of qualities resulting from the combination

of all the factors, what is to prevent him from being able to tell on each given occasion

the characteristics of the air from the of the phenomena at that time? Why can

these relations not be extended to the characteristic, temperament, and life of human

beings? 74

Yet in the opening pages of Tetrabiblos , Ptolemy makes one thing clear: although astronomy and astrology remain closely related, the former science is superior to the latter.

Astronomy explains the cosmos. Astrology seeks to figure out exactly how the of the

74 Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos , 11-13. 154 sun, moon, and planets will influence human beings on earth. The latter art constitutes an attempt to practically apply the brilliance of the former discipline. But astrology depends upon astronomy, while the opposite is not true. In a sense, the relationship between astronomy and astrology mirrors the relationship between theoretical and practical medicine.

But if astrology represents an offshoot or branch of astronomy, the astrologer, at least in early modern times, concerns himself with a wider variety of questions than the .

Although the astronomer explains a great deal, in a sense, his practice requires that he only describe the motions of the heavenly bodies. The astrologer, on the other hand, must consider a complex realm of things to predict how the celestial influences will affect the lives of men and women on earth. Astronomy represents a rigorous science, combining syllogistic with empirical observation in order to explain the web of natural influences linking nature and the heavenly bodies to earth and mankind. Astrology, on the other hand, develops from the knowledge generated by astronomy, rests more upon an empirical foundation in practice, and seeks to comprehend the web of natural influences between the heavens and human beings for the purposes of rendering predictions. Like some modern scientists, the Renaissance astrologer believed that through a systematic program of empirical investigation and scientific conjecture, he could render comprehensible the workings of the universe in its grandest and most minute detail.

But the early modern professional astrologer may have considered a bit too much for the

Renaissance medical philosopher.

* * * * *

155

In the required text Isagoge by Joannitius, Baldini would learn, “Changes of the air come

about in five different ways; [the first two being] from the seasons, and from the rising and the

setting of the stars.”

There are four seasons; namely Spring, which is hot and moist; Summer,which is hot

and dry; Autumn, which is cold and dry; Winter, which is cold and moist. The nature of

the air is changed by the stars, for when the sun approaches a star or a star the sun, the

air becomes hotter. But when they separate, the coldness of the air is altered, either

increased or diminished. 75

But two important points must be made about the relationship between learned astrology and scholarly medicine in western history: a). in nature, scope, form, and complexity, the

‘astrology’ of the medical practitioner paled by comparison to the studies of the full-time astrologer, and b). although still institutionalized, by the later Renaissance, the significance and influence of astrology on scholarly medicine waned considerably. The most prominent ancient medical writers, including both Hippocrates and Galen, relied upon the rising and setting of stars to distinguish the seasons of the year and to reach basic conclusions about each season. Bonafide astronomers and astrologers looked to the sun, moon and a variety of other celestial phenomena for ideas about the physical world. Simply put, the “” of the scholarly physician was less complex than the weighty discourse of the full-time astrologer.

In the previous chapter, we saw how by the later fifteenth century and throughout the sixteenth century, scores of Italian scholars dedicated themselves to discovering, translating, and expounding upon the of Greek science. For the humanists, the Latin and Arabic

75 Joannitius, Isagoge , “The Beginning of the Treatise on the Non-Naturals,” 707. 156 translations of ancient texts, and the bad habits of the scholastics that studied them, rendered contemporary learning inadequate. We have seen the controversies which emerged regarding the qualifications most relevant for interpretation of ancient learning; the humanists, with their self- proclaimed expertise in textual commentary, the scholastics, with their institutionalized

educational philosophy and pedagogical methods, and the trained natural philosophers,

depending upon the specific area of study, with their command of the subject matter at hand, all

competed for scholarly authority. These controversies touched natural philosophy in general (that

is to say, all areas of inquiry regarding the physical world) and medicine in particular. These

controversies affected astronomy/astrology, as fields themselves, and influenced their overall

significance for natural philosophy and branches of such, like medicine.

Crucially, for my purposes, late-Renaissance medical philosophers rarely staked out

significant positions, nor fought major battles, nor aligned themselves with particular schools of

thought, based on their position regarding astrology. Late Renaissance controversies regarding

theories of knowledge, hermeneutics, interpretation, educational philosophy, and pedagogical

methods rarely gained expression in astrological debates among scholarly physicians. While

defining themselves and redefining their discipline, late sixteenth- and seventeenth-century

medical doctors lost interest in astrology.

Sixteenth-century scholarly debate concerning the wisdom of Vesalius rarely considers

the place of astrology in anatomy. Supporters and detractors of Harvey’s theory of circulation

seldom cite the Tetrabiblios or to prove the superiority of their arguments. The

growing school of university-trained “empiricists,” who emphasized the significance of

observation, experience, and trial-and-error experimentation, rarely emphasized the significance

of astrology within medicine. The neo-scholarly “professors of secrets,” as we shall see in future 157 chapters, with their practical guides to healing that generally shared many things with university- trained physicians, often mentioned astrology, but only in superficial fashion that would leave full-time astrologers cold.

In a sense, scholarly conceptions of health and sickness were cast in astronomical/astrological terms. As this chapter has emphasized, the macrocosm/microcosm association between man and the physical world resided at the heart of humoural philosophy. But it is anachronistic to attribute that perception to the disciplines of astronomy or astrology. The sacred relationship between man and the cosmos constituted the main idea of ancient, medieval and early modern natural philosophy—humoural theory represented a subset or outgrowth of such thought. Astronomy represented an attempt to explain a comparatively narrow aspect of such things (the movement of heavenly bodies), and astrology constituted an art which hoped to learn how to predict the influence of celestial phenomena. These areas of inquiry hardly represented the essence of natural philosophy or scholarly medicine. Instead, the thoroughly interrelated nature of all the disciplines within early modern natural philosophy explains the close correlation among the various theaters of investigation. Each discipline or area of investigation held the macrocosm/microcosm association as its central tenet.

Astronomy/astrology and medicine held this in common, but neither discipline represented the key to understanding the other.

Indeed, when leafing through the pages of Joannitius’ Isagoge , Avicenna’s Canon ,

Galen’s On the Humours , Hippocrates’ On Medicine , or any of a number of texts featured at the

University of Padua during the late Renaissance, one finds only a moderate amount of astrology.

As best we can tell, sections of these texts devoted to astrology were not emphasized in medical studies during the late sixteenth or seventeenth centuries. To be sure, medical astrology, or the 158 place of astrology within scholarly medicine, existed, but it paled by comparison to the complex

discourse of the full-time astrologer. This point shall emerge more clearly when we turn our

attention to therapeutics within scholarly medicine.

* * * * *

As explained in the section on human biology within humoural theory, pre-modern physicians thought about the difference between sickness and health in terms of the core qualities

of hot, cold, moist, and dry. In his essay On the Causes of Disease , Galen outlined eight basic

diseases arising from improper relationships, or imbalance, among the core qualities. In other

words, sick bodies were too hot, excessively dry, overly moist, or too cold. Centuries later,

Giacomo Baldini would study textbooks with major sections entitled “Diseases Arising from

Heat,” “Disease Arising from Cold,” “Diseases Arising from Moisture,” and “Diseases Arising

from Dryness.” 76 The opposition of these basic qualities, as explained above, explained physical phenomena within humoural theory.

This style of theorization also yielded a fundamental therapeutic principle within humoural theory: the idea that “opposites cure opposites.” Simply put, the scholarly humoural physician generally believed “hot bodies” needed cooling, “dry bodies” needed moisture, and so on. Roger French has suggested the theory ‘opposites cure opposites’ constituted “the fundamental and unquestionable axiom at the root of the whole theory of [humoural] complexion.” 77 In 1565, Pietro d’Abano suggested the theory of opposites “needed no proof,

76 See Joannitius, Isagoge , “Of the Varieties of Sickness,” 711-714. 77 French, Medicine before Science, 109 . 159 being logically and medically axiomatic.” 78 Indeed, the idea has been called the “Law of

Hippocrates.” 79

The “Law of Hippocrates” provided the basis for much therapeutic treatment within humoural theory. In the Isagoge , students read that “if a defect in the skin be of a styptic nature,

use a softening remedy; if dry, a moist one; and so on.” 80 Like the poster commonly found in modern health clinics which suggests ‘the best cure for burns is cold water,’ such ideas were intuitively plausible and commonsensical. Indeed, humoural physicians wrapped the cold in blankets and placed them near fires, put the sweaty, teary eyed and clammy (‘moist’) in dry places or left them to bake in the sun, directed the itchy, peeling and flaky (‘dry’) to the baths, and the like. In fact, an entire range of medicaments and topical solutions thought to deliver heat, cold, moisture, and dryness both on the exterior of the body and inside the shell of human skin were routinely deployed by scholarly physicians.

Prescriptions of herbal concoctions generally proceeded from the same principles. The

‘qualities’ of crushed nutmeg, diced rosemary flower and boiled water flavored with bits of apple could counter the suffering patient’s qualitative imbalance. Physicians and apothecaries, quite naturally, had to know the qualities of the ingredients they deployed. Proper training in materia medica brought knowledge of the synergistic effects believed to result from certain combinations of materials. Dry folks swallowed concoctions believed to be ‘moist’ in quality, the damp consumed ‘dry’ medicines while the feverish were chilled back to health.

Nevertheless, the theory ‘opposites cure opposites’ hardly explains the full range of therapeutic techniques within humoural theory. In fact, the ‘law of Hippocrates’ may not even

78 D’Abano, Conciliator Controversiarum, quae inter Philosophos et Medicos Versantur, folio 6r. Also see French, Medicine before Science, 110. 79 French, Medicine before Science, 109. 80 See Joannitius, Isagoge , “Of the Varieties of Sickness,” 715. 160 represent the most fundamental healing principle within humoural theory. The significance of evacuation, purging, and elimination comes closer to capturing the essence of humoural therapeutics. It is to a closer consideration of ‘evacuation’ and its significance within early modern medicine that we shall now turn.

* * * * *

During the early modern period, “blood-letting,” or phlebotomy, represented a technique common to healers from different social levels, with different educational backgrounds, and different ‘professions’ within the art of medicine. Scholarly medical philosophers drew blood for the sake of healing. So did lesser respected professional surgeons. Vernacular healers may have drawn more blood than either group described above. This chapter examines phlebotomy among university educated physicians.

Theories of blood-letting can be found in the Hippocratic and Galenic literature of antiquity. Like most ancient scholarly medical works, this literature was translated, studied, reconsidered, and subsequently developed by Arabic scholars such as Avicenna and Joannitius during the Middle Ages. Rediscovered, or newly appreciated by Europeans during the first centuries of the early modern period, ancient and medieval literature on phlebotomy, like the topsoil of a fertile field, was turned over once more. Scholastic philosophers and humanist grammarians simultaneously pulled the art in different directions while up-and-coming medical theorists offered criticism. Throughout western history, two distinct levels of published texts outlined theories and methods on scholarly phlebotomy: a) concise tracts and treatises dedicated solely to bloodletting, and b) chapters on such, buried within larger tomes of medical philosophy. 161

The similarities outweighed the differences.

But one needed no phlebotomy tract or specific chapter on blood-letting to grasp the

significance of evacuation within humoural theory. For whether the ancient masters explicitly

discussed purgation or not, so much of Hippocratic/Galenic teaching can be interpreted to mean

that ‘sickness’ implied the build-up of unhealthy humours; undoing this unwanted accumulation

required drawing off bodily matter. ‘Blood,’ that great fluid of the body, which corresponded to

air in nature, would be the first thing taken from the sick patient.

Roy Porter points out that Galenic medicine’s suspicion regarding a variety of maladies,

such as fevers, apoplexy, and headaches, may all be attributed to the physical mishap of

“plethora,” which Porter defines as “the excessive build-up of blood.” According to Porter,

“venesection [blood-letting] represented the obvious corrective.” 81 One might draw blood

directly from visibly infected areas, to purge the bad humours from a wound. Or, one could draw blood more generally, in the hopes of draining off some of the broadly dispersed and widely

diffused unwanted material.

The sheer intuitive plausibility of blood-letting made the idea so popular. Sickness did not dwell within the muscles, bones, organs or outer shell of the body; sickness resided within the bodily fluids—such things became corrupted and transported badness throughout the miniature universe that was man. Removing some of the corrupted fluid allowed the body quicker recovery. With phlebotomy, the physician performed a basic, yet fundamentally effective service. Indeed, drawing blood lowers blood pressure, inducing calmness and tranquility. Such influence must have been noted and interpreted positively, when the moaning and groaning of early modern sufferers mellowed with phlebotomy.

The modern doctrine of “shock therapy,” which consists of temporary suspension of

81 Porter, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind, 189. 162 brain waves via electromagnetic injection, holds that following disruption, the body’s return to

its natural equilibrium will result in improved health. Indeed, the idea of a good ‘shake-up’ when

things were bad resided at the heart of many phlebotomists. Changing the quantity of internal

fluids alerted the body to the present imperfection; the subsequent swirl of liquid matter would

naturally improve things.

The modern treatment of hemachromatosis proves the ingenuity of humoural theory.

Hemachromatosis is a blood disease. Victims suffer excessive accumulation of iron within the body. To this day, the American Medical Association recommends phlebotomy as treatment for

hemachromatosis. 82 As iron-laden blood is drawn off, the body produces new blood as

replacement. The newly generated blood contains normal levels of iron. After a certain period of

time, for reasons not entirely understood, excessive amounts of iron accumulate again within

sufferers of hemachromatosis. Once again, the licensed physician draws blood, and relative order

is temporarily restored (most sufferers of this disorder have blood drawn monthly). No known

cure for hemachromatosis exists. But modern treatment is nothing new.

Hence, whether studying to be a surgeon or general practitioner, the aspiring medical philosopher learned the theory behind phlebotomy and the skills of blood-letting. As Nancy

Siraisi and others have demonstrated, early modern students quickly learned the proper veins

from which to draw blood. Most physicians targeted the three major veins of the arm (named the

cephalic, median, and basilica). 83 Ligatures were used to concentrate local blood pressure and tourniquets were employed to stem excessive bleeding. “A bloodletter should possess several lancets ( phlebotomos) of steel, bright and clean, of different shapes, some of which should be fine and some big, some short and some long,” declares a scholarly sixteenth-century tract.

82 National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, “How is Hemachromatosis Treated?”, http://www.digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/hemachromatosis/index.htm#treatment. 83 Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine , 140. 163

“When it is necessary to open a large vein and make a large incision, the physician uses a larger lancet, and the smaller one in the contrary case,” explained the author.

The physician should hold the lancet with the thumb and index finger of his

right hand and boldly tap the vein beforehand to find the best place for

bleeding; and then, with these two fingers, insert the lancet in whatever vein

he wishes. 84

Frequently bled patients sometimes bared their feet and legs for the phlebotomist. Siraisi suggests that other veins might be opened for particular conditions, for example, “melancholy might call for bleeding from a vein in the forehead.” 85

Scholarly physicians were taught to avoid bleeding the elderly. Those recovering from

lengthy illnesses were usually not phlebotomized either. Pregnant women were thought to be

unsuited for this measure. Phlebotomists were taught to reject pale, thin patients and those with

tiny veins. Although the therapy enjoyed widespread support, scholarly texts encouraged

moderation. “A man who goes to the barber all the time will be destroyed by bloodletting,”

warned Lanfranc. “It is better for some to conserve their blood and evacuate the corrupt humors

84 The passage comes from a famous fourteenth-century medical treatise attributed to the medical philosopher Lanfranc. Originally published in English and Latin, the work was translated into Italian in the early sixteenth century. In Venice, the book was published in 1546. See Lanfranc, Practica Magistri Lanfranci de Mediolano quae dicitur ars complete totius chirurgiae, in Ars Chirurgia Guidonis Cauliaci Medici, fols. 250-251. I have also consulted McVaugh’s translation from the Old English version, published as Lanfrank’s “Science of Cirurgie,” Early English Text Society, Original Ser., no. 102 (1894), pt. 1, 298-303. My copy of McVaugh’s work comes from Harvard University’s “Medicine and Society in Medieval and Renaissance Europe,” a non-published volume within the school’s History of Science Department. 84 Grafton, Cardano’s Cosmos, 42. 85 Ibid., 140. 164 by other means.” 86

Milder forms of blood-letting existed for those unwilling to expose major veins.

“Cupping” represented a moderate form of evacuative therapy endorsed by university professors and taught in medical schools. In this procedure, the doctor heated the insides of a glass “cup” in the hopes of forming a partial vacuum. Once sufficiently heated, the physician attached the instrument to part of the body as quickly and efficiently as possible. Suction from the partial vacuum drew blood from the infected area. Physicians sometimes pricked small holes in the targeted surface area before applying the cup. The idea was to directly draw the corrupt humours out of the body via physical intervention. 87

If we examine Galenic literature used during the Renaissance, we find many aspects of

our recent discussion explained through the concept of blood-letting. “We know that nature

controls the body and does everything to preserve life,” wrote Galen in On Black Bile . “We can

also observe the passages [bodily secretions] which act for the sake of evacuation of whatever is

useless in food and drink; yet I should again explain how the sediment in poor blood can be

removed.”

The blood which comes from letting is seen to be thicker and darker in

bodies with dry and hot constitutions; and similarly according to the

particular time of the year, the locality, the physical conditions, way of life

and diet. All diseases that stem from a bad temperament that is hot and dry,

such as remittent fevers, produce thick dark blood. Many patients cured of

86 The ideas and quotations in this paragraph come from McVaugh’s translation of Lanfranc, Tract 3, Doctrine 3, chap. 16, 300-301. 87 See Lindemann, Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe, 217-218. See also Pitré, Medici, chirurgic, barbieri e speziali antichi . 165

such suffering experienced evacuation through the stomach…88

But if no such ‘evacuation through the stomach’ occurred naturally, the phlebotomist might be called upon to open a vein. Yet, readers should take note of the phrase regarding the

“particular time of year” in the passage cited above. Textbooks and manuals on phlebotomy, as well as many major works of medical philosophy, also provided recommendations regarding appropriate seasons of the year, phases of the moon, and times of day for effective blood-letting.

The astrological component of phlebotomy provoked controversy during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century.

At times, Galen seemed to take the astrological aspects of blood-letting fairly seriously.

In some texts, he stressed the significance of time and place to proper phlebotomy. 89 But the

influence of astrology on phlebotomy within official Renaissance medicine must be qualified.

For one thing, as touched upon above, the Renaissance phlebotomist operated from a view of the

stars that would have been unacceptable to a bonafide astronomer/astrologer. Early modern blood-letters relied upon the rising and setting of the stars to determine the judicious time for puncturing veins. For the classical astrologer, every heavenly body possessed its own color,

qualities, correspondences—indeed, yet another perplexing taxonomic grid that might yield

many different suggestions regarding the most advantageous time to draw blood from a certain

individual. Incorporating astrology into phlebotomy necessitated simplifying the former.

We may also reasonably conclude that many professional physicians separated highly

intellectualized theory from pragmatic practice when drawing blood. The frequency of early

modern blood-letting suggests a practice unrestrained by fastidious reference to classical

88 Galen, On Black Bile , cited in Grant, Galen on Food and Diet, 23. 89 See Brain, Galen on Bloodletting . 166 astrology. In the Venetian version of Lanfranc’s treatise on bloodletting, published in 1546, and circulated throughout early modern European medical schools, the author admits:

Phlebotomy is called elective, since we can choose time and hour, climate, or

disposition of the patient, considering many particulars and waiting for the

ideal time and moment. Although we consider many particulars when need

be, nevertheless sometimes, we insist on nothing except the strength of the

patient’s forces. Actually, necessity may sometimes compel us to bleed him

when his forces are weak, but then we do in three or four successive

operations what could be done with stronger patients in one. 90

Even, Anthony Grafton suggests, educated Renaissance physicians understood the

astrologically determined propitious time for treatment, “at least in theory.” 91 One suspects many

early modern patients hoped for the improvement associated with blood-letting, regardless of the

near infinite possibilities raised by consulting the twelve houses of the . Joannitius’s

Isagoge and Avicenna’s Canon allude to astrology, without opening the doors to an expansive influence on healing.

Whether presented in flowery language, shrouded in complex logic, or enacted with dull knives, phlebotomy represented a fundamental part of scholarly medicine. The reason, as described at the outset of this section, concerns phlebotomy’s place within the larger concept of evacuation. Two of the authoritative voices cited above emphasize this relationship. Lanfranc, the reader will recall, suggests, “it is better for some to conserve their blood and evacuate corrupt

90 Lanfranc, Practica Magistri Lanfranci de Mediolano quae dicitur ars complete totius chirurgiae, 250-251. See also McVaugh, trans., Lanfrank’s “Science of Cirurgie,” pt. 1, 298-303. 91 Grafton, Cardano’s Cosmos, 42. 167 humours by other means,” while Galen explained that “many patients cured of suffering [via phlebotomy] experienced evacuation through the stomach.” Martin Luther’s efforts to purge the social body of its corrupt influences resonated with meaning, coincidental or otherwise, within sixteenth century medical schools. 92

Indeed, one finds references to evacuation throughout Hippocratic, Galenic, and

humoural medical literature. Nancy Siraisi suggests that when facilitating or inducing evacuatio ,

the medieval and early modern medical practitioner thought himself to be “imitating nature.”93

Purging, as a therapeutic technique, would almost seem as basic to humoural theory as the four elements and their qualities. Consider Hippocrates’ recommendations regarding the treatment of gangrene in a text revered throughout late Renaissance medical schools:

The Mortification of Gangrene: If the gangrene mortifies the sick limb loses

sensation, a feeling of cold comes to the head and the affected limb sweats. He

suddenly loses his speech and blows blood from his nose as he becomes pale.

One must induce sneezing by pleasant substances; one evacuates by the upper

and the lower. 94

Many modern historians of Renaissance medicine seem to associate purgation, or the forced expulsion of corrupted influences from the sick body, with neo-scholarly and vernacular

92 Several scholars, in fact, have made this point regarding the phenomena of “purging” or “cleansing,” which one encounters in much sixteenth-century thought, and the strong emphasis on evacuation in late Renaissance healing. Even the Venetian Inquisition, which contains much valuable information about vernacular healing in the late sixteenth century, sought to cleanse popular culture of its heretical practices. For the best treatments on the relationship between social cleansing and evacuation within medicine, see Camporesi, La carne impassibile, and Eamon, “With the Rules of Life and an Enema,” 29-44. See also Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, especially the section entitled “The Politics of Purgation,” 187-193. 93 Siraisi, Taddeo Alderotti , 252. 94 Hippocrates, Epidemics III, bk. 7, cited from Smith, The Hippocratic Tradition, 123. 168 healing, rather than university-based teaching. Most scholarly texts do, in fact, rationalize and justify evacuation with the logic of restoring humoural balance and harmony, rather than physically eliminating the causes and manifestations of illness. Nevertheless, the widespread discussion of evacuation within scholarly texts implies that learned medical philosophers viewed disease as a very real ontological entity, or foreign presence within the body, that healers needed to eliminate, even if germ theory and ideas regarding bacteria had yet to be explicitly articulated.

Much speculation existed within humoural medicine during the late Renaissance. For all the emphasis placed upon memorization and rote learning among students, established scholars engaged in research, writing, and discursive development. As medical philosophers, scholarly physicians seemed better suited to raise questions than isolate facts or render irrefutable truths.

As a philosophical system, humoural medicine offered propositions by which to seek explanations of broad, wide, and profound questions. The science of medicine, characterized by trial-and-error experimentation designed to precisely determine highly specified ideas on very particular subjects, remained in the future. Consequently, the technical side of humoural

medicine pales by comparison to the grandiose metaphors, analogies and larger ideas within the

theoretical branch of the art.

Nevertheless, Giacomo Baldini and his classmates would be responsible for the ideas

regarding temperments, complexion, humours, spirits and energy described above. Aspiring physicians would reconsider the four elements and the four qualities within the context of questions regarding the body, health, sickness and healing. How these ideas compared with the beliefs and practices of other healers in early modern society shall be a question considered in subsequent chapters. 169

Chapter Three

The Secrets of a Sixteenth-Century Venetian Woman: Isabella Cortese and Alchemical Medicine

In the summer of 1584, the public squares and large piazzas of Venice bustled with a level of commercial activity and social interaction few early modern European cities could match. Blessed with unusually pleasant weather, spacious San Marco’s Square provided the perfect setting for the countless peddlers, vendors, performers, entertainers, visitors, and natives that routinely mixed there. In a sense, the dynamic vibrancy of the annual “season of festivities” threatened to undermine the city’s self-proclaimed title of La Serenissima , or the “Most Serene

Republic.” But for the historian, the complex social interactions of those hot, muggy, yet clear days of summer left a trail of documentary evidence worthy of close inspection. Then and now, every Venetian summer produces an important window through which to view a different glimpse of the city, long after the parties and celebrations fade away.

According to the Augustinian monk and social critic Tommaso Garzoni (1549-1589), one

distinguishing characteristic of the summer of 1584 concerned the arrival of a new group of

curious people. In 1585, Garzoni published an encyclopedic survey of all the professions, trades

and various activities he judged to constitute the social world of sixteenth-century Italy. Among

the 517 “professions” he discussed in Piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo, the

“professors of secrets” ( I professori de’ secreti ) demanded a conspicuous amount of this

observant Augustinian’s attention. 1 Who were these strange people who commanded close to six pages of text in Garzoni’s survey? Since many of them had published books, an accomplishment the well published Garzoni considered worthy, he labeled them “professors.” But unlike

1 Garzoni, La Piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo. 170 seasoned scholars from clerical backgrounds, who pursued important questions with measured reasoning, these professori de’ secreti seemed to defy the boundaries of properly ordered

intellectual discourse. The contents of their books—recipes, formulas, and itemized solutions to

common problems—ranged far and wide, lacking any unifying set of organizational principles or basis in Christian logic. Garzoni wondered publicly about those “who attend to the pursuit of

secrets so passionately, that they yearn for it more than for the necessities of life itself.” What

was it about “secrets” that aroused Garzoni’s suspicion?

“Secrets,” wrote Garzoni, in a rather long-winded explanation, “are things whose reasons

are not very clear that they might be understood by everyone, but by their very nature are

manifested only to a very few; nevertheless, they contain certain seeds of discovery, which

facilitate finding out the road to discovering whatever the intellect may desire to know.” 2 But there seemed to be no limit to the things the professors of secrets wanted to know. According to

Garzoni, they concerned themselves with “the virtues of rocks and plants, the scienza of separating metals and , the production of colors and the investigation of all sorts of various, different things.” Garzoni observed that some of these writers “considered occult questions that only God could know, like the nature of the heavens, while others concerned themselves only with utility and practical application.” 3 Some of these books, charged Garzoni, contained “ridiculous, vain secrets, under the name of , promising ways to render one’s face invisible, or methods enabling one to see the crystal heavens, or stories of diabolical characters that can develop the evil eye.” Pursuing secrets could be an honorable endeavor,

Garzoni admitted, so long as one dedicated himself to the pursuit of “good secrets.”

Unfortunately, according to Garzoni, these writers often pursued “the ridiculous secrets,” of

2 Ibid., fol. 80v. 3 Ibid., fol. 80v. 171 magic and deception, often producing “more smoke than victuals.” 4

But nothing could disguise, camouflage, or deflect attention from one of Garzoni’s main concerns regarding these books: several texts concerned medicine and healing, and the

Augustinian monk doubted their legitimacy. Garzoni never questioned the wisdom of consulting a properly trained physician like Girolamo Cardano, whom he praised for his well ordered, clearly written medical tracts that paid proper respect to the ancients. But Garzoni warned of authors who did not sufficiently consider the dignified medical writers of the past such as Plinio,

Serapion, Theophrastus, Galen, Dioscorides, and Avicenna. If one took an interest in herbs, one ought to study the “great work of Dioscorides, the most famous in this discipline.” Garzoni urged readers to consult the work of Andrea Cesalpino Aretino, the “illustrious medical man that has written sixteen erudite books on modern medicinal plants and herbs,” but he viciously rejected the “pack of lies and nonsense…above all, the deception of these ‘alchemists’ and ‘distillers,’ that promise to make diamonds and always find the remedy to every type of impediment.” 5

Indeed, there would be nothing secretive about Garzoni’s contempt for these authors and their customers.

But who were these “professors of secrets”? How can one broadly describe their backgrounds? How can we understand their teachings within the context of early modern natural philosophy? From what theories of knowledge or intellectual traditions did their teachings originate? This paper shall explore these questions through an inspection of one relatively obscure professor of secrets named Isabella Cortese. Through a close reading of Cortese’s only known publication, I secreti (Venice, 1561), I shall attempt to explain the metaphysical, epistemological, and ontological foundations of a female Renaissance natural philosopher whose

4 Ibid. 5 Ibid., fol. 83v. 172 teachings closely paralleled those of her more famous male counterparts. While Tommaso

Garzoni mentioned professional writers with longstanding interests in natural philosophy like

Girolamo Ruscelli (alias Alessio Piemontese, 1500-1566), and wealthy noblemen like

Giambattista Della Porta (1535-1615), who formed institutions dedicated to the pursuit of philosophical questions, and former university students who never quite obtained legitimate medical degrees, but wrote extensively on health and healing like Leonardo Fioravanti (1518-

1588) and Giovanni Zapata (1520-1586), he did not have much to say about a relatively unkown

Venetian woman excluded from the circles of formal education. But Isabella Cortese almost certainly consulted the teachings of all these men and may well have studied the intellectual ancestors of this group, men like Paracelsus, Arnaud of Vilanova, and Raimond Lull, as intently as any of the “professors of secrets” lambasted by Garzoni.

* * * * *

Published in 1561 and dedicated to Mario Chaboga, Archdeacon of the Kingdom of

Ragusa, The Secrets of Signora Isabella Cortese, Which Contains Secrets of Minerals,

Medicines, Artifices, and Alchemy, and Much on the Art of Perfumery, For Every Great Lady ,

may be described as a problem-solving manual of recipes, formulas and solutions regarding a

wide range of questions, issues and challenges facing early modern Europeans from all different

walks of life. I secreti , as I shall call the volume, offers advice on everything from the production

of fragrance, cosmetics, and jewelry to the maintenance of healthy skin, hair, and teeth. Readers

will find treatments for scabies, ringworm, and fevers, cures of gout, dropsy and nausea. The book describes ointments for wounds, care for plague victims, and treatments for men suffering 173 sexual dysfunction. I secreti reads like a physician’s cookbook of remedies, in which the ingredients and instructions are listed in clear and concise order. The book need not be read in linear fashion; a highly itemized table of contents directs the reader to specific recipes tailored to resolve specific problems. The volume consists of mechanical instructions that any literate person could conceivably follow, provided that he or she was familiar with the basic instruments, materials, and procedures of the alchemist and empowered with a resourceful nature regarding the acquisition of ingredients.

* * * * *

The technical side of Cortese’s work involved, among other things, refining liquids, distilling oils, and extracting “” from compounds and mixtures. Cortese also pulverized solids and mixed them together to form new substances, dissolving, melting, freezing, forging, and putrefying at dizzying rates of repetition, urging users to “repeat the steps described above,” three, four, or five times for greater benefit. The book utilizes virtually every chemical and herb known to sixteenth-century Europe, ranging from antimony to zerpillo, with conspicuous consumption of sulphur, mercury, and the compounds saltpeter and vitriol. Natural ingredients as far-reaching as quail’s testicles, goat’s milk, dragon’s blood, large winged ants, oriental amber, sour oranges, and horse manure also make their way to the pages of this volume.

Those parts of Cortese’s book that deal with metallurgy for household use, such as the production of cosmetics, dyes, fragrances, stain removers, or jewelry construction, take on a particular tone and orientation. Unlike her medical recipes, these texts tend to be concisely articulated, with little or no justification for the directions offered. Like thousands of Venetian 174 artisans that burned glass, shaped ceramic pottery, hammered metals, and boiled dyes with no real sense of any deep metaphysical meaning underlining their work, Cortese proceeds in non-philosophical fashion in these areas.

Let us consider, for example, a brief comparison between an alchemical recipe for

“mosaic gold” offered by a late fourteenth-century Florentine craftsman and the work of Isabella

Cortese. In 1390, Cennini Cennino, a goldsmith and alchemist completely outside the medical profession, offered the following set of instructions for producing gold:

Take sal ammoniac, tin, sulphur, quicksilver, in equal parts; except less of the

quicksilver. Put these ingredients into a flask of iron, copper or glass. Melt it all on the

fire. Let it rest and it shall be done. 6

Approximately 170 years later, all the elements and chemicals used by Cennini can be

found in Cortese’s volume. Cortese’s language, orientation, and tone resemble Cennini in the

area of basic metallurgical work. Consider the following recipe for making blue dye in Isabella

Cortese’s I secreti :

Take sal ammoniac, sulphur, dissolve it in water, approximately two fingers worth in

measurement, put one libre of roman vitriol and one libre of living silver in, put these

ingredients in a strong glass flask and heat them all together. After melting, let them sit

for one or two nights and all will be perfect. 7

“Sal ammoniac,” which one sees throughout the pages of I secreti , represented a potent

6 Quoted from Cennini’s The Craftsman’s Handbook, 102. 7 Cortese , I secreti, “A far azurro,” bk. 3, cap. 52, fol. 90. 175 solvent for dissolving metals. According to Pietro Matthioli, a physician hired by the Venetian

Republic in 1540 to catalogue the history of medicine herbs compiled by the ancient doctor

Dioscorides, the use of sal ammoniac dates back to antiquity. 8 Cortese considered sulphur and mercury, as shall be explained in greater detail below, to be the two primary components of all metals. It is safe to assume Cennini shared this belief. The primacy of sulphur and mercury in metallurgical inquiry dominated alchemical writing from the thirteenth to the seventeenth- century. 9 Cortese interpreted “quicksilver,” the term used by Cennini, to represent a purified

form of silver “formed by white sulphur as influenced by the moon.” According to Cortese,

imbued with the special virtues of sulphur, quicksilver represented “living silver.”

But the sloppy, imprecise language used by Cennini—“use equal parts, except less of the

quicksilver”—typifies Cortese’s style when discussing metallurgy for household use. Both

authors insist on the use of iron, copper, or glass flasks, and the concise, succinct language of the

conclusion implies simplicity for the sake of inspiring confidence. Simply put, the language and

ideas of a non-medical alchemist in 1390 could have constituted a recipe in Cortese’s I secreti almost two centuries later. 10

The purely medicinal recipes contained in Isabella Cortese’s I secreti , however, possess a distinct sixteenth-century flavor. In the pages that follow, I shall argue that Cortese’s approach to

8 Matthioli, I Discorsi di M. Pietro Andrea Matthioli. 9 See Debus, The Chemical Philosophy , and Holmyard, Alchemy (orginally printed in 1957), as well as Smith, The Body of the Artisan . During Cortese’s lifetime, Paracelsus added a third “basic principle” to the mix—salt— suggesting that salt, sulphur, and mercury represented the three basic elements of all metals and, in a sense, of the earth and all living things. 10 Furthermore, a wave of alchemical manuscripts and books similar to Cennini’s Il Libro dell’Arte were published during the early sixteenth century. These publications probably exerted some influence on Cortese’s approach to basic metallurgy. The best known source for listings of early modern alchemical publications is still Thorndike’s “Alchemy During the First Half of the 16 th Century,” especially 26-37. Hirsch’s “The Invention of Printing and the Diffusion of Alchemical Knowledge” provides a more detailed list with dates and the cities of publication. Most recently, Dixon’s “Bosch’s Garden of Delights Triptych” includes an appendix of alchemical and pharmaceutical books printed between 1460-1515 (see 113). Dixon cites dozens of works whose primary subjects are not alchemy but which discuss the art and presuppose knowledge of its basic precepts. Dixon also lists thirty-two publications specifically on alchemy published between 1460-1515. Most of the works listed had several editions. Clearly, alchemical publications experienced a renaissance during the early years of Isabella Cortese’s life. 176 health and healing reflect the influence of what Carlos Gilly and Cis van Heertum call a

“Paracelsian/Hermetic revival,” which they suggest began in the 1550s. 11 This revival may be broadly described as a combination of artisanal convictions, certain strands of alchemical philosophy, theory and practice, cloaked in a rather particular set of Christian beliefs. 12

Isabella Cortese never elaborates a coherent, systematic medical ideology in the pages of

I secreti . Cortese never explicitly lays out a working theory of the body, health, sickness, and healing. 13 Many of her medicinal recipes would seem to be informed by folkloric perceptions of health, or vernacular healing practices among non-learned people outside university. For these reasons, I secreti does not belong in a literary genre of learned alchemical medical philosophy.

Nevertheless, strong parallels exist between Cortese’s medicinal remedies and the sixteenth-century alchemical medical philosophy most closely associated with Paracelsus. In fact, Isabella Cortese’s perception of nature, the body, health, and healing would seem to be influenced by certain strands of thought within what might be called a larger “western alchemical tradition”—a body of related ideas and sets of practices which took shape in the late medieval period and arguably served as the precursor of modern medical chemistry. It is to a brief historical discussion of western alchemical medical philosophy and its relationship to Isabella

Cortese’s I secreti that I shall now turn.

11 Gilly and van Heertum, eds., Magia, Alchimia, Scienza Dal ‘400 al ‘700, 10-11. 12 For discussions of Paracelsian alchemical medicine and Paracelsian/Hermetic philosophy, see Smith, The Body of the Artisan , especially chap. 5, “The Legacy of Paracelsus, Practitioners and New Philosophers.” See also Webster, “Alchemical and Paracelsian Medicine,” in Health, Medicine and Mortality , 301-333; Webster, “Paracelsus and Demons: Science as a Synthesis of Popular Belief,” 3-20; Pagel, Paracelsus: An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine ; Ferrari, “Alcune vie di diffusione in Italia di idee e di testi di Paracelso,” 21-29; and Galluzzi, “Motivi Paracelsiani nella Toscana di Cosimo II e di Don Antonio dei Medici: Alchimia, Medicina ‘Chimica’ e riforma del sapere,” 31-67. In addition, see Debus, “ and the Diffusion of the Chemical Philosophy,” 225-245, and Moran, “Medicine, Alchemy and the Control of Language,” 135-150, both in Grell’s Paracelsus: The Man and His Reputation . 13 I secreti contains no preface or introduction. One must glean ideas about the theoretical underpinnings of Cortese’s work via critical readings of her dedicatory remarks and two conspicuously elaborate headings directed to her brother-in-law, Mario Chaboga, contained in the book. 177

* * * * *

In the history of medicine, the term “” has emerged as an umbrella concept

and a loose generalization to describe a complex group of medico-chemical ideologies extending

from medieval times down through the late Renaissance. Broadly speaking, “medical chemistry”

may be said to have begun with the utilization of chemical processes in the preparation of

medicines. The idea that disease and illness may be cured with treatments of chemical

concoctions, or that physicians might harness the natural healing properties of certain elements

or plants via chemical manipulation, erupted in Europe during the sixteenth-century. The origins

of these movements seem to have been deeply rooted in alchemy.

In 1934, A.J. Hopkins complained that scholars lacked a “comprehensive explanation,”

or unifying theory, that would “coordinate the whole and make clear to the modern mind the purpose and underlying conception of the alchemist.” 14 Over seventy years later, this problem

still exists. But contemporary historians of natural philosophy no longer search for a unitary

theory of alchemy. Instead, scholars are more likely to view alchemy as a catchword describing

multiple sets of practices, beliefs, and ideologies all stemming from one general principle: the

idea that inferior things, such as ordinary metals, could be converted into specimens of a higher

quality, such as gold, via physical manipulation and chemical treatment. Historically, much

alchemical philosophy, theory, and practice has centered around the quest for the proper

medicine of transmutation. This special ingredient is sometimes called the “elixir,” or the

“quintessence,” or even the “fifth element.”

As thirteenth-century Friar wrote in The Mirror of Alchemy , which was first printed in Nuremberg and Paris a few short years prior to Cortese’s book:

14 Hopkins, Alchemy: Child of Greek Philosophy, 3-4. 178

In many ancient Bookes there are found many definitions of this Art. For Hermes saith

of this Science: Alchimy is a Corporal Science…naturally conjoining things more

precious, by knowledge and effect, and converting them by a naturall commixtion into

a better kind. A certain other saith: Alchimy is a Science, teaching how to transforme

any kind of mettall into another; and that by a proper medicine as it appeareth by many

Philosophers Bookes. Alchimy therefore is a science teaching how to make and

compound a certain medicine, which is called Elixir, the which when it is cast upon

mettalls or imperfect bodies, doth fully perfect them in a verie . 15

Almost three centuries later, another Bacon—Francis—described the “true sciences” as astrology, alchemy, and physiognomy. According to Francis Bacon, these sciences were characterized by “art assisting nature ( per artem juvantem naturae )” and “art using nature for an

instrument ( ars utens natura pro instrumento ).” Bacon held that art has the power to “change,

transmute, or fundamentally alter nature.” 16 Francis Bacon, as we shall see in Chapter 4, speculated on a wide variety of issues and his work provoked much debate. But a sixteenth- century reader could readily interpret Bacon as suggesting that the legitimate technician of the physical world facilitated natural processes and expedited natural phenomena through learned methods to achieve desired ends. These ideas, as we shall see below, were echoed by Isabella

Cortese in her dedication to I secreti. But the art of alchemy itself experienced significant

15 Bachon, The Mirror of Alchimy Composed by the Thrice-Famous and Learned Fryer, Roger Bachon , 3. This treatise originally consisted of a series of manuscript tracts collected together during Bacon’s lifetime. They were first actually printed in Europe in Nuremberg in 1541 as in the Latin language. A French edition appeared in 1557 and an English version in 1597. 16 In Book 2 of De Augmentis , in The Works of Francis Bacon, 4:295. Cited here from Linden, The Alchemy Reader, 13. 179 transformation from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century.

In fact, in the years following Roger Bacon’s death, alchemy fell on hard times in

Europe. In 1317 Pope John XXII issued the bull Spondent pariter , which forbade alchemy and

villified alchemists. “To such an extent,” wrote the pope, “does their damned temerity go that

they stamp upon the base metal the characters of public money for believing eyes, and it is only

in this way that they deceive the ignorant populace as to the alchemical fire of the furnace.” 17

Ten years later, the Italian alchemist Cecco d’Ascoli was burned at the stake by the inquisition in

Florence. 18

Closer to Cortese’s time, the fifteenth-century Paduan Francesco Filefo wrote, “Those who think that, by spoiling and corrupting copper, silver or gold can be made, seem to me stupid fools. But triflers of that type devise certain names of herbs and other such things, known to themselves alone which produce nothing but wild fancies and frauds.” 19 The Venetian Republic formally banned alchemy and outlawed alchemical equipment in 1488. But the fires still burned, both literally and figuratively in the hearts, minds, and laboratories of natural philosophers and craftsmen in Venice and beyond.

In the Venetian Republic, legal restrictions directed against alchemists referred mainly to those practitioners thought to pose threats to copper and gold currency. The laws were meant to limit potential counterfeiters, not pharmacists, apothecaries, and physicians who generally violated no specific law with the concoction of a medical potion. Furthermore, a good bit of evidence exists to suggest the laws limiting alchemy were routinely ignored. In spite of legal prohibitions, alchemical texts were published throughout the sixteenth century. Isabella Cortese’s

“I secreti ” represents an example of such a publication.

17 Quoted from Holmyard, Alchemy , 149. 18 Ball, The Devil’s Doctor, 74. 19 Quoted from Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental Science, vol. 4, 395. 180

* * * * *

In the three hundred years prior to the publication of Isabella Cortese’s I secreti , a series of closely related cosmological views, or perceptions of nature, along with sets of corresponding alchemical philosophies of medicine, derived from such views, took shape. Most directly influenced by Arnaud of Villanova, Raymond Lull, John of Rupescissa, and Paracelsus, these alchemical medical philosophies shared the following precepts: a) “distillation,” or the separation of volatile components of a substance by heating and condensing, could be applied to the preparation of medical drugs, b) by means of various methods of distillation, special properties conceived as “essences” or “virtues” could be extracted from herbs, minerals, chemicals and metals to help form healing solutions, and c) these chemically prepared solutions could be targeted at specific medical conditions, such as wounds or diseases, in order to provide immediate relief. Rather than the broad, imprecise remedies of Galenic medicine designed to restore “humoral balance” or comprehensive “regimens of health,” which required long term alterations in lifestyle for effectiveness, these custom designed chemical concoctions were constructed for direct application to specific medical needs.

Before providing a concise historical evolution of these closely related alchemical medical philosophies, it may be helpful to build on the points outlined above. In a series of essays written in the 1530s, Paracelsus argued that rather than striving to cure illness via

“readjustments of humoral balance,” which he rejected as fundamentally misguided, doctors ought to harness the natural “virtues” implicit in many things within the physical world and 181 produce chemical remedies. 20 The liberation of “virtues,” according to Paracelsus, may be

achieved by a skillful process of separation—a parting of the excess and waste of mundane

reality from the vital, living spirit of a given material. Such separation, which necessitated

alchemical processes, could unleash healing forces of nature, “which are too wonderful to ever be thoroughly investigated.” 21

The Paracelsian alchemical processes of distillation, sublimation, calcination, and putrefaction, all to be briefly discussed below, also form the basis of Isabella Cortese’s

alchemical medicine. According to Paracelsus, as distillation extracted oils from plants, guided

and protracted forms of distillation could liberate ingredients from other objects as well. Even

metals could be distilled for the purpose of yielding healing agents. The Paracelsian text

Archidoxa describes many categories of chemical remedies and their means of preparation from

herbs, leaves, earth, minerals, metals, and other compounds. In this text, Paracelsus defines a

“quintessence” as “a nature, a force, a virtue, and a medicine, once, indeed shut up within things, but now free from any and from all outward incorporation…it is a spirit like the spirit

of life, but with this difference, that the life-spirit of a thing is permanent, but that of man is

mortal.” 22

Devising medicinal drugs would require searching for special healing agents buried within the elements of the physical world. As Paracelsus wrote:

What the eyes perceive in herbs or stones or trees is not yet a remedy; the eyes see only

dross, there the remedy lies hidden. First it must be cleansed from the dross, then it is

20 See Webster, “Alchemical and Paracelsian Medicine,” in Health, Medicine and Mortality , 301-333. 21 Quoted from Waite, The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Aureolus Phillipus Theophrastus Bombast, vol. 2, 3. Waite translates “The Coelum Philosophorm,” or “Book of Vexations,” regarding “The Science and Nature of Alchemy.” 22 Ibid., 22. 182

there. This is alchemy, and this is the office of Vulcan; he is the apothecary and the

chemist of medicine. 23

For Paracelsus, the “apothecary and chemist of medicine” lived in a universe packed with healing agents. The physical world represented a giant pharmacy waiting for discovery. As the causes of disease sprang from the physical world, so too must the remedies for illness reside within nature. The doctrine of signs, or “signature medicine,” held that nature, or God, marked the various elements of the physical world in ways that implied their healing potential. For example, heart-shaped plants might be used to prepare medicines for the heart. In speaking of the

Satyrion root, Paracelsus suggested that it “looked like the male privy parts,” and concluded that it “can restore a man’s virility and passion.” The good doctor added that the thistle plant had

“leaves that prick like needles” and concluded “there is no better remedy against internal stitches.” 24 The physical world constituted a limitless warehouse of healing materials. 25

But Paracelsus’s chemical philosophy held the key to more than just an understanding of nature’s potential healing properties. Paracelsian alchemical philosophy explained man as well, for man and nature could only be properly understood in relation to one another. Paracelsus thoroughly subscribed to the ancient macrocosm-microcosm theory; the idea that the physical and spiritual processes that occurred in living bodies (microcosms) represented reflections of those in the cosmos (macrocosm) and vice-versa. The dictum “as above, so below,” so often attributed to Paracelsus, actually appeared in western civilization from ancient times and traveled

23 Jacobi, ed., Paracelsus: Selected Writings, 93-94. 24 Quoted from Weeks, Paracelsus: Speculative Theory, 121. 25 Such thinking enjoyed great currency in early modern Europe. As explained in the previous chapter and worth repeating here, prior to the late nineteenth century, many people viewed health, sickness, and healing through an interpretive lens that could be most closely associated with “natural healing” today. For more on this subject see Debus, Man and Nature in the Renaissance, especially chap. 3, “The Study of Nature in a Changing World,” and chap. 8, “Epilogue and Indecision.” 183 through the medieval period down to the Renaissance. This represented one of the few ancient ideas the controversial alchemical philosopher did not reject. For Paracelsus, God created man in

His own image, but He also created the world in His own image and imparted the image of the world into man and vice-versa. In Eleven Treatises , written around 1520, Paracelsus suggests,

“The one who put the winds and seas, sun, moon and all in the heavens, he put it all in the human being as well….For what is the entire world but a sign that is of God and has been made by

God?” 26

* * * * *

If we stop for a moment to consider some of the reflections offered by Isabella Cortese in the passages written to Mario Chaboga within I secreti , we find strong elements of Paracelsian

thought. In broaching the subject of healing, Cortese emphasized the relationship between man

and nature. For her first example of a healing agent, Cortese chose to speak about the element

“camphor” ( canfora ). Camphor is a white, crystalline substance generally obtained from the bark of laurel trees, which can render oil when distilled. According to Cortese:

For man and nature are united, they are composed not of three different things, but of

the same three things. Therefore, I want you to understand this holy land not in the way

that the philosophers have taught, or perhaps in a way that they do not understand.

There may be times, for example, when we must ask of the land for the simple spirit of

Camphor, which is sold quite commonly among the vulgar. But not just any Camphor

will work, for cold Camphor can freeze in the body and will be of no value to the soul

26 Weeks, Paracelsus: Speculative Theory, 121. 184

or the spirit. While congelation may proceed from cold Camphor, the solution we seek

proceeds only from warm Camphor. To know this is to know that there are great secrets

in nature. Because within Camphor resides a great spirit, if it be prepared properly. But

if it be burned it may be a little more than sulphur, as the philosophers or the vulgar

might call it. For we have need of a method to prepare camphor properly. 27

In her long tedious recipe for the preparation of proper camphor, Cortese suggests using the “water of life,” a specially distilled liquid discussed by Dioscorides in ancient times. 28 The preparation process includes periodic testing for sweet taste, a technique emphasized by John of

Rupescissa over one hundred and fifty years earlier. 29 If done properly, “the spirits of the water of life shall enter the camphor and fix it properly,” assures Cortese. Like Paracelsus, Cortese believed a certain spirit or virtue resided within camphor. Proper chemical distillation could conceivably liberate that spirit and instill its special properties into another material.

For Cortese, God and nature provide all the healing ingredients man could desire in the physical world in which he resides. “For within the land of God’s great earth and within the movement of the skies He created, is produced all of the fruits and all of the spirits that the soul of man must have, and so says Hermes quite definitively,” writes Cortese, adding that “the land is nourished with the water of life, and if the great Philosophers know this, they are unable to reveal it without dark words or terrible fear.” 30 Echoing the ideas of Francis Bacon regarding the necessity of “art assisting nature” or “art using nature as an instrument,” Cortese writes:

27 Cortese, I secreti , bk. 2, chap. 1, fol. 33-34. 28 According to Robert P. Multhauf, Arnaud of Villanova, John of Rupescissa, and thirteenth-century medical philosopher and teacher Taddeo Alderotti debated the idea of “acqua vitae” as a fifth element to add to Aristotle’s four elements of nature. See Multhauf, “John of Rupescissa and the Origin of Medical Chemistry,” 364. 29 See Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental Science , vol. 3, 360. 30 Cortese, I Secreti, bk. 2, chap. 1, fol. 33. 185

However, there may be times when it seems like nature does not produce a certain

element that we need, at least not in any way that is self-evident and simple to realize,

and so the body and soul of man may be unable to receive a certain spirit that is needed.

During these times, the body is like barren land prior to the infusion of the spirit and the

soul that are nature. There may be times when we must ask of the land for simple

spirits.

But like Paracelsus, Cortese’s alchemical philosophy seems to explain more than just man’s metaphorical relationship to nature or the proper guide to discovering effective medicines.

Instead, for Cortese, alchemical philosophy would seem to explain the mysteries of origin and existence. Returning to her letter to Mario Chaboga we read:

Now then, we know in the beginning it was our glorious God who made the first body

and in that first body, which came to be Adam, was infused a spirit and then a soul, so

that in the image of God Himself, the first man would be complete. This, we must

understand in detail. For the body, prior to the spirit and the soul, was like the muddy

land of God’s great earth. For us to make a body complete, or to restore a body to its

proper state, we must add a special spirit to an otherwise incomplete land. This is where

our teaching and learning must be directed. 31

31 Ibid. The Italian natural philosopher Vannoccio Biringuccio (1480-1539) clearly shared the view that alchemical practices mirrored the workings of nature. Biringuccio’s best known work, “ Pirotechnia ,” was published in Italy in 1540 and may well have been read by Cortese. Citing passages from Pirotechnia regarding the manipulation of stone for the construction of housing, Pamela Smith suggests that for Biringuccio, “alchemical methods imitated the processes of nature. In his [Biringuccio’s] view, humans invented the arts by observing natural processes and speeding them up through the processes that would come to be called alchemical.” Smith concludes that “alchemy was the focal point of the debate about the power of nature to imitate art from the Middle Ages up through the 186

In devising chemical concoctions to cure illness, the healer emulates God’s creation of man and the universe. In the beginning, God created a muddy mass of barren land. Imbued with a divine spark, or virtuous spirit, the land took on God’s image. For the healer to “restore a body to its proper state,” he or she “must add a special spirit to an otherwise incomplete land.” Indeed, man himself is best understood via explanations of medicinal cures:

[Consider] the three principles of nature, that, according to certain philosophers, may

be called matter, form and essence. We shall make many medicines with our

knowledge of these three principles. Medicines are made of natural things, that is, of

matter, form and essence, and medicines may help the body and enliven the spirit. By

“matter,” we mean to say the body itself, the body’s “shape,” in a sense, refers to the

soul and by “essence,” we most closely refer to the spirit. Every “essence” experiences

generation and corruption, yet, it is by means of the spirit that the body and the soul are

properly combined in the union that is man. 32

This idea of corruption preceding generation can be traced back to Aristotle. The notion

that a seed must “die,” or forfeit its original form and existence in order to grow, blossom, or be part of something new, represented a basic idea with many early modern manifestations. Just as

the modern chef cannot make an omelet without breaking a few eggshells, the early modern

alchemical healer needed to “kill” certain materials by extracting the vital spirits within them for

the purposes of constructing effective remedies. “A baker is an alchemist when he bakes bread, seventeenth century.” See Smith, The Body of the Artisan . For a thorough examination of Biringuccio, see Pirotechnia, published in in 1540. 32 Ibid. 187 the vintner when he makes wine, the weaver when he makes cloth,” wrote Paracelsus in 1530.

“Therefore the individual who harvests natural fruits useful to humans in ways prescribed by nature is an alchemist.” 33

In one sense, the alchemist was the artisan who knew how to separate the valuable from the worthless. “Carpenters were alchemists of wood,” explained Paracelsus, “as were sculptors who do away with the unnecessary parts of wood so that they may make an image out of it.” 34

But in another, more profound sense, the alchemist was the artisan who knew how to separate the

vital matter from the dross, how to extract the dynamic element from the larger compound, and

how to combine this property with other elements to reproduce the generative and productive processes of nature. “All crafts are founded on the imitation of nature,” explained Paracelsus,

“[and] all crafts experience the properties of nature. Craftspeople know that in all their work they

follow in the path of nature and bring out of nature what is in her.” 35

The alchemist was an enlightened cook. This special cook, along with the blacksmith, metallurgist, physician, and countless other artisans, involved himself in the great art of transformation. Such was the alchemical philosophy of medicine, and it explained man, nature, and existence.

* * * * *

If we examine the first recipe found in Cap 50 of Isabella Cortese’s I secreti , we find her instructions on “How to Sublimate Mercury.” Broadly speaking, by “sublimate,” Cortese meant

33 Quoted from Karl Sudhoff’s translation of Paracelsus’ 1530 Das Buch Paragranum in Samtliche Werke , vol. 8, 181. 34 Quoted from Sudhoff’s translation of Paracelsus’ 1553 Das Buch Labyrinthus medicorum genant in Samtliche Werke , vol. 2, 189. 35 Quoted from Sudhoff’s translation of Paracelsus’ Das Buch Paragranum in Samtliche Werke, vol. 8, 181. 188 to purify or refine. According to historian of alchemy Stanton Linden, sublimation represents a distillation process whose name derived from the “elevation” or “exaltation” of the materials circulating in the chemist’s still. Over seventy years ago, historian John Read described sublimation as, “the deposition of crystals in the cool upper part of a vessel containing heated solid material in its lowest part….[W]hen repeated many times it was supposed to furnish the

‘quintessense’ of the material concerned.” 36 As Cortese writes:

Take fresh mercury, Roman vitriol and put it in a saucepan, stir it and heat it up a bit,

extract the material that rises above the mercury, take all that seems to be decayed or

spoiled and put it in another pan under a light fire. Then add one oncia of a prepared

salt, all minced and chopped, and mix it together in a basin to purify it. When it has

been thoroughly sublimated, add, for the second time, one oncia of vitriol, another

oncia of salt, pulverize and crush it all together and put it down for further sublimation.

Then, for the third time, add an oncia of vitriol and minced salt and crush it all together.

You may do this four, five, six or seven times. But the Mercury will always grow in

weight and mass after the fourth time. It will grow heavier and never diminish and you

will have perfectly sublimated Mercury, impregnated with the spirit of vitriol. 37

According to Stanton Linden, Sir George Ripley, one of the most famous alchemists of

late medieval England, wrote the following of sublimation in his Compound of Alchymy

(completed in 1471; first published in 1591): “Sublimation’s purposes are three—a) to make the body spiritual, b) to make the spirit corporal and ‘consubstantial’ and ‘fixed’ with the body; and

36 Linden, The Alchemy Reader, 138. 37 Cortese, I secreti, bk. 2, chap. 51, fol. 58. 189 c) to cleanse the filthie originall.” 38

Paracelsus used “vitriol” for sublimation processes as well. Today, vitriol is generally

associated with sulfuric acid, yet Paracelsus apparently made narcotics out of the chemical.

Whereas Cortese “impregnated Mercury with the spirit of vitriol,” Paracelsus seems to have done

the same thing for sulphur. After mixing in rosemary oil and “good wine,” two ingredients

frequently used by Cortese, Paracelsus produced a drug suitable for patients suffering from

epilepsy, syphilis, and dropsy. 39

Cortese and Paracelsus used vitriol for different purposes, but they operated within similar theoretical frameworks. In both instances, the spirit of vitriol “impregnated” another substance, in Cortese’s case Mercury and in the case of Paracelsus, Sulphur. The Paracelsian influence on Cortese seems indisputable. In this sense, Isabella Cortese’s 1561 I secreti would seem to be part of the “Paracelsian/Hermetic revival” that Carlos Gilly and Cis van Heertum suggest began in the 1550s. 40

But a wide range of other voices influenced Cortese. Indeed, much of the alchemical philosophy described above gained expression prior to the birth of Paracelsus. Sir George

Ripley, “one of the most famous alchemists of medieval England,” whose observations regarding the purposes of sublimation fit neatly with the alchemical medical philosophy of the sixteenth century, finished his work twenty-two years before Paracelsus was born.

Clearly, the foundations of early modern medical chemistry antedate Paracelsus. The three medieval figures most closely associated with the alchemical philosophy movement of the sixteenth century are Arnald of Vilanova (1235-1311), John of Rupescissa (d. 1362) and Raimon

38 Linden, The Alchemy Reader, 18. 39 Quoted from Multhauf, The Origins of Chemistry. Multhauf cites Paracelsus’ 1525 On Diseases that Deprive Man of His Reason. 40 Gilly and van Heertum, eds., Magia, Alchimia, Scienza, vol. 2, 10-11. 190

Lull (1232-1315). According to Robert Multhauf, “the philosophical works of Arnald, Lull, and

Rupescissa are by no means to medieval alchemical ideology, and their medico-chemical works are concerned with some of the favorite processes of contemporary alchemy, notably with the process of distillation.” 41 Michela Pereira suggests that “all of these men [Arnald, Lull,

Rupescissa, and Francis Bacon] assumed the aim of alchemy to be the production of an agent of material perfection, the elixir , that can purge metals of their impurities as well as restore the health of human bodies.” 42

Arnald (1235-1311) taught conventional Galenic/Hippocratic medicine at the University of Montpellier, where alchemy did not represent part of the official curriculum. But like many scholarly, licensed, official medieval and early Renaissance medical practitioners, Arnaud maintained two distinct approaches to healing: a theoretically, doctrinal, intellectually complex,

Latin based discourse of texts on the one hand, and a practical, empirically derived, experimentally gleaned, non-conventional set of practices on the other. Arnald de Vilanova wrote books on medical alchemy. In his major work, Rosarius (1280), Arnald writes of the benefits of separation, extraction, and recombination of elements for the purposes of constructing remedies. 43 “In the Arnaldian Rosarium ,” writes Michela Pereira , “the alchemical medicine is extolled as a thing that has more active virtue than any other remedy, because of its occult and subtle nature.” 44 Like Paracelsus, Arnald emphasized the world’s changing nature, implying that disease and illness must be understood within the context of a given physical environment. 45 As an alchemist, Arnald seems to have expounded on the sulfur-mercury theory of metal generation, which John of Rupescissa took up one generation after Arnald’s death. The theory essentially

41 Multhauf, “John of Rupescissa and the Origin of Medical Chemistry,” 363. 42 Pereira, “ Mater Medicinarum : English Physicians and the Alchemical Elixir,” 29. 43 See Read, From Alchemy to Chemistry , 27-29. 44 Pereira, “ Mater Medicinarum : English Physicians and the Alchemical Elixir,” 29-30. 45 Pagel, Paracelsus: An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine, 252. 191 holds that all metals are composed of combinations of sulfur and mercury, and it dominated

Isabella Cortese’s mind. “We know that all metals are composed of mercury and sulphur,” she wrote, adding “the mercury is the matter and the sulphur is the shape. The purity or impurity of a metal depends upon the mercury and the sulphur within it and the influence they had.” 46

John of Rupescissa’s influence on Isabella Cortese would seem equally self-evident.

Rupescissa believed the spirits obtainable through chemical distillation represented virtues, or

“quintessences,” and they possessed marvelous healing potential. In his treatise On the

Consideration of Quintessences , Rupescissa argued that extracted spirits represented the key to

healing solutions. 47 In Rupescissa’s best known work, Liber lucis , his distilled mixtures of

saltpeter, Roman vitriol, and mercury to obtain “mercury’s sublimate, and his use of sal

ammoniac and “angel water” seem to leap off the pages of Cortese’s I secreti .48

The alchemical writings attributed to Raimond Lull rank among the most important to the western alchemical tradition and the origins of medical chemistry. Lull’s Testamentum , written in 1332, cites Arnald of Vilanova as an alchemical authority and extols Roger Bacon’s notion of art assisting nature. The text conceives of a systematic “alchemical philosophy” with a detailed set of practical processes and medical recipes. Throughout the text, Lull searches for the elixir :

This is the greatest stone kept hidden from the unlearned people by all the ancient

philosophers. It transmutes every base and imperfect metal into an agent that can

produce an infinite quantity of gold and silver. Moreover we say that it has more

efficacious virtue than all other remedies, and that it is capable of healing all illnesses

46 Cortese, I secreti, bk. 2, chap. 1, fol. 36-37. 47 Partington, , vol. 1, 108. 48 Rupescissa, Liber lucis , vol. 2, 84b. I have used the translation from Latin to English provided by Multhauf. See Multhauf, “John of Rupescissa and the Origin of Medical Alchemy,” 359-367. For further discussion on Rupescissa and medical alchemy, see Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental Science , 3:347-369. 192

that affect the human body. Do not wonder of this remedy was sought for more eagerly

than any other, because in it all other remedies are encompassed. 49

The omnipotent elixir can be obtained only through the extraction of the pure, essential

virtue that constitutes the core of material elements, usually defined as elementum virgo , or the

“fifth essence.” Sixteenth-century writers avidly debated Lull’s work, and Arnald’s fame grew immensely. In the 1550s, when Cortese presumably was writing I secreti , Spain’s King Philip II issued calls for foreign alchemists to prepare quintessences and medicines by distillation, according to the practices of Raimon Lull, for the health of the human body.” 50

But Isabella Cortese formally distanced herself from the forefathers of sixteenth-century alchemical philosophy described above. In the preface of I secreti, Cortese wrote a lengthy note to her brother-in-law, Mario Chaboga, about these famous writers:

I tell you, my dearest brother, if you wish to follow the art of alchemy and to operate

well in it, it is not necessary to follow the works of Geber, nor of Ramon [Lull], nor

Arnaldo [Villanova], nor of any of these philosophers, because they have not recorded

anything truthful in their books, but only falsehoods and riddles. I have read the most

detailed findings of Geber, “ Recipe Lapidem in Capillisnostrum ”—I have read and

reread it and I have found nothing favorable or useful.

Nor is there anything truthful in the epistle of Ramon [Lull] entitled “ Recipe

Nigrum nigto nigrius ,” or his other works, such as “ Ascende in monde altiorem huitus

mundi” and “ Inuenies la pidem absconsum .” I have studied these books for more than

49 Lull, Testamentum , 244, f. 57rb-va. I have relied on Pereira’s translation in “ Mater Medicinarum ,” 30. 50 Eamon, “Alchemy in Popular Culture,” 209. 193

thirty years and have never found anything good in them. I have wasted time and

almost lost my life and all my possessions. By the mercy of God I have been able to

find all that is good and useful in these matters, and, if you will permit me the honor, in

this life.

My dearest brother, I know that you have wasted a lot of time and spent a great

deal. Out of compassion for you, I beg you not to lose any more time on the books of

these philosophers. Simply follow the rules I have written down for you. Do not

increase or diminish anything, but do as I say and write, and follow my commandments

written below. 51

How can we explain Isabella Cortese’s desire to disassociate herself from these alchemical philosophers? Why did Cortese fail to mention Paracelsus even once in her book?

Perhaps the frustration of exclusion from formal circles of education provoked resentment of established intellectual figures in Cortese. Maybe she simply conformed to the fashionable rejection of ancient intellectual figures typical of the “professors of secrets.” Leonardo Fioravanti and Alessio Piemontese were no fans of Galen and Hippocrates. Paracelsus himself attacked many of the figures described above. In his book Great Surgery , Paracelsus acknowledged that both Arnald and John of Rupescissa wrote about quintessences and vital spirits before him, but he complained that their books “contained nothing of value” and were “mere boasting, devoid of philosophy.” 52 Or perhaps Isabella Cortese wanted her work to seem truly original.

But there may be another reason to explain Cortese’s disassociation from medical writers

like Lull, Arnald, Rupescissa, and Paracelsus. We must remember that the prime of Cortese’s

51 Cortese, I secreti, bk. 2, chap. 1, fol. 31. 52 Quoted from Waite, ed., Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus the Great, 22n. The translated text comes from Paracelsus, The Great Surgery , bk. 2, chap. 13. 194 life, including the period in which she wrote I secreti , fell within the time span of the Council of

Trent (1545-1563). The eighteen year mission represented a legal side of the Catholic Counter-

Reformation as orchestrated by the Holy Church. In Venice, the Council of Trent erected an

Inquisition designed to stamp out heresy within the state. Christian writers liked to describe

heresy as a sickness with a strong element of contagion. Ironically, physicians, surgeons, and

authors of medical treatises soon became major targets of the Inquisition’s suspicion. In 1547 the

Republic of Venice formed a new legal magistracy called the Tre Savia sopra Eresia and combined it with the Patriarch of Venice, the Papal Nuncio, and the Grand Inquisitor to form the tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition. 53 The new institution soon began charging substantial numbers of physicians, and the ‘Index of Prohibited Books’ began filling up with volumes on medical philosophy. In 1574, the Paduan anatomist and surgeon Nicolo Bucella had his belongings searched by an order of the Venetian Inquisition. The record shows that he was stripped of a work by Paracelsus (“ detractis tamen quisbusdam libris Teophrasti Paracelsi tamquam haereticalia continentibus” ) judged to be heretical. 54 In 1587, Claude Baniere was

detained by the Venetian Tribunal and charged with possessing prohibited books, which included

works by Raimon Lull, Paracelsus, and the alchemical medical philosopher Guglielmo Gratarolo.

Baniere was executed for heresy later that year. 55 The Valgrisi bookshop, owned by the Valgrisi publishing company which printed the “books of secrets” of Alessio Piemontese, suffered constant scrutiny by the Holy Office. 56 Venetian surgeon Girolamo Donzellini, executed for

heresy in 1587, was known to be a close colleague of one Pietro Perna, a man believed to be the

53 Romeo, L’inquisizione nell’Italia moderna, 8. 54 Palmer, “Pharmacy in the Republic of Venice,” 111. 55 Martin, Venice’s Hidden Enemies, 222. Most of Raimon Lull’s major works were formally condemned by Pope Gregory XI in 1376 and subsequently banned throughout Christian lands. We have seen, however, that Spain’s King Philip II made use of Lull’s literature during the 1550s. Nevertheless, the condemnation was renewed by Pope Paul IV in 1560, one year before Cortese published I secreti . See Turner, “Raymond Lull.” 56 Palmer, “Physicians and the Inquisition,” 126. 195 publisher, book seller, and smuggler most responsible for the Paracelsian revival in Italy during

the 1550s. 57 Indeed, even the Inquisition of Tarragona had burned Arnald of Vilanova’s books in

1317. 58

The wholesale condemnation of Paracelsian literature by the Holy Church did not occur until after Isabella Cortese’s death, and it is difficult to definitively ascertain which volumes of

Lull and Paracelsus were forbidden during the period in which Cortese wrote I secreti . Indexes

of prohibited books can be tricky sources. Local jurisdictions often volumes that never

make their way to the encyclopedic lists published in larger cities. 59 Nevertheless, it is safe to say

that at least some of the works of Raimon Lull and Paracelsus were prohibited during the period

of time in which Cortese wrote her book. Furthermore, if the work of certain alchemical philosophers drew the wrath of the Inquisition, it is safe to say that no work of alchemical philosophy could be owned without some risk. No wonder Isabella Cortese distanced herself

from men like Lull, Arnald, Rupescissa, and Paracelsus. She may have hoped to avoid arrest and

incarceration. Such a fate would have seemed cruel for a natural philosopher who had traveled

great distances over many years, collecting the secrets of nature.

* * * * *

From the medieval period down through the Renaissance, learned natural philosophers

sought legitimacy by associating their findings with the teachings of famous thinkers. As we saw

in Chapter 1, some writers falsely attributed their entire works to renowned ancient scholars. But by the sixteenth century, many learned thinkers and neo-scholarly philosophers disassociated

57 Palmer, “Pharmacy in the Republic of Venice,” 113. 58 Ball, The Devil’s Doctor, 74. 59 See Infelise, I libri proibiti , Introduction. 196 themselves from the famous intellects of their time and fashioned themselves in opposition to ancient authors. This tendency seemed especially strong in the field of medicine and the arts of healing.

It is worth recalling the words of Paduan physician Giovanni Argenterio on this subject.

“No builder built a house according to the directions laid down by an ancient authority,” wrote

Argenterio in 1551. Ten years before the publication of Cortese’s book, Argenterio argued that

“because Galen wrote almost infinite volumes, he must have made many ill-considered statements without thinking about them…hence, our stupidity should be even more condemned when we receive all his books as absolutely true and attribute equal authority to each one.” 60

Cortese related well to this point of view. In the earliest passages of I secreti she wrote, “For I declare, that this age of ours, which surpasses by a large margin the ancient world in all things and leaves our ancestors far behind, contains much to be known.” These lines come from the dedication of I secreti to Mario Chaboga, the Archdeacon of the Kingdom of Ragusa. In this same passage, Cortese humbly offers to make her knowledge of contemporary chemicals, metals, and minerals available to the world for the sake of utility. But a keener preface might have been provided by the Argenterio quote discussed in my first chapter:

Would not the ancients have made greater progress in philosophy if these most learned

men, who strove with one another in interpreting Aristotle and explaining his every

word in a recondite manner, had instead taken up the elaboration and illustration of

some part of philosophy treated more negligently by our forefathers? For meanwhile

because we examine with superfluous labor the vacuum, the infinite, the three

principles, and the opinions of the ancients, we are ignorant of the nature of metals and

60 Siraisi, “Sixteenth-Century Medical Innovation,” 168. 197

stones; nor do we know enough of the history of herbs and plants. 61

Cortese would attempt to add to her generation’s knowledge of metals, stones, herbs, and plants, with scant reference to ancient authority. But she would do so discreetly. In the passage to her brother-in-law which opens the second section of I secreti , Cortese urges Mario Chaboga to keep this new learning to himself. “You must be sure to maintain the secrecy of your work,” writes Cortese, adding that the Archdeacon “should not let strangers enter the privacy of the workshop.” Cortese counsels Chaboga to “not teach these arts to anyone…[for] revealing these secrets will cause them to lose their efficacy.” This desire to maintain secrecy is not easily reconciled with remarks in the dedication of the book in which Cortese expresses the hope to make the knowledge she has gleaned about nature available to the rest of the world and takes deep pride in providing others with a work of great utility. How can we understand this paradox?

Cortese’s emphasis on the maintenance of secrecy has historical roots within the natural philosophical traditions informing her work. Although Cortese’s book belongs to a sixteenth- century movement in natural philosophical writing concerning nature’s secrets, the “ secreti ” tradition has ancient roots, dating back to Hellenistic times. In the Hellenistic East, where the occult sciences originated, “natural philosophy” generally implied purely esoteric learning, with strong spiritual implications, appropriate only for a chosen group of special thinkers. This basically “gnostic,” or revealed, knowledge possessed a sacred character and had to be carefully

guarded from the misguided use of those unable to properly appreciate its full meaning. In this

sense, Cortese’s emphasis on maintaining secrecy dates back to an intellectual disposition shared by Europe’s earliest natural philosophers.

The influence of the sixteenth-century revival of Hermeticism constitutes a more direct

61 Cortese, I secreti. 198 influence on Cortese’s work, however, and this also emphasizes maintaining secrecy among the learned. In textual terms, “ Hermeticism ,” or the revelations attributed to the Egyptian god Thoth, called Hermes Trismegistus (“Thrice Great”) by the Greeks, basically refers to two major treatises: the Corpus Hermeticum (the philosophical revelations of Hermes) and the “technical

Hermetica ,” which were tracts on astrology, alchemy, medicine, and magic. These works constituted the central texts of the school of mystical philosophy known as .

Beyond the pale veneer of mundane existence, the Neoplatonists believed, there lies an unseen networks of structures and forces all corresponding to divine reason. 62 In 1460, Florentine

humanist Cosimo de’Medici hired the scholar Marsilio Ficino to translate the Corpus

hermeticum into Latin. Ficino’s Latin translation of Hermeticum , which would have been

entirely comprehensible to Cortese, was printed three times in Venice between 1481 and 1493. 63

But in 1548, thirteen years before the publication of Cortese’s I secreti , Florence’s Editio publishing house printed Tommaso Benci’s Italian translation of Hermeticum . Cortese refers to

“Hermes ” (the only ancient authority she cites) three times in her book and the influence of

Neoplatonist thought, as shall be demonstrated below, is prevalent throughout her work. But the

Hermetic tradition, as understood during Cortese’s lifetime, considered authentic knowledge of the natural world a matter of divine revelation that required careful guarding and proper maintenance.

This point may be illustrated with a letter written by a first-century AD medical student named Thessalos of Tralles which made its way into a treatise on medicine attributed to the

Egyptian pharaoh Nechepso, one of the fabled recipients of the Hermetic revelations. Thessalos

relates the story of his lifelong quest to understand the secrets of nature for the purposes of

62 Daston and Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, 145. 63 Gilly and van Heertum, eds., Magia, Alchimia, Scienza, 10-11. 199 healing and his ultimate meeting with Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine. Asclepius reveals to the student the secrets of collecting the plants and minerals necessary to produce effective drugs and the knowledge of the stars required to do so. But he orders Thessalos not to “reveal the secrets to any profane person who is a stranger to our art,” lest the secrets lose their power. 64

But if Isabella Cortese subscribed to the notion that “revealing secrets to the vulgar was

to cast pearls before swine,” as the English physician Sir Thomas Browne remarked in 1646,

why did she express gratitude for the opportunity to share her knowledge in her dedication to

Mario Chaboga? Was she simply conforming to literary convention, as Francesco Bernardo,

Nicolas Antonio, Fedele Honofri, Antonio Boldini, Claudio Amelli, Leonardo Fioravanti,

Alessio Piemontese, Timotheo Rossello, and dozens of other “professors of secrets” had done in

the dedications, prefaces, and introductions of their volumes? Perhaps. But that only pushes the

question back further. Why did Cortese write her book and attempt to get it published in the first place?

It is a safe bet to assume that Isabella Cortese hoped to sell her book and generate

revenue. Sixteenth-century Venetian publishing houses looked fondly upon approval from

statesmen or aristocrats within the Venetian empire. Mario Chaboga, the Archdeacon of the

Kingdom of Ragusa, occupied an important position of state within a defacto colony of Venice.

The approval of Cortese’s brother-in-law undoubtedly contributed to her successful attempt to publish her book. Furthermore, the highly specified table of contents, the itemized nature of each

recipe, and the easy-to-follow style of the book’s organization indicate the commercial aspects of

Cortese’s work. Many paragraphs conclude with warm phrases of encouragement such as “you

shall do well,” and “it will be done,” and these results “will be of much use to you.” Clearly,

Cortese hoped to make money with her book. She probably did benefit financially. Venetian

64 Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, 20. 200 publishing houses printed ten editions between 1561 and 1677, and German translations of I secreti were published in Hamburg and Frankfurt in the 1590s.

The fact that Isabella Cortese took knowledge gleaned from Latin-based texts and wrote a

volume in a vernacular language indicates that her position regarding the necessity of

safeguarding crucial information from the vulgar represented little more than rhetorical posturing. The fact that Cortese went to great lengths to publish her book leads one to believe

that personal ambition outweighed her sympathy for those aspects of Hellenistic and Hermetic

thought that emphasized the selective dissemination of knowledge regarding nature.

* * * * *

Isabella Cortese claimed to have traveled widely in search of nature’s secrets, herbal medicines, and chemical concoctions from natural philosophers throughout Italy and Central

Europe. She specifically mentions learning ideas and collecting medicines from as far away as

Hungary and Egypt in the pages of I secreti .65 But Cortese’s autobiographical portrayal may well have represented an attempt at conforming to the well-known late sixteenth-century stereotype of the wise professor of secrets as globetrotter. The appeal to worldly experience and the benefits of travel have been proposed by many early modern natural philosophers. Paracelsus wrote,

“Whoever wishes to explore nature must tread her books with his feet….writing is learned from letters; nature, however, by traveling from land to land, one page.” Paracelsus claimed, “thus is the Codex Naturae , thus must its leaves be turned.” 66 In fact, the image of Paracelsus as the wandering scholar, traveling from town to town, exploring, investigating, and collecting the

65 Cortese, I secreti; see “Introduzione, Al Molto Rever Monsignore il Signore Mario Chaboga Digniss. Archidiacono di Ragusi,” fol. 13. 66 Quoted from Pagel, Paracelsus: An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine , 56-57. Pagel translates a passage from Defensiones un Verantwortungen wegen etlicher verunglimpfung seiner Missgoner. 201 secrets of nature while gleaning ideas from others along the way, may well have provided the prototypical image late sixteenth-century professors of secrets modeled themselves after.

Alessio Piemontese, the “professor of secrets” most fully discussed by Tommaso

Garzoni, certainly portrayed himself as a wise traveler. In the preface of his Secreti di reverendo

Alessio Piemontese , he relates how his passion for philosophy and the secrets of nature sent him on many a “journey throughout all partes of the world, without resting or sojourning at any time in one place above five monthes.” 67 According to Piemontese, he “spent much of [his] life traveling from place to place, collecting ideas not only of men of great knowledge and profound learning, but also poor women, artificers, , and all types of men.” 68 Leonardo Fioravanti,

another “professor of secrets,” also boasts of great travels dedicated to learning. “I set to go out

into the world,” explains Fioravanti, “and began to walk the earth and plough her seas, seeing

many cities, provinces, practicing with various kinds of persons, medicating many men and

women with all sorts of infirmities.” 69 Paracelsus’s Danish pupil, Peter Severinus, exhorted all naturalists to “sell your lands, burn up your books, buy yourself stout shoes, travel to the mountains, search the valleys, the deserts, the shores of the sea, and the deepest depressions of the earth.” 70 It is no wonder that Tommaso Garzoni portrayed these “ professori di secreti ,” as

itinerant, groundless, shifty, wandering types whose rejection of traditional learning had sent

them off in all different directions.

Nevertheless, one must wonder if Cortese really had traveled the globe in search of rare secrets and true learning. The fact is, virtually everything she discusses in I secreti was readily available in her hometown during the very period in which she wrote her book. Practically every

67 Piemontese, Secreti del reverendo donno Alessio piemontese . See the preface to the reader; in my copy the passage cited above appears on fol.*ii. 68 Ibid. 69 Fioravanti, Il tesoro della vita humana, 17v-18. 70 Quoted in Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, 161-162. 202 herb, plant, chemical, and compound covered in Cortese’s treatise changed hands in daily

Venetian commercial transaction during the sixteenth century. Furthermore, information and ideas related to virtually every recipe or set of instructions offered by Cortese had been published by Venetian presses. When discussing sixteenth-century medicinals commonly used by learned physicians and empirics, contemporary natural philosopher Pandolfo Collenucio described

Venice as “that great centre for the diffusion of information as well as commodoties.” 71 In his study of sixteenth-century European pharmacies and commercial exchange of medicinal materials, Richard Palmer confirms, “few cities [as Venice] can have visited so much by leading botanists and natural historians.” 72

The Venetian republic played the most important role of any European political entity during the early modern revolution in “ materia medica ” and the newly developed interest in medicinal herbs that peaked during Cortese’s lifetime. By virtue of Venice’s geographic position and political hegemony, the republic was well situated to lead the way. Venice ruled islands such as Crete and Cyprus, which were considered to have been the herb gardens of antiquity, and the republic enjoyed unrivaled trading relations with Constantinople, Syria, and Egypt. Pietro

Mattioli, the physician hired by the Venetian republic to catalogue the history of medicinal herbs compiled by Dioscorides, urged the Venetian Senate to procure from all parts of the world where its galleys sailed the true herbs, , and minerals so urgently desired for the best medicines throughout the decade of the 1540s. According to my rough count, approximately ninety percent of the herbs deployed in Cortese’s I secreti can be found in Mattioli’s 1548 Materia Medica

Dioscorides .

In 1545, the Venetian republic founded an official state botanical garden at the University

71 Palmer, “Pharmacy in the Republic of Venice,” 102. 72 Ibid., 103. 203 of Padua. The Paduan botanical gardens would serve as a collecting point for plants and minerals from wherever medicinal simples were to be found. The garden became a crucial center of study for the construction and testing of medicinals based on the manipulation of herbs and minerals. 73

In his 1536 study of pharmacies and medicinals entitled Examen Omnium Simplicium , Antonio

Musa Brasavola referred to Venetian pharmacies more than those of any other city. Valerius

Cordus used his stay in Venice in 1544 to build up a store of important medicinal simples

unavailable in Germany. Prominent physician Conrad Gesner visited the botanical gardens of

Girolamo Cornaro, a former governor of Cyprus, on the Venetian island of Murano in 1544, for

the purposes of study and consolation. Venetian Pietro Antonio Michiel established his

own botanical garden of medicinals as did Venetian doctor Maffeo Maffei. The gardens of both

men attracted interest from heavyweights in early modern natural philosophy like Pietro Mattioli,

Ulisse Aldrovandi, and Giuseppe Falloppia. According to Richard Palmer, “gardens such as

these, together with the presence of merchants and traders in materia medica from East to West,

made Venice a forum where the latest botanical news could be discussed and new specimens

examined. 74 Simply put, by the time Isabella Cortese set down to write I secreti , her native city had emerged as the capital of medicinal herbs and minerals and the place where natural philosophers visited to learn ideas and collect materials for the purposes of healing.

* * * * *

Did Isabella Cortese deliberately misrepresent herself in her opening remarks of I secreti ?

Were her claims of distant travel for the purposes of diligent research, careful observation, and meticulous collection misleading? Was all the information presented in her book readily

73 Laughran, “Medicating With or Without ‘Scruples,’” 102. 74 Palmer, “Pharmacy in the Republic of Venice,” 103. 204 available in her native city all along? Does I secreti represent a regurgitation of unoriginal thought cloaked in a veneer of rhetorical fashioning? Did Cortese slap a superficial understanding of famous thinkers and time-honored traditions of learning onto an unwieldy collection of disparate thought? With no further historical information available on Isabella

Cortese, only further evaluation of her work’s epistemological foundations can shed light on these questions.

I secreti represents an epistemological puzzle. As previously mentioned, many of

Cortese’s medicinal recipes would seem to be informed by folkloric perceptions of health, or vernacular healing practices among non-learned people outside university. For example, if we consider Cortese’s recipe for creating “Borax for the Orifices,” we find:

Take a rock of saltpeter in a saucepan and heat it until it begins to liquefy, then

pulverize it into a ground dust. Mix it with several oncie of cow’s milk and boil it in a

new pan. Be sure to stir it often until it is well mixed. Then put the new mixture in a

well-sealed glass container. Bury it under a manure dunghill and let it lay for thirty

days. 75

One might easily assume that Cortese’s penchant for burying maturing concoctions in manure piles (this suggestion appears in many recipes) had its origin in orally transmitted folklore among countryside healers lacking formal education. 76 This may well be true, as popular

healing practices at the everyday level of early modern Italian life often included the use of

75 Cortese, I secreti, bk. 2, chap. 20, fol. 48. 76 For other examples of making the most of manure, see I secreti for Cortese’s remedy of “Oil of Human Bladders, Which Can Heal Wounds in Twenty-Four Hours and Relieve the Pain of Gout,” bk. 1, chap. 8, fol. 22. Here, Cortese recommends storing a sticky, gooey substance in the final stages of its preparation in a glass jar and burying it under a dunghill for two months. 205 animal manure and dungheap piles. 77 One suspects manure’s positive image stemmed from perceptions of the generative power implicit in “fertilizer” and the natural warmth associated

with piles of dung. But burying maturing medicinal concoctions in manure piles made its way

into many printed books as well. In La cirurgia (Venice, 1570), Leonardo Fioravanti employs

manure in a recipe for the elixir itself. With a remedy filled with Cortesian ingredients such as mugwort, aloe, cinnamon, red and white roses, ginger, rosemary, and musk from the Levant,

Fioravanti proposes alchemical distillation and burial in horse-dung for a period of forty days. 78

Paracelsus himself deploys manure in the Archidoxa , his first book dedicated to alchemical medicine:

Take gems, margarites, or pearls, pound them into somewhat large fragments, not into

powder, put them into a glass, and pour on them so much radicated vinegar as will

exceed the breadth of four or five fingers. Let them be digested for an entire month in a

dung-heap, and when this is over the whole substance will appear as a liquid. 79

Of course, the fact that such ideas gained expression in learned, or neo-scholarly, publications, hardly means they did not originate outside the narrow circles of formal learning.

Charles Webster, one of the leading authorities on Paracelsus in the English speaking world, has consistently argued for a strong epistemological relationship between Theophrast von

Hohenheim and popular belief. “His [Paracelsus’] writings indicate familiarity with a wide range

77 See Bernoni, Tradizioni popolari veneziane di medicina, and Coltro, Dalla Magia alla Medicina Contadina e Popolare . 78 Fioravanti, La cirurgia , fol. 97r, “Fare Elixar vitae, o Aqua Coelestis.” 79 Paracelsus, Archidoxa , quoted from Waite, ed., Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus the Great , pt. 2, 32. Although Archidoxa was not published as a complete text until 1569, or eight years after Cortese’s “ I secreti ,” it should be pointed out that all of Paracelsus’s major works were published after his death in 1541. Shorter Paracelsian articles, however, did circulate in manuscript form and are known to have been available to avid readers of natural philosophy in the first half of the sixteenth century. 206 of folklore,” wrote Webster in 1980. “More than any other figure of his time, Paracelsus attempted to synthesize a heterogenous body of folklore into an ordered body of knowledge compatible with reformed theology and science. Agricola and Paracelsus both came into daily contact with popular belief concerning nature [and] formed a high estimation of vernacular sources.” 80

Our judgment concerning Isabella Cortese’s perception of vernacular practices and folkloric wisdom may be enhanced by considering her words in the letter to Mario Chaboga which opens Book Two. In discussing the virtues or spirits buried within the less valuable properties of nature’s physical objects, Cortese advanced a lecture of metaphors and analogies when she wrote:

The peasants know more of such things than we do because when they collect the

wheat from the earth they learn. They collect the neck, the straw and the stem of each

plant and they appreciate the different parts. The straw and the stem represent the

matter, the grain itself is the shape and the soul the plant. When you want to sow the

grain you do not sow the matter, that is, the straw, but rather you sow from the neck

and take the grain itself, that is the shape and the soul. It is necessary for those of us

who want to sow gold that we sow from its shape and take seed rather than just the

matter of the metals we use. 81

If we examine Cortese’s recipe for male sexual dysfunction we find an interesting mix of

ideas with strong implications of vernacular influence:

80 Webster, “Paracelsus and Demons,” 18-19. 81 Cortese, I secreti , bk. 2, chap. 1, fol. 37. 207

To Make the Male Member Straight

Take three oncie of borax and an equal amount of the oil of storax, mix in one part

sambucino and two oncie of crushed large wing ants after they have been dried. Add in

one part dried amber and an equal amount of dried musk, mix them all together until

they have been well blended. Apply directly as often as necessary. 82

The ingredients of this recipe may seem to reside entirely outside the parameters of learned medicinal prescriptions. But certain facts qualify such a view. Firstly, the exotic chemical “borax,” which Cortese deploys many times in her book, circulated in legally sanctioned commercial exchange within the Venetian republic. Borax represented an important chemical agent in metallurgical industries for its use in the promotion of fusion. Like so many commodities, borax was imported into Europe through Venice. Venetian refineries held a virtual monopoly over the purification and distribution of borax. According to William Eamon, fellow

“professor of secrets” Alessio Piemontese “appears to have been the first to record the process for refining borax, thus violating an important trade secret…of a compound [whose] ingredients were thought to be known only by Venetians.” 83

“Storax” represents a liquid drawn from the bark of the tree Liquidambar orientalis .

According to the Giunti Dictionary of Early Modern Venetian Dialect , storax has been used for perfumery and medicinal needs for centuries. 84 Philologically, one finds storax commonly

associated with balsam and amber, two agents deployed throughout Cortese’s book. Webster’s

Dictionary uses the expression “Friar’s Balsam” to describe storax, which may point to a

82 Cortese, I secreti, bk. 3, chap. 63, fol. 94. 83 Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, 146. 84 Boerio, Dizionario del Dialetto Veneziano . 208 characteristic of many healing ingredients found in early modern medical treatises: the implication of spiritual or religious context. 85 Simply put, neither borax nor storax were

unknown to the early modern Venetian establishment.

Nevertheless, Cortese’s use of two oncie of “crushed large winged ants” would appear to

represent an alternative pharmaceutical tradition. While the vast majority of herbs and chemicals

deployed in Cortese may be found in Mattioli’s encyclopedic work on medicinals for the

Venetian republic, many of her natural ingredients would seem to reside outside the parameters

of official medicine.

But this should not be taken to mean Cortese simply fabricated her remedies. In his study

of popular medicine during the Counter-Reformation, Nives Fedrigotti has uncovered a recipe

for the “oil of scorpions” that closely resembles Cortese’s formula for “scorpion’s oil.” 86

Although the exact date of the recipe remains unknown, it was stored in a monastery following the Council of Trent (1545-1563), hence, it must have originated either during or before the lifetime of Isabella Cortese. With its characters arranged in an inverted triangle, to “accentuate their analogical and magical image,” this recipe offers relief for renal failure, intestinal stones, kidney pain, aches of the female genitals, and earaches. 87 It may also be used to induce urination.

Both Cortese’s recipe and the formula discovered by Fedriotti call for boiling scorpions

in oil. Both recipes use wine. Both call for placing the final solution in the sun for exactly forty

days. Unlike the recipe discovered by Fedriotti, which seems to have been written in southern

Italy, Cortese’s formula makes use of the Venetian liquid borax. 88 While the exact relationship between the two recipes may never be definitively established, we may conclude that Cortese did

85 The New Webster’s Dictionary of the English Language, International Edition , 1989. 86 Fedrigotti, “Medicina popolare e Controriforma,” 33-74. Fedrigotti never mentions Cortese’s “ I Secreti .” 87 Ibid., 54. 88 Cortese, I secreti , bk. 1, chap. 4, fol. 19. 209 not have to travel to Hungary for her formula on “scorpion’s oil.”

Epistemological relationships between folkloric practices and Cortese’s methods may be further appreciated by consulting the records of Venetian Inquisition trials following the Council of Trent. During the second half of the sixteenth century, the Holy Office tried dozens of people

(mostly women) for theologically invalid approaches to healing, improper use of sacred elements

(like crosses and holy water), and the inappropriate use of pious rituals, like signing, blessing, or performing tokens of benediction, reserved for licensed clerics. Female healers known to treat fevers, sores, bleeding wounds, various skin diseases, gout, headaches, coughs, and a range of digestive disorders, among other things, appeared before the tribunal during Isabella Cortese’s lifetime. The Holy Office cared little for the purely material aspects of the healing in question; the Inquisition sought mainly to “clean up popular culture” by eliminating the improper appropriation and exploitation of holy practices and sacred elements by healers outside the official church. 89 Nevertheless, valuable insights regarding the beliefs and practices of vernacular healing may be gleaned from the trials.

Elena Crusichi, also known as “La Draga,” represented one of Venice’s most well known healers from the middle of the sixteenth century through the 1580s. Tried twice by the Holy

Office, Crusichi claimed to treat patients suffering from virtually every ailment described above.

When asked about the nature of her cures, Crusichi replied, “I give to the needy many medicinal remedies.” But Elena Crusichi had no formal medical education. In 1571, the Holy Office interrogated Crusichi regarding her healing practices over the last twenty years.

One remedy for unhealthy children described by Crusichi includes “six hearts of rue, five of southernwood, five of wormwood, five of lady’s mantle and five cloves of garlic…mixed with

89 See Ruggiero, Binding Passions: Tales of Magic, Marriage, and Power, especially chap. 4, “The Women Priests of Latisana: Apollonia Madizza and the Ties that Bind,” 130-174. 210 oil and burned over a fire.” 90 A second remedy for chronic coughing consisted of “a syrup of rue,

and wine boiled together and then dissolved in honey.” 91 With the exception of

“wormwood” and “lady’s mantle,” every ingredient described by Crusichi may be found in

Cortese’s I secreti . While Crusichi’s formula for cough syrup could easily constitute a recipe in

Cortese’s book, the mixture of rue, southernwood, garlic and oil raises some significant differences between La Draga and Cortese. Crusichi’s remedy for unhealthy children included a ritual that would be foreign to the pages of I secreti . As Crusichi explained:

I pour…oil of the laurel with the mixture [described above] over the child. I want the

child to be oiled in the form of a cross…..I say, ‘In the name of Christ and of the

glorious Virgin Mary and of the Holy Trinity that the be the one who liberates you

from this disease. This oiling one does on the third Thursday of the moon. When

Sunday comes I do the bath. I take a little water boiled with the coals and mix it with

the remains of the herbs [described above] and as I oil the child I wash him in the form

of a cross. Once washed I have this child sleep between two people. When I have

finished the washing I have the water from the bath thrown into the sea, saying, ‘As this

water flows away to sea, so too goes away all of your sickness. 92

No such healing practices appear in Cortese’s book. In fact, the methods described above imply that the boiling of rue, southernwood, wormwood, and garlic in oil do not represent an

90 Archivio di Stato Venezia (henceforth “A.S.V.”), Sant’Ufficio, Busta 30, f. 2v-3r. Any errors of translation are my own. For a higher level of paleographic translation, see Milani, Antiche pratiche di medicina popolare nei processi del S. Uffizio (Venezia, 1571-1591), Corso di Letteratura delle Tradizione Popolari . See also Ruggiero, Binding Passions, Tales of Magic, Marriage, and Power, 130-174. 91 A.S.V., Sant’Ufficio, Busta 30, 1571, f. 4v. Also discussed in Milani, Antiche pratiche, 32. 92 A.S.V., Sant’Ufficio, Busta 30, 1571, f. 2v-3r. 211 attempt to forge a chemical agent for purely physiological effect. For Crusichi, the ritual summoning the forces of god and nature represent the essence of the remedy; the “healing” ingredients would appear to be symbolic or coincidental to the actual cure. Nevertheless, some interesting parallels between Crusichi and Cortese exist.

The two healers use a similar set of ingredients. Oil represents the primary physical agent. 93 Both women seem to be “washing away” illness—Crusichi dispatches the sickness out

to sea with discarded water, while Cortese often seems to mix her healing remedies with her

solutions for dyeing, cleansing, and spot removal. But most importantly, both healers make use

of the processes of distillation and separation in fashions seemingly influenced by early modern

alchemical medical philosophy. In discussing Crusichi’s healing methods, Guido Ruggiero

suggests that “La Draga’s oil was quite complex in its formulation, and its medicinal qualities in

the modern sense, that is, its chemical properties, may have actually had some effect and been

intended to have some effect.” But as Ruggiero points out, Crusichi seemed to use oil in a

different way as well. “What the oil represented in nature was another form, usually a higher

one, of that aspect or part of the body that would bring the body back to harmony. The oil drew

the underlying power from the thing in nature and transferred it to its parallel in the body,

reinforcing and strengthening it.” 94 If Ruggiero is correct, then La Draga deployed oil in a fashion similar to alchemical medical philosophers of the Paracelsian/Hermetic tradition.

Chemically treated oil represented a “living agent” that drew out the “virtues” and “essence” of the materials it touched, combining with other elements to form powerful medicines.

The Holy Tribunal’s case against Giovanna Semolina in 1584 sheds further light on shared assumptions and similar healing practices across the social scale of early modern Venice.

93 Oils far and away dominate Cortese’s list of ingredients in “ I secreti .” 94 Ruggiero, Binding Passions , especially chap. 4, “The Women Priests of Latisana,” 151. 212

Tried for heresy and maleficiam , Giovanna enjoyed a reputation as a successful healer for many years prior to her day in court. 95 “I do not interpret dreams, nor read futures, nor answer glaring

questions,” she told the inquisitors. Instead, Semolina professed to “treat burns, sores, cuts and

ulcers.” The elderly healer cured “hernias, vaginal problems, epilepsy, gout, ringworm and broken bones.” She offered cures for impotent men and eased the suffering of women in labor and plague victims. 96

Insisting on a good, strong pot and plenty of coals, Semolina described potions composed of sabine, sulphurwort, hog’s fennel ( finochio ), sea-sulphur, seaweed, herb bennet ( garafania ), and wood avens. This non-licensed healer used sow-thistle ( cicerbita ), milk-thistle, and milk-

weed. As with Isabella Cortese’s remedy for ringworm (Cap 25 of I secreti ), Semolina suggests mixing a “chunk of fallow ground” into one boiling mixture. 97 As with the case of Elena

Crusichi, metaphysical differences would seem to separate the healing practices of Isabella

Cortese and Giovanna Semolina. Yet the two healers used the same ingredients, sought to benefit from similar processes of distillation, and shared common assumptions about the nurturing and generative powers of the physical world.

But Isabella Cortese shared assumptions and similar sets of medical practice with non- learned healers higher up on the social scale than “La Draga” and “La Semolina.” In 1567 the

Holy Office brought the Franciscan friar Antonio Volpe up on heresy charges and suspicion of

Lutheranism. 98 The Franciscan holy man operated a distillery in Campo San Salvatore, right in the heart of Venice, and sold “medicinal waters.” Referring to himself as “the Canker Friar ( il frate del cancro )” Volpe claimed to enjoy business relationships with a wide variety of

95 A.S.V., Sant’Uffizio, Busta 53, 1584, Contra Ioannam cognominatum Semolina maleficam. As a healer, Giovanna Semolina was known as “La Semolina.” 96 A.S.V., Sant’Uffizio, Busta 53, 1584, fol. 2r-4r. 97 Ibid., 8r. 98 A.S.V., Sant’Uffizio, Busta 23, 1567, fol. 13r-27v. 213 physicians, surgeons and empirics in Venice. 99 With his “water of life” remedy, Volpe

specialized in the treatment of syphillis ( Mal Francese ). Like Isabella Cortese, Volpe bragged

about traveling as far as Hungary to obtain his formula and technical know-how.

Antonio Volpe admitted to having no formal medical education. Instead, he preferred to

talk about his distillation skills. 100 Since many witnesses at his trial knew Volpe as “the Canker

Friar,” it is a safe bet to assume that he was fairly well known. Although the Inquisition asked few questions about the chemical properties of Volpe’s “water of life,” the case implies that medicinal distillates enjoyed a fairly broad popularity in Venice during the 1560s. 101

Even the holy order of the Jesuati engaged in the production of distilled medicines in sixteenth-century Italy. “The ‘aquavit-brothers,’ as they were sometimes called,” explains

William Eamon, “specialized in making elixirs and cordials, which they believed perserved the body from corruption and putrefaction.” Giovanni Andrea di Farre, a Jesuati brother, composed a book of medical alchemy entitled Libro de I secreti e ricette in the mid-sixteenth century.

According to Eamon, “the manuscript contains numerous illustrations of alchemical apparatus and detailed descriptions of distillation procedures…enumerating hundreds of remedies for ailments affecting all parts of the body. Much is devoted to mal francese (syphilis).” 102

In conclusion, it would seem safe to say that Isabella Cortese’s medical philosophy

shared much with everyday perceptions of health or vernacular healing practices among non-

learned people outside university. Perhaps the influence of alchemical theory in Cortese’s work

allowed her medical philosophy to be easily reconciled with a broad sweep of early modern

views regarding health and healing. After all, in its broadest manifestations, early modern

99 Ibid., fol. 18r. 100 Ibid., fol. 20r. 101 Eamon, “Alchemy in Popular Culture,” 198. 102 Ibid., 199. 214 alchemical philosophy provided a series of principles with great hermeneutic potential: a) belief that matter was alive and imbued with spirit, b) belief in the generative and nurturing powers of nature, c) belief that the physical world possessed all the healing agents necessary for humanity, and d) belief in the possibility of physical transformation of matter. These interpretative building blocks could be appropriated by a wide variety of medical philosophies.

Pamela Smith suggests that since alchemical theory assigned spiritual meaning to material things, alchemy provided a broadly shared set of ideas for understanding life in the early modern period. “Alchemy comprised a discourse on the relationship of matter to spirit,” writes

Smith, suggesting that like religion itself, alchemical texts provided an intellectual framework with which people might think about nature. 103 The view that alchemy “cured” matter and

restored the human soul and the physical world from their postlapsarian corruption is relevant

here. 104 Since alchemy assigned spiritual meaning to material things and concerned itself with

transformation and restoration, alchemy addressed the most fundamental challenge of the human

condition—redemption after the expulsion from Eden. In this sense, redemption and restoration

represented the essence of all the human arts and no body of thought addressed them as directly

as alchemy. “Alchemy in the early modern period,” explains Smith, “both articulated and

sometimes formed the resources for a vernacular science of matter.” Smith suggests “we think

about this vernacular science of matter as forming a kind of common intellectual currency in the

early modern period that can be found in alchemical treatises, medical therapies, and all practices

associated with changes of state and transformations of matter.” 105 Hence, Smith believes that

103 Smith, The Body of the Artisan, 145. 104 The view that the alchemist restores all things to their original pristine nature before the fall of Adam and Eve was quite popular in the Renaissance. According to this idea, all metals were gold prior to the fall and all bodies were healthy. The alchemist simply restores things to their original quality. For the most recent discussion of this idea, see Young, Faith, Medical Alchemy, and Natural Philosophy, especially the introduction. 105 Smith, The Body of the Artisan ,145. 215 since virtually all early modern medical philosophies looked to the potential power of nature, the divine spark present in matter and the possibility of transformation, all views on healing were in accord with an alchemical worldview. That may be true, but that does not mean that alchemical philosophy produced or generated commonly held views of early modern healing. It only means alchemical philosophy could be easily reconciled with a variety of medical thought during the

Renaissance.

John Henry has suggested that historians of medicine have posited a common medical worldview that extended to almost all members of society and medical practitioners during the early modern period. According to Henry, the medical hierarchy in the Renaissance was more a matter of social distinctions than theoretical or intellectual divisions. 106 While the first of Henry’s ideas does not stand up to critical scrutiny—some early modern people believed health was a matter of maintaining humoral balance and keeping in harmony with nature via proper living, while others viewed illnesses as concrete ontological entities that invaded the body and necessitated expulsion—Henry’s conclusion remains interesting. Roger Chartier and Peter Burke suggest historians view knowledge in early modern Europe as being held in common, but used differently, by all levels of society and to abandon the dichotomy of popular and elite. 107

Such a view would seem to make sense when comparing the medical philosophy of

Isabella Cortese, to the extent that we can conceive of such, with actors at various levels of the

Venetian social scale. A certain set of shared assumptions and similar practices seemed to tie

Cortese to vernacular healers like La Draga and La Semolina, learned theologians with no medical training like Antonio Volpe and Giovanni Andrea di Farre, neo-scholarly medical philosophers like Leonardo Fioravanti and Alessio Piemontese, and famous thinkers like

106 Henry, “Doctors and Healers: Popular Culture and the Medical Profession,” 191-221. 107 See Chartier, “Culture as Appropriation,” as well as Burke, “Overture: The New History, Its Past and Its Future,” and Burke, The Italian Renaissance: Culture and Society . 216

Paracelsus, Arnald of Vilanova, John of Rupescissa, and Raimon Lull. At the same time,

Cortese’s healing propositions and medicinal prescriptions often differed significantly from the members of each group listed above. Hence, rather than dividing medical knowledge up into camps of “learned” and “non-learned,” it may make more sense to think in terms of class systems while comparing and contrasting healing practices at different social levels. In this sense, Cortese’s elaboration of medical alchemy would be better understood by considering how knowledge intersects with rather than searching for clues regarding the circulation and transmission of ideas.

Such questions will be considered in subsequent chapters. For now, it will suffice to say that Isabella Cortese’s work was decidedly derivative. Neither her remedies, nor the conceptual frameworks from which they flowed, seem to be original. Few of her “secrets” seem to have been secrets at all.

* * * * *

Isabella Cortese’s I secreti does not belong in a literary genre of learned alchemical medical philosophy. When comparing Cortese’s work to that of Raymon Lull, Arnald of

Vilanova, John of Rupescissa, or even the unorthodox Paracelsus, the differences outweigh the similarities. A critical reading of Cortese’s dedication to the Archdeacon Chaboga and a careful analysis of the passages in which she directly addresses her brother-in-law may reveal several things; one finds a familiarity with several longstanding ideas in the history of western thought, such as the micro/macrocosm view of humankind and the cosmos and the idea of the physical world as provider, or nature as a giant warehouse of potential remedies waiting to be discovered.

Strong Hermetic, Neo-Platonic, and Paracelsian influences appear throughout the text. Indeed, at 217 times it seems as though Cortese is convinced that alchemical distillation, or the extracting of key ingredients within a given substance and the skilled combination of those “virtues” or

“essences” with other substances, represents the key to constructing effective medical remedies.

But these ideas represent part of a larger whole that often fails to maintain theoretical and ideational consistency.

Paracelsus once wrote, “In natural philosophy heaven and earth, air and water are a man, and man is a world with heaven, earth, air and water….We must understand, therefore, that when we administer medicine, we administer the whole world.” 108 This all-encompassing view, derived from strands of thought from Lull, Arnald, Rupescissa, fifteenth-century hermeticism, and others, would seem to be easily reconciled with the views of man, nature, God, and healing advanced by Cortese in her letter to Mario Chaboga. But Cortese neglects and ignores many other aspects of the western alchemical tradition. No trace of the “elixir,” the “quintessence,” or the “fifth element” can be found in the pages of I secreti . Apparently, Cortese did not believe one superior healing agent existed. Cortese never mentions the postlapsarian corruption and the fall from grace following Adam and Eve’s explusion from Eden. This idea, central to many early modern alchemical views, never gains expression in I secreti .

Isabella Cortese never elaborates a coherent, systematic medical ideology. She puts forth a few principles that reveal the influence of sixteenth-century alchemical medical philosophy, but Cortese never explicitly lays out a working theory of the body, health, sickness, and healing.

In a sense, this fact may actually work to Cortese’s advantage. Unencumbered by the need to arrange, explain, and reconcile her vast array of recipes with any overarching theory, Cortese remains free to collect a mosaic of eclectic ideas and solutions. But certain parts of the book are impossible to reconcile with other sections.

108 Quoted from Goodrick- Clarke, Paracelsus: Essential Readings, 166. 218

If we consider Cap 28, entitled “A Perfect Unguent for Various Nuisances,” we see a recipe consisting primarily of fresh eggs, rosewater, and liquid storax. Cortese directs the reader to pulverize, sublimate, and blend the ingredients. Two independently prepared solutions must be mixed together. Upon completion, Cortese assures the reader that “you will have a solution that refines the blood, balances the humors and dries off unhealthy coolness.” 109 This lapse into a

Galenic framework of humoral theory undermines those sections of the book informed by the alchemical philosophy of medicine. In fact, this unguent is difficult to reconcile with the very next remedy offered, which promises a solution that will cure wounds within twenty-four hours of topical application.

The sporadic appearance of astrological considerations in Cortese’s healing methods also raises critical questions. In approximately one dozen sets of instructions, Cortese rigorously employs theories of astrological healing. But most of the rest of I Secreti neglects the heavenly bodies. The recipe for an unguent in Cap 4 must be prepared when the sun is in the of Leone. Book Two begins with a 350-word discourse on how to capture the spirit of Saturn, but much of the rest of this section ignores the significance of any such thing. One may wonder how certain theories of astrological healing can be applied haphazardly. Comprehensive and all- encompassing, learned astrological healing theory does not lend itself to selective application.

Unrestrained by any compulsion to reconcile her methods and practices with a central body of thought or overarching theory, Cortese remained free to take instruction wherever she could find it. This lack of paradigmatic theorizing yielded an eclectic mix of ideas, a stream of suggestions and solutions, a paradoxical bag of tricks and surprises. Never grounded in a totalizing philosophy, Cortese’s thought spun out in a variety of directions, seeking less to explain than to discover.

109 Cortese, I secreti, bk. 1, chap. 28, fol. 30. 219 Chapter Four

Boundaries, Turf Wars, and Scathing Critiques: Various Types of Medical Practitioners Examine Each Other, 1550-1680

In 1558, Laurent Joubert received his doctorate in medicine and philosophy from the

University of Montpellier. The native Frenchman had considered attending the University of

Heidelburg, but when Guillaume Rondelet, chancellor of Montpellier’s Faculté de Medecine, extended a personal invitation, Joubert did not resist. Eight short years after his graduation,

Joubert himself would aspire to the position of Medical Chancellor. 1 This represented quite an achievement. In late sixteenth-century Europe, only the Italian universities of Bologna and Padua enjoyed finer reputations than Montpellier. But it did not take long for Joubert’s scholarly reputation to reach the hills and plains of northern Italy. In 1557, one full year prior to his official graduation, Catherine de’ Medici invited Joubert to be her personal physician. 2

No further recorded correspondence between Catherine de’ Medici and Laurent Joubert

survives. Hence, we may assume Joubert did not accept every royal offer that came his way.

Besides, Montpellier kept the young man busy. In addition to his administrative and pedagogical

duties, the Chancellor maintained a steady practice. He also wrote books. Writing, in fact, seems

to have constituted Laurent Joubert’s major professional interest.

Joubert composed medical treatises in Latin and French and many of his works were

translated into Europe’s most popular vernacular languages. Joubert’s first three books,

Medicinae practicae priores , Isagoge therapeutices methodi , and De affectibus inernis partium

1 Dulieu, “Laurent Joubert: Chancellier de Montpellier,” 139-67. 2 Joubert, Popular Errors: Translated and Annotated by Gregory David de Rocher , Introduction, xiv. 220 thoracis , represented rigorous technical treatises on method and practice. 3 In some of his later works, however, Joubert moved away from methodology and application in order to describe his theory of human biology and corresponding medical philosophy. Traite du ris (Treatise on

Laughter ), published in 1577, represents one such work. 4 Written in the French vernacular, the book produced several editions and probably circulated among a broader audience than Joubert’s earlier publications.

There is nothing humorous, however, about Joubert’s most famous work, Erreurs populaires . Originally published in 1578, the volume represents Joubert’s reflections on healing

in general and the medical profession in particular. As with Trait du ris , Joubert wrote Erreurs populaires in the vernacular, probably in order to reach the widest possible audience. But the book served to reaffirm the primacy of Latin-based, scholarly learning, at the expense of all healing methods gleaned and practiced outside university. In this overarching evaluation of contemporary healing, Laurent Joubert advanced a polemical notion of the “legitimate” professional medical hierarchy. For the Chancellor, orthodox medicine constituted the only proper form of healing, and only university-trained, scholarly practitioners, fully versed in logic and natural philosophy, could be trusted to cure illness. Thoroughly trained and properly licensed medical philosophers, according to Joubert, restored the sick to health. Untrained, naïve, and ignorant amateurs—charlatans, mountebanks, midwives, quacks, and cunning women—did more harm than good for the credulous sufferers who desperately sought medical assistance.

Indeed, Joubert’s ideological diatribe, which sought to emphasize the boundaries between orthodox medicine and empirical practice, initiated something of a genre in late Renaissance

3 Joubert, Medicinae practicae priores, Isagoge therapeutices methodi, and De affectibus inernis partium thoracis. All three works, written in 1577, were combined and published in a single volume, Tractatus alter , in 1578 and again in another compilation entitled Opera Latina in 1582. 4 Joubert, Traite du ris . 221 medical writing. Over the next several generations, with Joubert’s explicit encouragement, trained medical practitioners throughout Europe published similar volumes, criticizing the fraudulent practice of amateur healers while emphasizing the exclusive legitimacy of university- trained medical practitioners. Italy’s Scipione Mercurio and Cosimo Aldana, England’s John

Securis, James Primrose, and Thomas Browne, Germany’s Johannes Dryander, and France’s

Jean Bodin, to name a few, followed Joubert’s example with self-serving proclamations of professional legitimacy reserved for their own scholarly class of medical practitioners.

Opposing voices fought back in print. Authors of self-help medical books, remedy vendors, “professors of secrets,” disgruntled physicians, and other social critics published responses to the tyranny of “professional medicine” and the pretentious nature of self-obsessed scholars more concerned with logic and philosophy than curing illness. As shall be described in the pages below, Italy’s Leonardo Fioravanti, Alessio Piemontese, and Isabella Cortese, France’s

Rene Choppin, and Denmark’s Peter Severinus, to name a few, defended the legitimacy of healers outside university from the polemical attacks of Joubert and his followers. Within the scholarly world, professors of medicine such as Giovanni Argenterio, university-trained physicians like Levinus Lemnius, and natural philosophers such as Francis Bacon questioned the wisdom of traditional education while issuing provocative critiques of learned medicine. Indeed, the scramble for social and cultural legitimacy and the battle for space within the medical marketplace of early modern Europe included an elaborate war of words.

This chapter examines some of the similarities and differences among the various types of prominent healers in early modern Europe by going straight to contemporary testimony. As usual, northern Italy serves as the focus of this inquiry. But many non-Italian sources shall also be considered, and the chapter may be read as a modest survey on western European medicine 222 during the later Renaissance. A variety of printed texts are analyzed to shed light on the basic assumptions, common sets of healing practices, and typical remedies deployed by licensed physicians, neo-scholarly medical practitioners, self-styled empirics, and other non-learned

everyday healers. The scathing critiques and ideological polemics exchanged by members of the

various camps are examined to emphasize the differences alleged to exist among healers at the

various social levels. But in a larger sense, this chapter shall attempt to critically examine how

modern historians typically think about early modern European medicine.

If we accept the purely dichotomous, binary arrangement of Laurent Joubert’s medical

world into two distinct camps—proper, legitimate, licensed, scholarly medicine versus

illegitimate, ignorant, fraudulent quackery—we run the risk of oversimplifying the daunting

complexity of early modern healing practices. We must analyze Joubert’s text as a rhetorical

construction in order to avoid the blind alleys and false views his self-promoting portrayal

attempted to impart. Similarly, if we take Leonardo Fioravanti and Alessio Piemontese’s

rejection of scholarly medicine at face value, we fail to appreciate all those areas in which these

self-styled empirics did proceed from university-based, learned perceptions, unconsciously or

otherwise, regarding health and healing. Imposing a textually based, binary oppositional analysis

on the vast array of early modern healing phenomena inevitably ignores more than it considers.

Within the vast chasm residing between the bi-polar descriptions of self-serving voices resides a

larger, more telling understanding of early modern healing.

* * * * *

“There is a certain kind of error founded in pure superstition,” wrote Laurent Joubert in 223 1578, “committed by fools who think it a sin against God if they call a physician to heal their ills.” According to Joubert, such fools generally “claim that in calling the physician, one is resisting and opposing the will of God, who visits their bodies with afflictions for their own good.” 5 Joubert challenged this view by quoting the Book of Ecclesiastics , which, according to him, suggests “the sick are devoutly and wisely exhorted first to reconcile themselves with God, whom they have offended, then to seek help from a physician whom God has created and to whom He has given knowledge in order to be glorified in His wonders.” 6

Laurent Joubert considered the trained physician to be reared and nurtured in the image

of God and blessed with sacred power to spread holy glory on earth. But such a sacred position

necessitated protection from imposters. Joubert dressed his position on this question in pious

language as well, writing “Every day Terence’s proverb is found to be most true: there is nothing

more foul and unjust than an ignorant and untrained man.” 7 According to Joubert, “this

complaint is confirmed in our art [medicine] more than in any other, as can easily be seen by the

near infinite list of errors and mistakes committed in this line of work.” For Laurent Joubert, “the

right man for the right job” constituted a holy maxim.

In Chapter IX of Book One in Erreurs populaires , Joubert writes:

It is a strange thing that the science of medicine is deeper and more difficult than any

other, yet the dullest of idiots does not fail to pass judgment on the knowledge of

physicians. In order to judge someone’s ability soundly and fairly, one must at the very

5 Joubert , Erreurs populaires au fait de la médecine et régime de santé , bk. 1, chap. 4, fol. 40, from my copy professionally microfilmed from Venice’s Biblioteca Marciana. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid., bk. 1, chap. 7, fol. 4. Apparently, “Terence’s proverb,” which Joubert does not describe in detail in my version of Erreurs populaires, refers to “Terence, Adelphoe, 1. 98: homine imperito numquam quicquam iniustiust….” See Joubert, Popular Errors, 288n (found on page 56 in de Rocher’s translation). 224 least belong to the profession and know something about it. 8

Towards the end of the same passage, Joubert concludes:

Thus, it is improper to determine the ability of physicians by their success, which is due

more to chance and to the grace of God than to the skill of man. One must nonetheless

not infer or conclude from this that it makes no difference which physician one calls. It

is commonly said, “God helps those who help themselves.” But one must search out the

best means one can to help oneself. 9

But how could the sacred art of medicine be helped? As we have seen, when Joubert went to press, medicinal practice itself had some health problems. Helpless physicians watched epidemics like syphilis and plague carry off vast percentages of late sixteenth-century

Europeans. Galenic/Hippocratic humoral theory, which provided the theoretical foundation upon which scholarly medicine rested, faced its stiffest and most widespread critique among learned men in many centuries. A torrent of medical books, written by those a bit lower on the social scale, rolled off the printing presses, attacking learned medicine for its misguided principles and obsolete methods. 10 What were the most fundamental problems plaguing the science of medicine

and the art of healing?

The central dilemma, Joubert suggested, was that “everybody makes medicine his

8 Joubert, Erreurs populaires, bk. 1, chap. 9, fol. 54. 9 Ibid., fol. 56. 10 This point will be thoroughly discussed in Chapter 5 of this dissertation. 225 business.” 11 In Chapter XI of Book One, he wrote, “there are very few people who do not think

they know a lot about medicine—even more than physicians.” 12 Joubert complained bitterly of the “meddlers” who contaminated the profession by opportunistically seeking to benefit from the sickness of others. “Almost everybody is copying the prescriptions of physicians, taking sick people’s pulses, examining urine, giving opinions, and ordering the very opposite of what the physicians say.” 13 Joubert reserved special criticism for “cunning women” and ill-trained midwives, who received much undeserved credit. “Women have never invented a single proper remedy,” he charged, suggesting that wholesome medicines “all come from the domain of the physician or from our predecessors.” 14 For Joubert, women lacked the aptitude and capacity for

critical, theoretical thinking and had not the skill or background to understand rationale, logic,

and the relationship between cause and effect. The Chancellor dismissively suggested that

women “refrain from reading” several parts of his book, “for they would not understand.” 15

Other French writers soon took up Joubert’s medicalized gender war. Licensed physicians Gervais de La Rousche (1587) and Jacques Guillemeau (1609) wrote of the

obstetrical horrors committed by ignorant midwives in the birthing chambers. 16 In 1610, the

Parisian Thomas Sonnet de Courval complained of “toothless, wrinkled, chattery, and superstitious taperbearing old women who dare to involve themselves in medicine.” 17 In France,

11 Joubert, Erreurs populaires, bk. 1, chap. 9, fol. 69 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid., bk. 1, chap. 3, fol. 173. 15 Ibid. See, for example, chap. 4, “Whether There is a Certain Knowledge of the Virginity of a Maiden,” fol. 208. 16 For a discussion on pamphlets by Gervais de La Rouche, see Petrelli, “The Regulation of Midwifery during the Ancien Régime,” 276-292. Jacques Guillemeau’s 1609 work entitled De l’heureux accouchement des femmes is discussed in Bourgeois and Perkins, Midwifery and Medicine in Early Modern France, 143-46. See also Brockliss and Jones, The Medical World of Early Modern France , especially “The Medical Role of Women, 262-273, and Lingo, “Empirics and Charlatans in Early Modern France,” 583-603. 17 Sonnet de Courval, Satyre contre les charlatans et les pseudo-médecins empyriques , quoted from Brockliss and Jones’ The Medical World of Early Modern France, 266. On page 58 of his book, Sonnet de Coryal urged the 226 as elsewhere, when licensed physicians took up their writing instruments for the sake of defending their positions in the medical marketplace, female healers invariably served as targets.

But Joubert also lambasted ill-trained male barbers, uneducated surgeons, charlatans, mountebanks, quacks, and the latest class of “merchants who, in order to cut in on a portion of the profession, are master meddlers.” 18 In 1578, the “university of physicians of Montpellier,” undoubtedly led by Joubert, joined with the master surgeons of the city to “exterminate all empirics from this city.” 19 Two years later, the Catholic physician Andre du Breil of the

University of Paris warned Henri III that “empirics were ruin[ing] your republic.” 20 As P.J.

Amoreux, Louis Dulieu, and Gregory D. de Rocher suggest, Joubert’s work had considerable impact within the learned medical communities of France and beyond. 21 Much of Europe looked

to Montpellier for intellectual and ideological direction within the art of medicine and healing;

now the Chancellor of Faculte de Medecine called for scholars and learned men to take the battle to the streets. Erreurs populaires was soon translated into Latin, and Joubert invited scholarly physicians everywhere to record popular errors concerning medicine and health for the development of a large catalogue. In speaking of this very period, William Eamon writes, “the physicians declared total war on what they regarded as ‘superstitions.’” 22 Not surprisingly, a

leading Italian medical philosopher soon took Joubert up on his offer.

“legitimate physicians” of Padua and Montpelier to “pick up your pens, join yourself with my party, fight to combat and vanquish the diabolical sect of ‘empyriques’ that ruin our art.” 18 Ibid., bk. 1, chap. 11, fol. 69. 19 Lingo, “Empirics and Charlatans in Early Modern France,” 583. While these groups seem to have had legal battles in mind, their strategy apparently turned more towards publishing diatribes against empirics and winning popular support among the hearts and minds of patients. 20 Ibid. Lingo cites du Breil’s La police de l’art et science de la médecine , 42. 21 See Dulieu, “Laurent Joubert: Chancellier di Montpellier,” 139-167, and Gregory D. de Rocher’s introduction (xiii -xxvi) to his translation of Joubert’s Erreurs populaires . 22 Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, 262. 227 * * * * *

Gerome Scipione Mercurio (1540-1615) studied medicine at the universities of Bologna

and Padua. He graduated from the latter as a licensed physician in 1568. Mercurio also worked

his way into the Dominican priesthood, taking his habit in 1574. Historians of medicine

interested primarily in practice and method remember Mercurio for his work on Caesarean

section surgery, obstetrics, and female anatomy. But this Dominican priest left several legacies behind. Scipione Mercurio was a medical anthropologist, social critic, and prolific author.

Dr. Mercurio practiced medicine mostly in Rome. But in 1574 he emigrated to France

and took a position as ordinary physician in Paris. In France, Mercurio seems to have come

under the influence of Laurent Joubert. Before long, the general practitioner, obstetrician,

licensed surgeon, and ordained priest found yet another calling; Scipione Mercurio became an

avid spokesperson for Galenic/Hippocratic medicine.

Like Joubert, Scipione Mercurio believed that only university-educated medical philosophers actually cured illnesses. Proper healing necessitated rigorous training in

Aristotelian logic and full immersion in the time-honored tradition of Galenic teaching. Mercurio

warned that poorly trained, uneducated, ignorant healers actually did their patients more harm

than good. Without proper understanding of humoral balance, individual temperament, and the

relationship between cause and effect, the amateur healer’s irrational methods subjected

credulous sufferers to unnecessary danger. Following Joubert’s orthodoxy, Mercurio divided the

art of healing into bi-polar camps of legitimate and illegitimate. University-educated physicians

and licensed apothecaries cured illness with the sacred art of medicine; charlatans, mountebanks,

remedy peddlers, and other quacks deceitfully robbed the gullible while degrading the noble 228 science of healing. Worse, pretentious females posing as “cunning women,” or experienced midwives, performed tasks that ought to be reserved for legitimate physicians. Half of them, for

Mercurio, were probably witches.

While visiting Venice, Mercurio condemned the “errors committed in the piazza” by empirics and charlatans, who spread their poisonous remedies and filthy lies on the credulous public. For Mercurio, it was incomprehensible that people could actually buy “remedies made of useless junk…authorized by some vagabond, approved by a clown and encouraged by some whore.” 23 In Rome, he complained that “without a second thought or worry, almost everyone for a headache or other basic problem, runs first to a malefica or witch to be signed by her.” It

troubled Mercurio that, “for childbirth ailments, people go to be treated by women who are really

witches, although they are called by other names, such as segnaresse .” According to Mercurio, basic medical problems such as “common fevers, wounds, infections, broken bones and even mal francese ,” sent hordes of Romans not to legitimate physicians, but corrupt, contemptible, and,

quite possibly, evil women. 24

Mercurio devoted significant attention to female healers. In his tome entitled La comare o

raccoglitrice dell’eccellentissimo Signor Scipione Mercurio, filosofo, medico, cittadino romano ,

Scipione discussed female anatomy, sexual reproduction, pregnancy, childbirth, and the proper care of newborn infants. 25 Much criticism of early modern birthing practices, or the medical techniques deployed in the birth chamber, where midwives delivered newborn children, resides within the pages of this volume. The early modern European birth chamber tended to be dominated by female medical practitioners, and Mercurio distrusted them. How many midwives

23 Scipione, De gli errori popolari d’Italia, libri sette, 266. 24 Ibid., 310. 25 Scipione, La comare o raccoglitrice dell’eccellentissimo Signor Scipione Mercurio. I shall refer to my copy of this volume professionally copied by Venice’s Biblioteca Marciana. 229 had studied Hippocrates and Galen in their original Greek, or mastered the scholastic logic implicit in humoral theory while memorizing the Latin verse of a Taddeo Alderotti or Conrad

Gessner?

Anatomical images gleaned directly from scholarly medical texts, primarily Vesalian in nature, appear throughout the Mercurio’s La comare o raccoglitrice. Throughout this work

Scipione Mercurio refers to Hippocratic and Galenic medical teaching, grounded in Aristotelian logic, as proper, legitimate medical knowledge. Mercurio relentlessly contrasts such teaching with the “everyday experience” ( quotidiana esperienza ) and “commonly held views” ( l’opinion piu comune ) of amateur medical practitioners outside university. 26 In a section discussing how people ought to understand the differences between human beings and animals and the

implications of such differences for perceptions of human health, Mercurio complains of

“popular errors regarding the complexion of humans.” 27 In the same section, Mercurio warns of common “misunderstandings regarding astrology” and its implications for human health. 28

Toward the conclusion of Book One, Mercurio complains that peasants ( contadini ) glean ideas

about health and healing from their views of nature but seem not to appreciate crucial differences between the inferior sublunary sphere of earth and the superior perfection of the upper cosmos. 29

Trust the learned teaching of Hippocrates, Galen and Aristotle, exhorts Mercurio, not the

mythology of contemporary women. 30

A less scholarly but more incisive warning regarding the dangers of untrained female

healers came from the pen of the Florentine Cosimo Aldana. In his Discourse against the

26 Ibid. See pages 29 and 33 of Book 1 for examples of the phrases and the contexts described above. 27 Ibid., bk. 1, 34. 28 Ibid., 38. 29 Ibid., 56. 30 Ibid., 45. 230 Common Herd: In Which Good Reason Calls to Task Many of Their False Opinions , Aldana blasted the false beliefs, errors, and misguided ways of common folks:

“What do you stupid people think?...[D]o you think that a poor old hag might know

something [about healing] when she has spent all her days in some shack spinning with

the geese and the hens? What do you think that she could know, if she were

not a witch? And if she is a witch, do you want to be cured and returned to health by the

Devil’s work?...I say freely that I would rather die than regain my health with the

Devil’s art….Therefore, common people, I tell you for your own good when you are

sick go to male doctors, and…do not believe in those old ignorant women. 31

Fear of diabolical healing or maleficial cures, of course, existed for centuries before

Aldana. The Council of Trent (1545-1563), in fact, had stirred such debate throughout Italy. In

1576, the leading Franciscan expert on exorcism advanced a provocative position on this question. Fra Girolamo Menghi unequivocally declared death more desirable than life sustained by maleficial cures. Originally published in Bologna, Menghi’s Compendio dell’arte essorcista e possibilita delle mirabili e stupende operationi delli demoni e dei malefici con i rimedii

32 opportuni all’infirmita maleficiali went through at least twelve editions by 1605. Although a theologian concerned with the holy ritual of exorcism, Menghi’s identification of possession and

31 Aldana, Discorso contro il volgo; In cui con buone ragioni si reprovano molte sue false opinioni, cited from Ruggiero, “The Strange Death of Margarita Marcellini,” 1143. 32 See O’Neil, “Discerning Superstition: Popular Errors and Orthodox Response in Late Sixteenth-Century Italy” (doctoral dissertation, Stanford University), especially 232-233 and 301-303. 231 cleansing with ‘healing’ sparked a lifelong interest in medicine. 33 Like Joubert, Mercurio, and

Aldana, Girolamo Menghi (1529-1609) preferred university-based medicine to amateur healing.

The Franciscan priest’s bias toward licensed, official, well trained healers is revealed in the

following passage from Compendio , which warns exorcists to avoid playing doctor:

Instead of the exorcists that they ought to be, they turn themselves into herbalists,

charlatans, or even physicians. They do this by searching for some form of herb to use

against demons. And they give all sorts of syrups and medicines, powders, pills and

other such things to the possessed and bewitched, without the advice of physicians and

against the commandments, rules and orders given them in books, presumptuously

usurping the role of the physicians. With these things they may, from time to time,

chase the very out of the bodies along with the [evil] spirits. 34

While Mercurio, Aldana, and Menghi lambasted amateur healers in southern Europe, the

English professional physician John Securis performed a novel form of “medical examination” in

the northern part of the continent. In 1566, Securis surveyed the full range of healers across the

social scale of Winchester, London, and Salisbury. He did not appreciate what he found. Ill

trained barbers, butchers with dull knives passing themselves off as surgeons, illiterate women,

and deceitful merchants made a mockery of the sacred heart of medicine. “A shamefully diverse

assortment of frauds [are] compounded by the endless gullibility of the populace who willingly

33 Giovanni Romeo and David Gentilcore have both made this point with regard to Girolamo Menghi. See Romeo, Inquisitori, esorcisti e streghe nell’Italia della Controriforma, 120-121, and Gentilcore, Healers and Healing in Early Modern Italy, 16. 34 Menghi, Compendio dell’arte essorcista, as quoted in Romeo, Inquisitori, esorcisti e streghe nell’Italia della Controriforma, 138. I have consulted a 1987 edition of Menghi’s book from Harvard University’s Widener Library. 232 give almost anyone the benefit of the doubt,” wrote Securis, “even if the healer was a Sir John

Lack-Latin, a peddler, a weaver, [or] some presumptuous woman.” 35 Securis feared much the same held for Paris as well.

Securis’s A Detection and Querimonie of the Daily Enormities and Abuses Committed in

Physick discusses physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries, establishing the author’s interpretation

of the proper education and conduct necessary for each vocation.

Born in Salisbury, England, probably around 1530, Securis studied medicine at

Winchester College, Oxford, and the University of Paris. He also dabbled in pharmacy, working like a modern intern in apothecary shops administered by his school in France. In 1554, before completing his medical education, he published “ A gret galley lately come into England out of terra nova laden with phisitions, poticaries, and surgeons .” The volume is a polemical diatribe attacking misguided and ill-trained healers.

John Securis, like Laurent Joubert and Scipione Mercurio, seems to have been obsessed with distinction. The word “Securis” represents the latinized version of the man’s original

English surname “Hatchett.” The good doctor’s entire professional career seems to have been consumed with efforts to establish, maintain, and enforce standards of professionalization and codes of conduct in order to separate legitimacy from illegitimacy. Even before he became a doctor himself, John Hatchett Securis lectured others on the qualities of legitimate physicians.

Shortly after receiving his license to practice medicine, Securis published a pamphlet concerning the licensing of physicians by Episcopal authorities. The volume contained seven

35 Securis, A detection and querimonie of the daily enormities and abuses committed in physick , fols. 4 and 5. See also Deborah Harkness’s soon-to-be-published essay, “Sir John Lack-Latin, a Peddler, and a Presumptuous Woman: Situating Women’s Medical Experiences in Elizabethan London,” 1. I am indebted to Professor Harkness, who listened to my ideas for this chapter and directed me to the work of Securis with many valuable suggestions for understanding Elizabethan medical debate. See also Bakewell, “Biography of John Securis” and Aikin, Biographical Memoirs of Medicine . 233 proposals: that anyone who hoped to practice medicine in the diocese and was not a graduate of a

university, should only do so on receipt of a diploma from the bishop or his chancellor; that

surgeons should be required to prove their literacy; that apothecaries should be prohibited from prescribing medicine (they should only be permitted to fill prescriptions written by licensed physicians); that no unlicensed person should practice healing in any form; that midwives should be sworn before the bishop; that apothecary shops should be inspected from time to time by

licensed physicians; and finally, the stipulation probably closest to Securis’s heart, that no one

should ever assume a university degree which he did not lawfully possess. 36 Simply put, the man would have been an inspiration to modern malpractice attorneys.

John Securis does not seem to have been a significant player in the war of words between licensed physicians and amateur healers during the Renaissance; historians have been unable to discern his date of birth or year of death. Nevertheless, his ideas typify the feelings many trained physicians held about empirics, charlatans, mountebanks, and midwives. A better known

university-trained physician, who shared Securis’ views on healing, can be found in the person of

James Primrose. Born in France, Primrose (1592-1659) attended the University of Bourdeau,

where he decided to embark upon a career in medicine. Like Securis, Primrose studied at Paris before matriculating to Joubert’s University of Montpellier in 1615. With his 1638 publication

De vulgi in medicina erroribus , Primrose clearly took up Laurent Joubert’s invitation to wage war against amateur healers. 37

36 Securis, A detection and querimonie of the daily enormities and abuses committed in physick. In my copy of this volume, which was downloaded and printed at Folger’s Shakespeare Library, Securis’s “Seven Articles Concerning the Administration and Use of Physicke” starts on fol. 40 and ends on fol. 49. Pagination may vary. 37 Primrose specifically mentions Laurent Joubert in the preface of Popular Errours , suggesting that the former Chancellor of Montpellier did the medical world a fine service with his pioneering work but did not go far enough. “He [Joubert] hath meditated quite a bit upon this subject, but hath left the work imperfect, having unfolded but a few errours, and those not very grosse.” See Primrose, Popular Errours (originally published in 1638), “The Author’s Preface,” B3. 234 De vulgi in medicina erroribus represents a systematic attack on the non-scholarly practice of medicine. In 1651, the book was translated into English as Popular Errours, or

Errours of the People in Physick. Multiple editions in English soon followed—a strong indication of the volume’s popularity. Primrose offers many ideas in his four hundred and fifty pages of manuscript. But few of them were original.

Like Joubert and Mercurio, Primrose begins by noting “the great number of physicians” in the world today. “Men presently give credit to everyone that professes himself to be a

Physician,” wrote Primrose, “although oftentimes greater danger is likely to be caused by the physician than by the disease.“ 38 The unusual abundance of healers provoked the author’s

suspicion. “We must explain in the first place,” writes Primrose, “who may lawfully practise

Physick properly so called.” 39 According to Primrose, “Physitions that are created in the

Universities doe justly practice, [but] so do ministers, mountebanks, runnagate quacks and

women who are said to meddle in surgery.”

Primrose acknowledged the criticism many amateur healers directed at the scholarly physician’s emphasis on ancient language and rote learning. “For although the knowledge of the

Tongues [Greek and Latin] doth make way for the understanding of all the Arts,” writes

Primrose, “the physick’s skills are not acquired without new labor, care and industry. Diseases

are not cured with eloquence.” 40

Let the people from henceforth, think him a learned Physician, not that knowes a little

Greeke and Latine, or some other Science besides Physick, but who being well

38 Ibid., 62. 39 Ibid., 1. 40 Ibid., 3. 235 instructed in the Rules of Physick, and well read in Galen and Hippocrates, understands

thoroughly the Diagnostick, Prognostick, and Therapeutick parts of Physick; for he that

is either wholly ignorant of these things, or understands them but meanely and in part,

can scarcely be accounted a good Physician. But who is he that shall judge these

things? For they are not a few, who having gotten some fame among the people, and

become renowned with a certaine name of Learning which never read Galen and

Hippocrates, doe study very little, and follow some new Writers scarce worth the

reading. Some things must be said about such. 41

Indeed, Primrose wrote an entire tome about such things. He blasted the followers of

Paracelsus as “misguided” and “unworthy of further comment.” According to Primrose, “such

imposters must cloak and hide the deceits of their chemical remedies under the cover of all their

knaveries.” 42 For all their nonsense, they flatly “misunderstood chemistry.” He took aim at the collection of healers describing themselves as “professors of secrets” and charged them with deceit, ignorance, and fundamental misunderstanding. In a section entitled “Errors of the People

About the Use of Remedies,” Primrose exposed the false medicinals of fraudulent healers. “How so many men and women are beguiled, where all do busie themselves in gathering receits

[recipes] when oftentimes those remedies…did at the first come from some physician, who himselfe had nothing that was secret.” According to Primrose, authentic remedies can never be

“secretive.” On the contrary, an efficacious remedy must have a firm basis in philosophical logic and medical rationale. “Those remedies are the best which are nothing secret,” he wrote, “but

41 Ibid., 3 (italics added). 42 Ibid, 34. 236 best knowne, as being confirmed with more certaine experience.” 43 Ill trained, ignorant peddlers of silly solutions may think they have stumbled onto some great secret of nature. But naivete lay at the root of their enthusiasm. “All the remedies in the world do not mean anything,” added

Primrose, “if one does not understand diseases.” 44

Like Joubert and Mercurio, Primrose reserved keen criticism for female healers. “Who is able to refrain from laughter,” he asked, “when he sees women feele the pulse [of a patient]?”

“Yea, silly women doe it. But the manner of knowing [understanding] the pulse is difficult; for every difference hath its peculiar manner of knowing it, which if one be ignorant of Galen and the Ancients, one will never find out.” 45 Primrose ridiculed women that boiled gold in broth in order to cure consumption, among other sicknesses. 46 Simply put, women did not receive the

university education necessary for legitimate healing.

But if the misconceived notions of unskilled country folk, the pretentious nature of the

urban remedy peddlers, and the popular errors of the self-styled empiric bothered Primrose, the

credulous, gullible nature of paying consumers that flocked to the piazzas and squares troubled

him equally. Primrose complained of the weak-minded Londoner fooled by the deceit of the

mountebank and charlatan, especially with regards to poison antidotes:

There is an experiment of theirs, which the people admire, the Mountibank applies a

Viper to his breast, and taking the Antidote feeles no harm. At this the people stand

amazed. But here is manifold deceit. Firstly, as Matthioli saith, these fellowes have

sundry wayes to tame their vipers and serpents. Secondly, vipers in England, in respect

43 Ibid, 42-47. 44 Ibid, 58. 45 Ibid, 56-57 46 Birken, “James Primrose (1592-1600),” 2. 237 to the temperature of the aire, are not so venemous as those in hot countries. Therefore

Galen gives strict charge, that in composition of triacle [theriac; a poison antidote] the

vipers be not taken in Summer, when they are most venomous, for us here, nor in the

spring-time, for the Italians. 47

Primrose insisted the mountebanks and charlatans used non-poisonous snakes or vipers rendered harmless by virtue of the season. Only the gullible market patron could fail to understand. Primrose ridiculed empirics that claimed a single remedy could cure all poisons.

Why did those not trained in medicine intuitively sense the fallacy implicit in such a concept?

How could any single medicinal formula possibly be omnipotent? If a mountebank claimed to travel the world over in order to obtain some panacea, how could he afford to sell it for a mere twelve pence? If his miraculous formula worked every time, why was it necessary to demonstrate its value over and over again? Why was this merchant not ridiculously rich? 48

Ignorance was to blame, for the commonfolk did not read the proper treatises of medicine and

natural philosophy.

Ignorance, wisdom and the exchange of ideas across different levels of the social

spectrum also represented common themes in the literature penned by English natural philosopher Thomas Browne (1605-1682). Although a university-trained physician and

dedicated medical philosopher, Browne’s work transcended issues of health and healing. More

47 Ibid., 28. As discussed in previous chapters, Pietro Mattioli was something of a state physician for the Venetian Republic. In the 1540s, Mattioli was hired to catalogue the herbals under study in the Republic’s botanical garden housed near the university of Padua. See Mattioli, I Discorsi di M. Pietro Andrea Matthioli. Mattioli published several other books on this very same subject, both before and after the Valgrisi volume in 1557, for example, Il Dioscoride (1550), Commentarii (1554), and I discorsi (1559). But the 1557 volume represents the most comprehensive work on Dioscorides. Mattioli, in fact, wrote many tracts glorifying the medical philosophers of antiquity. 48 Ibid., 26-27. 238 scholarly and less polemical than Primrose, Securis, Aldana, Mercurio, and Joubert, Browne concerned himself with the broadest and deepest questions facing natural philosophers. But

Browne’s quest for a viable theory of knowledge essentially began and ended with medicinal issues.

Born in London, Browne studied at Oxford, Montpellier, and Padua, before graduating from Leiden with a medical degree in 1633. He gained membership in London’s College of

Physicians shortly thereafter. 49 But Browne’s interest in higher learning drew him away from the apothecary shops, hospitals, and sick beds to the libraries and private studies, where he wrote prodigiously. Thomas Browne was more medical philosopher than practicing healer.

Thomas Browne’s most famous work, Religio Medici (1636), represents a mammoth inquiry into humanity, nature, and reason. In this book, Browne established his interpretation of properly ordered epistemology and human knowledge construction. Although trained in mainstream Galenic/humoral theory, Browne advocated experimentation, expressed hope that new ideas might spring from dissection and new approaches to anatomical dissection, and sympathized with contemporary theories of chemical medicine. In short, Browne believed the art of medicine had yet to reach its full potential. 50

Thomas Browne’s basic philosophy of knowledge may be summarized as follows:

inquiry into nature leads the student to God; the exercise of judicious reason and properly

49 See Huntley, Sir Thomas Browne: A Biographical and Critical Study, and Finch, Sir Thomas Browne: A Doctor’s Life of Science and Faith . Also see Robbins, “Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682): Physician and Author.” In this chapter, I rely more heavily on Grell and Cunningham, eds., Religio Medici: Medicine and Religion in Seventeenth- Century England , especially Cunningham’s chapter entitled “Sir Thomas Browne and his Religio Medici : Reason, Nature and Religion.” My use of primary sources refers to two volumes written by Browne: Religio Medici (1645) and Pseudodoxia epidemica, or, Enquiries into very many received tenents and commonly presumed truths (1659), from the Folger Institute’s Shakespeare Library, Special Collections. Geoffrey Keynes’ The Works of Sir Thomas Browne is still constantly cited in scholarly works focusing directly on Browne. 50 For a discussion of Browne’s relationship to chemical medicine and his consideration of Paracelsian learning, see Debus’s “Sir Thomas Browne and the Study of Chemical Indicators,” 29-36. 239 ordered curiosity ultimately confirms faith; the physician has a responsibility to forge ahead; guided by faith, his Christian reason will reinforce his belief while adding to practical knowledge. These ideas may be partly captured in a poem offered by Browne in Religio Medici :

It is thy maker’s will, for unto none

But unto reason can He ere be known…

Teach my endeavors so thy works to read,

That learning them, in thee I may proceed. 51

At first glance, it would seem that Thomas Browne represented little more than a seventeenth-century version of Thomas Acquinas. Both men believed Aristotelian logic infused with grace provided the Christian path to truth; faith buttressed reason. But whereas Acquinas sought to qualify human reasoning by emphasizing the necessity of faith, Browne hoped to reinvigorate logical theorizing as an intellectual activity. Thomas Browne feared the arts of inductive and deductive reasoning had sunk into an abyss of neglect and disuse. While mindless scribes never gained intellectual ownership of the texts they translated, the soft-minded and mentally lazy lived by slogans and proverbs. Browne criticized the scholastics of his generation for their habit of simply recording what they had read rather than inquiring into causes for themselves. “Although Universities may be full of learned men,” he warned, “they are oftentimes empty of learning.” University professors, medical philosophers, and licensed physicians—the men most familiar to Thomas Browne—represented the primary targets of his major criticism.

For Browne, original sin, the credulous nature of imperfect man, the dominance of

51 Browne, Religio Medici,, I.1. 240 passion over reason, mental laziness, the willingness to uncritically accept authority—all

contribute to the confusion of the common man. In Religio Medici and Pseudodoxia Epidemica

(Vulgar Errors , 1646), Browne acknowledges a scholarly duty to spread proper learning and eradicate ignorance. 52 For Browne, properly ordered, legitimate knowledge flows from learned

men to the commonfolk of everyday life. “I do not address my pen or stile [stylus] to the

common people,” writes Browne, “whom books do not redress, and are this way incapable of

reduction.” Instead, Browne speaks “unto the knowing and leading part of learning, as well as

understanding.” 53 According to Browne, “If the can be stopped from believing their own

vulgar errors, erroneous beliefs will ‘wither of themselves,’ for the gentry will be an example to

the vulgar, and true knowledge will flow out from them.” 54

But before this top-down flow of wisdom could sweep ignorance away, learned men

themselves needed intellectual cleansing. In the context of Italian natural philosophy, Browne

criticized the professional physician Girolamo Cardano, the neo-scholarly “professor of secrets”

Alessio Piemontese, and the aristocrat Giambattista Della Porta. He praised Cardano as “a great

Enquirer of Truth,” but criticized him as a “too greedy receiver of it.” For Browne, Cardano’s

intellect was characterized by superficial curiosity which lacked the rigor of properly ordered

investigation. Browne dismissed Piemontese out of hand, but wrote at length on the more famous

Giambattista Della Porta. According to Browne, Della Porta possessed certain characteristics of a

legitimate experimenter, but his Magia Naturale ultimately served to fascinate readers with

wonders and tricks, rather than enhancing their appreciation for measured experimentation. 55

52 Browne, Religio Medici, “To the Reader,” ii. 53 Browne, Psudodoxia Epidemica , “To the Reader,” ii. 54 Cunningham, “Sir Thomas Browne and his Religio Medici ,” 45. 55 Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica . Browne’s reflection on Della Porta is taken from Keynes, ed., The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, vol. 2, 58-59. 241 If Browne thought the intellectual shortcomings of the learned and the neo-scholarly might be reformed, he shuddered with revulsion at the ignorance of the masses. Credulous, naïve, and lazy, the common man with his morbid ignorance marred his relationship with life and living. Rather than investigate, the common man groped for predigested answers. Nursery rhymes, proverbs, secrets, and tricks allowed the weak thinker to avoid the challenge of reasoning. As Eamon points out, Browne detested how the common man fell for the deceptions of charlatans, mountebanks, quacks, cunning women, and fortune tellers. 56

“Their individual imperfections being great,” wrote Browne of the common man, “they are moreover enlarged by their aggregation.” According to Browne, the masses of men, “being erroneous in their single numbers, once huddled together [constituted] a farraginous concurrence of all conditions, tempers, sexes and ages.” It seemed unavoidable, wrote Browne, that “their determinations be monstrous, and many waies inconsistent with Truth.” 57 Eamon compares

Browne’s views with Francis Bacon’s suggestion regarding a fundamental purpose of philosophy: to convince the vulgar to forget their ungoverned appetites and to listen to reason

and obey the law.” But Bacon thought the entire affair a losing battle. In times of trouble, he

observed, “men would always return to the depraved conditions of their nature.” 58

Late in Browne’s life, John Evelyn wrote him on behalf of a group of learned physicians.

Evelyn suggested forming “a society of learned and ingenuous men, such as Dr. Browne, by whome we might hope to redeeme the tyme that has bin lost, in pursuing vulgar errours.” 59 But

Browne declined. The good doctor was tired. Letters written in his final years suggest that

56 Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, 265. 57 Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica , 29. 58 Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, 265. See also Keynes, ed., The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, 6:722. Eamon and Keynes discussed Bacon’s De sapientia veterum. 59 Keynes, ed., The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, 275. See also Robbins’ biographical summary, “Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682),” 18. Evelyn’s letter was dated 28 January, 1660. 242 Browne shared Francis Bacon’s doubts regarding massive intellectual reform among the common people. 60

For Thomas Browne, the great masses failed to understand man, comprehend nature, and adequately grasp the relationship between the two. Their trivialization of the sacred arts of medicine and healing took humanity away from the Christian path to truth. The learned physician, who studied natural philosophy, mastered logic and understood the “microcosm”— man himself—in the great relationship between humanity and the cosmos, had the potential to lead mankind to the full and sacred understanding of life’s deepest questions. But ignorance stood in the way.

Thomas Browne died on June 5, 1682. He left the crusade against ignorance to others.

But in England and on the continent, scholarly medical practitioners and amateur healers continued to embrace different theories of knowledge. Debates between the two camps would be more polemical and less sophisticated than inquiries envisioned by Browne. The battle lines had been drawn before Browne’s birth and the feuds would endure long after his death.

* * * * *

British historians remember much about the reign of King Henry VIII (1509-1547). Few

emphasize, however, the endorsement Henry paid amateur healers at the expense of licensed

medical practitioners in 1534. Henry signed a statute extending legal protection to “divers honest persons, women as well as men, whom God hath endued with knowledge of the nature, kind, and

60 I am following the line of thinking established by Frank Huntley in Sir Thomas Browne: A Biographical and Critical Study ; see especially 134-37. Patrides, ed., Sir Thomas Browne: The Major Works contains an important discussion of Browne’s letters. See “Letter to a Friend,” 392-395. In Keynes’ The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, an important letter from Browne to his son Edward, dated 14 June 1676, is printed and discussed; see vol. 4, 61. 243 operation of certain herbs, roots, and waters, and the using and administration of them to such as being pained with customable diseases.” 61 Anyone could attempt to cure the ill; healing required no license.

Evaluating the King’s motives for issuing this proclamation can be tricky. Henry’s interest in breaking the political power of organized physicians may have outweighed his concern for the health and well-being of his ordinary subjects. 62 But we may conclude that the king’s ideas enjoyed some form of popular currency. Why would such thoughts have occurred only to Henry? How could the king have suggested that those subjects lacking formal medical education could conceivably cure the sick as well as professional healers if no one else had reason to believe such a thing? In early sixteenth-century England, according to Clifford D.

Connor, “the lowly empiricks and folk healers were widely perceived as being at least as therapeutically effective as the elite physicians.”63 Several decades after Henry’s death, the natural philosopher Thomas Hobbes wrote, “I would rather have the advice or take physick from an experienced old woman that had been at many sick people’s bedsides than from the learnedest but unexperienced physician.” 64 Discussing early modern English healers, Roy Porter writes:

Empirics were accused of being know-nothings. True, some would respond, they

had not a university education. But who would want one? Were not the lecturers

of the schools all tinkling theory and vacuous verbiage? They [amateurs] had

instead graduated from the University of Life, gaining vastly valuable practical

61 Henry, “Doctors and Healers: Popular Culture and the Medical Profession,” 197-198. 62 Roberts, “The Personnel and Practice of Medicine in Tudor and Stuart England,” in Medical History 6 (1962), 363-382, and 8 (1964), 217-234. See also Mackie, The Earlier Tudors 1485-1558, especially chap. 16, 562-603. 63 Conner, A People’s History of Science, 310. 64 Quoted from Porter, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind , 282-283. 244 experience. 65

Entire tomes of English medical history have been filled with similar testimony from statesmen, famous intellectuals, and ordinary citizens of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.66

Much of the criticism of official medicine came from neo-scholarly practitioners, or healers on the margins of academic medicine. For an example, let us consider the case of John

Symcotts, an unorthodox London physician, who practiced in the first half of the seventeenth century. Although a university-trained and fully licensed physician, Symcotts’ sympathy for vernacular healing methods and unorthodox medical treatment had stained his reputation among his professional colleagues. In 1648, Symcotts treated the son of the Earl of Bridgewater, who may have suffered a stroke. Symcotts tried to blow tobacco and sneezing powder up the victim’s nostrils, inserted mustard and vinegar in his mouth, attached dead pigeons to his feet, held a hot frying pan to his head, and applied leeches to his rectum. The patient died. But Symcotts’ faith in vernacular healing methods and his suspicion of orthodox medicine survived. 67

Thirteen years earlier, when Symcotts himself suffered from gout, his brother, a London

merchant, wrote to suggest that he try a treatment popular downtown. The remedy consisted of a

65 Porter, Quacks, Fakers & Charlatans in Medicine, 268-269. 66 See Porter, Quacks, Fakers & Charlatans in Medicine, as well as Health for Sale: Quackery in England and “Quacks and Doctors: One Man’s Herb, Another Man’s Medicine,” 14-16. See also Pollock, With Faith and Physic, and Cook, The Decline of the Old Medical Regime in Stuart London . In addition, see Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic , especially chapters 7 and 8. Margaret Pelling’s Medical Conflicts in Early Modern London is closely related to the discussion advanced in this chapter. But my analysis differs significantly from the one issued by Pelling. As described below, I think Pelling’s habit of dividing early modern medical practitioners into binary oppositional camps of “regulars” and “irregulars” does more harm than good for investigations into Renaissance medicine. Although Pelling’s work is not without value, Medical Conflicts in Early Modern London does represent the type of historical reconstruction I take issue with in this chapter. See also Harkness, The Jewel House, especially chap. 3, “The Contest over Medical Authority: Valentin Russwurin and the Barber-Surgeons.” 67 Poynter and Bishop, eds., A Seventeenth-Century Doctor and His Patients, 96-97; see also 187-188. 245 paste made from yeast, egg white, and alum, spread on brown paper and bound about the foot.

As Doreen Nagy suggests, “It [this case] represents an excellent example of how contemporary

lay people perceived the limited capacity of the medical profession, even to the extent of their

inability to treat themselves efficiently.” 68

Eight years later, , an English medical student, issued a scathing attack on

orthodox healing. Like all university students of his generation, Starkey began his medical

studies within the tradition of Hippocratic/Galenic humoral theory. But toward the end of his

education, Starkey moved toward Paracelsian schools of chemical medicine. Starkey’s critique

of medical epistemology contained an interesting ideological twist. In 1656, Starkey wrote:

Whatever they [Galenists] have done that may be right or do good, they have it

from the accidental experiments of old wives, and good folks, who have found

or known much good done by this or that Herb or Simple or other thing…then

when Doctors after had drawn it into Receipts. 69

Starkey also emphasized how people living in areas that featured no professional physicians often cured their own illnesses. “The poor,” wrote Starkey, “who could not afford a physitian, often cured themselves by simple methods and with less risk than if a regular [doctor] was involved.” 70 “Thus Starkey established the legitimacy of popular medicine,” wrote Doreen

68 Nagy, Popular Medicine in Seventeenth-Century England , 45. 69 Starkey, Nature’s Explication and Helmont’s Vindication , on page 25 of my copy consulted from the Folger Institute’s Shakespeare Library. Many thanks to Professor Rebecca Totaro for making me aware of this text and the relevance of Starkey’s testimony to this chapter. See also Newman, “Ghennical Fire: The Lives of George Starkey,” 758-760. In addition, Nagy’s Popular Medicine in Seventeenth-Century England, 49-52, offers a brief discussion of Starkey. 70 Starkey, Nature’s Explication and Helmont’s Vindication , found on page 226 of my copy consulted from the Folger Institute’s Shakespeare Library. 246 Nagy, “vis-a-vis Galenical or profession medicine.”71

One year earlier, Cambridge-trained physician Nicholas Culpeper published The English

Physitian Enlarged .72 Culpeper is best remembered as a vocal critic of scholarly seventeenth-

73 century English medicine. But his career as a writer and medical philosopher contained some

twists as interesting as the unorthodox medicinal recipes he advocated late in life. Born of a

wealthy family, Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654) grew up in London, surrounded by tutors,

teachers, and educational instructors. As a youth, Culpeper took a serious interest in “astrology

and occult philosophy.” 74 Shortly after his sixteenth birthday, Culpeper enrolled in Cambridge

University, where he eventually completed a medical degree. Culpeper soon began to concentrate on writing. Shortly after his death, Culpeper’s widow claims her late husband left behind “seventy-nine books.” 75 According to Poynter, “Culpeper’s earliest writings faithfully reflect the orthodox medicine of his time, and his translations of the leading medical writers of his age gave English doctors for the first time a comprehensive body of medical literature in their own tongue which represented the best contemporary authorities.” 76 But somewhere along the

line, Culpeper’s attitude towards official medicine changed.

By his twenty-fifth birthday, Culpepper had become a staunch critic of official medicine.

He wrote self-help medical books to make healing remedies and formulas available to the widest

71 Nagy, Popular Medicine in Seventeenth-Century England, 50. 72 T he complete title was The English Physitian Enlarged, Being an Astrologo-Physical Discourse of the Vulgar Herbs of this Nation, Containing a Compleat Method of Physick, whereby a man may preserve his Body in Health; or Cure himself, being Sick, for three pence Charge, with such things only as grown in England, they being most fit for English Bodies, by Nicholas Culpepper . This volume resides in the Folger Institute’s Shakespeare Library. 73 See Thulesis, Nicholas Culpeper, English Physician and Astronomer. See also Poynter, “Nicholas Culpeper and the Paracelsians,” 1.201-20, and “Nicholas Culpeper and His Books.” 74 Curry, “Culpepper, Nicholas (1616-1654), Physician and Astrologer,” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , http://www.oxforddnb.com.ezacess.libraries.psu.edu/view/printable/6882. Curry quotes Culpepper’s contemporary, C. Ryves from “The Life of the Admired Physician and Astrologer of Our Times, Mr. Nicholas Culpeper,” in Culpeper’s 1659 S chool of Physick, fol. C3r. 75 Poynter, “Nicholas Culpeper and His Books,” 160. 76 Ibid., 153. 247 possible audience. In the introductions of such books, Culpepper directed his wrath at university-

trained physicians. “What an insufferable injury it is,” wrote Culpeper in The English Physitian

Enlarged , “that in a free Common-wealth, men and women should be trained up in such

Ignorance, that when they are sick, and have Herbs in their Garden conducing to their cure, they

are so hood-winked that they know not their vertues.” For Culpeper, “most of the [learned] physitian’s covetousness outweighs his wits as much as a Millstone out-weighs a Feather.” 77 In speaking of the most well-known medical institution of his day, Culpeper wrote, “the College of

Physitians, out of their great learning, care for the publicke only so far as their own gain be conceryned.” 78 Patrick Curry suggests, “Culpeper criticized the self-interest of the college physicians throughout his career, whom he once classed with priests and lawyers: ‘The one

deceives men in matters belonging to their soul, the other in matters belonging to their bodies,

and the third in matter belonging to their estates.’” 79

Culpeper believed in herbal medicine and remained convinced that proper healing

necessitated consulting the sky’s heavenly bodies. Many at university shared such views, but

Culpeper dismissed the academics out of hand. Scholarly types proceeded from Galenic and

Hippocratic teaching; Culpeper left such misguided illogic behind in his youth. Besides, for

Culpeper, most university-educated medical practitioners abused the art of healing. The College

of Physicians worked more earnestly at marginalizing their main commercial competition than

they did at treating the poor.

Nor were early modern clashes between different groups of healers unique to England,

77 Cited from Mary E. Fissell’s soon-to-be published article, “When Is a Book Not a Book? When It Is a Mirror, or a Closet, or a Jewel.” Professor Fissell quotes Culpeper from The English Physitian Enlarged, fol. 34. 78 Quoted from my version (from the Folger Institute’s Shakespeare Library) of The English Physition Enlarged , fol. 18v. 79 Cited in Curry, “Culpepper, Nicholas (1616-1654), Physician and Astrologer,” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , www.oxforddnb.com, on page 4 of 7. Curry refers to Culpeper’s 1949 volume, A Physical Directory ; see “To the Reader.” 248 France, and Italy. In 1547 the University of Marburg professor Johannes Dryander (1500-1560) landed a blow for trained physicians at the expense of amateur healers within Germany.

Imploring readers to stay away from “inexperienced mountebanks, foolish old women, Jews and ignorant monks,” Dryander insisted that only university-trained physicians actually cured illness:

Such bums and swindlers have a drug, potion, remedy or secret, or some other crazy

thing for every ailment, so that many lives are lost because of them. Saying this, I do

not mean to dismiss the experimentatores , or the experienced physicians, or those that

use science….But wherever you can find a pious, God fearing, experienced, learned

physician, as one who owes his position to some authority certified by the community,

him you may completely trust to cure any illness, and thus you may have, and not

forsake, God’s means in a physician and in the art of medicine. 80

In fact, the early modern actor best remembered for this type of controversy hailed from

Switzerland and spent much of his career in the later German empire. Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim’s critique of sixteenth-century learned European medicine warrants much attention. But Paracelsus (1493-1541) has been discussed at length in Chapter 3; only a brief description of his aversion to university medicine shall be appropriate here. We may recall St.

John’s Day 1527, in Basle, when Paracelsus participated in a celebration in the city’s largest marketplace. According to local tradition, residents of Basle built a large bonfire on this day each year, with effigies of unpopular figures serving as fodder for the flames. But this particular year,

Paracelsus, accompanied by many university medical students, used the bonfire to forge a

80 Dryander, Artzenei Spiegel gemeyner Inhalt derselbigen , iii. My copy comes from Harvard’s Widener Library. But see also Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, 99-109, especially 103. 249 different type of statement. On June 24, 1527, Paracelsus allegedly tossed the great Summa of

Avicenna, the collected writings of one of official medicine’s most respected authors, into the bonfire, so that, as he remarked, “all that misery might go up into the air with smoke.” 81

Paracelsus’s disdain for official medicine is underscored by an address he delivered to a college crowd later that summer:

Of all the disciplines medicine alone, through the grace of God and according to the

opinion of authors divine and profane, is recognized as a sacred art. Yet few doctors

today practise it with success. Therefore, the time has come to bring medicine back to

its former dignity, to cleanse it from the leaven of the barbarians, and to purge their

errors. We shall never do so by strictly adhering to the rules of the ancients. Instead, we

must exclusively study nature and use the experience which we have gained in long

years of practice. Who does not know that most contemporary doctors fail because they

slavishly abide by the precepts of Avicenna, Galen, and Hippocrates, as though these

were Apollo’s oracles from which it is not allowed to digress by a finger’s breath. If it

pleases God, this way may lead to splendid titles, but does not make a true doctor. What

a doctor needs is not eloquence or knowledge of language and of books, illustrious

though they may be, but profound knowledge of Nature and her works. 82

81 Most secondary literature treats the as a matter of fact, but the record remains controversial. See Paracelsus’ 1565 Paragranum , 34. Also see Pachter, Paracelsus: Magic Into Science , 158-159, and Ball, The Devil’s Doctor, 196. Nevertheless, whether literally true or not, Paracelsus claimed, in print, to have burned Avicenna’s writings for the sake of expressing his disdain for institutionalized teaching. Of Paracelsus’s distrust of sixteenth-century university medicine’s use of ancient sources, there can be no doubt. See Pagel, Paracelsus: An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine and Webster, “Paracelsus and Demons,” as well as Webster, “Alchemical and Paracelsian Medicine” in Health, Medicine and Mortality , 301-333. 82 Quoted from Pachter, Paracelsus, Magic Into Science , 152-153. The address seems to have been delivered on June 5, 1527. 250 After raising a few eyebrows and drawing a few gasps, Paracelsus stated his case more succinctly. The Swiss physician described what students might expect from his course:

I shall explain the textbooks which I have written on surgery and pathology, as an

introduction to my healing methods. I do not compile them from excerpts of

Hippocrates or Galen. In ceaseless toil I created them anew upon the foundation of

experience, the supreme teacher of all things. If I want to prove anything I shall not do

so by quoting authorities, but by experiment and by reasoning thereupon. To express

myself more plainly, let me say here that I do not believe in the ancient doctrine of

complexions and humours which has been falsely supposed to account for all diseases.

It is because of these doctrines that so few physicians have correct views of disease, its

origins and its course. I bid you, do not pass a premature judgement on Theophrastus

until you have heard him. Farewell, and come with a good will to study our attempt to

reform medicine. 83

The Paracelsian appeal to nature and experience became a common structure of criticism among foes of early modern learned medicine. Boiled down to its constitutive components, the argument went something like this: scholarly medical practitioners studied books and memorized purely theoretical ideas; authentic healers concerned themselves with the only true source of remedies, mother earth. Experimenting with the physical world and collecting the secrets of nature, vernacular healers represented the art of medicine’s best practitioners. In one form or another, renegade university professors, neo-scholarly medical authors, self-styled empirics, and

83 Ibid., 153. 251 untrained folkloric healers all made use of this argument.

Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, the German-born natural philosopher, magician, astrologer, and alchemist, advanced such ideas himself. Formally educated, Agrippa (1486-1535) worked in Germany, France, and Italy. He taught natural philosophy at the University of Dole in

France and served the court of Maximilian I in Italy, working as a theologian, physician, legal expert, and soldier. 84 But in his 1528 De incertitudine et vanitate scientarium omnium et atrium ,

Agrippa issued a thorough critique of scholarly medicine.

According to Agrippa, the disharmony and lack of agreement among medical professors

revealed the poor state of scholarly medicine. “While Hippocrates refers the cause of disease to

the pneuma,” von Nettesheim observed, “Herophillus attributes the cause of disease to the

humours, Erasistratus to the arterial blood, Asclepiades to the pores and Diocles to the inequality

of the elements composing the body.” 85 Sixteenth-century medical philosophers, complained

Agrippa, only added to the confusion with controversial interpretations of the ancient works they

84 Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim’s 1531 book De occulta philosophia libri tres remains one of the most widely discussed works of early modern natural philosophy. Agrippa’s ideas may be broadly described as follows: he proposed a form of “natural magic” that could resolve all contemporary epistemological problems which ultimately served to validate the Christian faith. For Agrippa, learned natural philosophers could manipulate the forces of nature to achieve solutions to basic problems via a proper understanding of God’s universe. Agrippa suggested that the natural world was fundamentally linked to the celestial and the divine. Three basic types of magic were understood to exist during Agrippa’s lifetime: “natural magic,” in which the practitioner exploited the occult properties of the elemental world, “celestial magic,” which involved the influence of the stars and heavenly bodies, and “ceremonial magic,” which involved an appeal for aid to spiritual beings. Agrippa tried to synthesize all three through systematic study, proposing a new learned art of magic in the process. See Three Books of Occult Philosophy . See also Shumaker, Natural Magic and Modern Science . Nauert’s Agrippa and the Crisis of Renaissance Thought offers a solid biography on Agrippa with cogent analysis of his major works, Also see Pagel, Religion and Neoplatonism in Renaissance Medicine ; van der Poel, Cornelius Agrippa: The Humanist Theologian ; and Lehrich, The Language of Demons and Angels . The former book resides more comfortably in traditional histories of early modern natural philosophy while the latter volume more closely resembles modern histories of science, which generally prefer to raise questions rather than provide answers about Renaissance epistemology. 85 For these quotations, I have used von Nettesheim, Della vanita delle scienze, of the vanitie and vuncertaintie of artes and sciences (1569). This is a translation published forty-one years after the original version of the book appeared. See fol. 138r. Agrippa’s De incertitudine et vanitate scientarium omnium et artium was published in Latin in 1528 and translated into Italian, English, and French shortly thereafter. See Pagel, Religion and Neoplatonism in Renaissance Medicine , especially 121-123. Maclean’s Logic, Signs and Nature also puts forth a discussion of von Nettesheim relevant to my paragraph above; see 94-95. Professor Maclean relies upon Pagel’s 1985 translation. 252 so mysteriously revered. “Aesculapius himself was a rogue,” attacked Agrippa, referring to the ancient medical author as “the offspring of an incestuous marriage.” Von Nettesheim dismissed learned physicians as “the greatest criminals, the most quarrelsome, envious, and deceitful of men.” According to Agrippa, “they [scholarly medical practitioners] are always dirty, because for the sake of gain they roam around privies and their homes are the filth of men….Cato rightly forbade all physicians to enter Rome.” 86

Like Joubert, Mercurio, Securis, Primrose, and others described above, Agrippa suggested that “patients frequently suffer more from the physician and his remedy than from the disease itself,” except von Nettesheim pointed the accusatory finger at learned practitioners rather than self-styled empirics. 87 In a passage worth quoting at length, von Nettesheim wrote:

The physician observes the patient with gravity, inspects the urine, feels the pulse,

examines tongue and chest, tests the excretions, asks questions concerning diet and

other intimate details, as though, by such means, he could weigh the elements and the

humours of the body and bring them into the equilibrium. Then, with great solemnity,

he prescribes the medicine. Mild illness he protracts as long as possible, suggesting

ridiculous measures which will be agreeable to the patient, such as water dripping into a

basin as a cure for insomnia. If the illness is severe and the outlook doubtful or

hopeless, he prescribes a special routine, orders unusual things, forbidding the usual,

finds fault with whatever has been given to the patient, threatens death, promises life,

and demands a higher fee. If death occurs, it is the result of a pulmonary oedema or

some other incurable condition, or no doubt, is due to the disobedience of the patient or

86 Ibid., fols. 138r-139v. 87 Ibid., fol. 138r. 253 the carelessness of the nurses, or it may even be a colleague or apothecary who is

responsible. 88

Could any physician or healer be trusted? Agrippa divided medical practitioners into three camps: (1) the “very learned, who lose all their patients,” (2) “the illiterate, who often cure them,” and (3) “a third class whose rich patients alone recover, while peasants and common

89 people suffer greatly.” According to von Nettesheim, while “the licensed physician acquires his remedies from books, the ‘old wife’ searches nature for plants, learning their shapes, tastes, colors, odors and such, and according to her experience of their virtues, administers sure remedies free of charge to anyone.” 90

Other scholarly natural philosophers raised similar questions about the textually based

learning of early modern university, even if most used more discretion than Agrippa. Ambroise

Paré (1510-1590), the official surgeon to four French kings, also favored empirically derived

knowledge and practical experience over bookish learning. Considered by some to be the “Father

of Surgery,” Paré emerged as the sixteenth-century authority on the treatment of wounds in much

of Europe. He also worked as an anatomist, invented surgical instruments, and became an

important figure in obstetrics. But for all his time spent in the classroom, Paré doubted the

effectiveness of university pedagogy for practical questions facing healers. In 1572, France’s

official royal surgeon wrote:

Being at Turin, I found a surgeon who had fame above all others for the curing of

88 For this translation I have relied upon Pagel, 122. 89 Ibid., 123. 90 Von Nettesheim, Della vanita delle scienze , fol. 138r. 254 wounds of gunshot, into whose favour I found means to insinuate myself, to have

receipt of his balm, as he called it, wherewith he dressed wounds of that kind; and he

held me off the space of two years before I could possibly draw the receipt from him. In

the end by gifts and presents he gave it to me, which was this, to boil young whelps,

new pupped, in oil of lilies, with earthworms prepared with turpentine of Venice. Then

I was joyful and my heart made glad, that I had understood his remedy, which was like

to that which I had obtained by great chance. See then, dear reader, how I have learned

to dress wounds made with gunshot. Not by books. 91

The Dutch-born, university-trained physician Levinus Lemnius also expressed grave doubts about orthodox medicine and the traditional styles of education featured in European medical schools. Lemnius (1505-1568) graduated from the University of Padua with a degree in medicine in 1525. Over the next forty years, he traveled widely, practicing medicine and publishing philosophical treatises in a wide range of European languages. 92

De Miraculis occultis naturae (1559) represents Lemnius’s most significant work. The book features a general discussion of natural philosophy with a strong emphasis on biology. But sickness, health, and healing constitute a major component of all Lemnius’s literature, and this volume contains an extensive discussion of disease, remedies, and cures. Lemnius describes a major section as “ Fit for the use of those that practise Physick, and all Others that desire to search into the Hidden Secrets of Nature, for increase of Knowledge .” In these chapters,

Lemnius provides dozens of annotated remedies, formulas and general suggestions for curing

91 Paré, The method of curing wounds made by gun-shot , fol. 50. This volume represents a translation of Paré’s Methode de traiter les playes faictes par hacquebutes et aultres bastons a feu , which was originally published in Paris in 1572. Also see Carbonnier, A Barber-Surgeon: A Life of Ambroise Paré. 92 For some basic information on Lemnius, see Fissell, Vernacular Bodies, The Politics of Reproduction, 198-211. 255 common sixteenth-century illnesses. 93

In 1572, a group of Lemnius’s students posthumously published his unfinished work De habitu et constitutione corporis (translated into English as “Touchstones of Complexions”). Like

De Miraculis occultis naturae , this volume can be described as a “how-to guide” of self-help

medicine, residing squarely in the “books of secrets tradition” that so greatly disturbed the

Augustinian monk Tommaso Garzoni.

Lemnius generally writes within a Hippocratic/Galenic medical framework. Indeed, De

Miraculis occultis naturae unfolds against a backdrop of humoural theory. Lemnius advances the

Galenic emphasis on moderation in sleeping, eating, and exercise. He views witchcraft and the supernatural with conservative suspicion, insisting upon entirely “natural explanations” for physical phenomena within the human body and the corresponding universe. “Humours, not devils, cause diseases,” writes Lemnius in the second book of De Miraculis occultis naturae .94 A

few paragraphs later, Lemnius explains that while “mad people may seem to speak in tongues,

this hardly means they are possessed by Satan,” suggesting that physical problems often cause

slurred speech and irrational talk.” 95 The fourth book contains a discussion of the moon’s force and effects on tides typical of the astrological medicine taught in early modern universities.

But Lemnius’ work fundamentally differs from most scholarly early modern medical writing. Unlike other physicians, Lemnius emphasizes the significance of experience over reason in the derivation of healing practices. As Lemnius writes:

93 Lemnius De Miraculis occultis naturae, Libri I, II, III, IV, item, de vita cum animi et corporis incolumitate recte instituenda liber unus; illi quidem iam postremum emendati & aliquot capitibus aucti, hic vero numquam antehac editus…, published in Antwerp in 1564. I have consulted an English version published in 1658 entitled The Secret Miracles of Nature in Four Books, Written by that Famous Physitian Levinus Lemnius , from the Folger Institute’s Shakespeare Library. 94 Ibid.; see bk. 2, 86, for the quote about humours, devils, and disease. See bk. 1, 44:364-371, for specific discussion of moderation with regards to regimens of health, and 58:385-390, for discussion of witchcraft and the possibility of demonic magic. 95 Ibid., bk. 1, 2:91. 256

There are two Instruments of Art which are serviceable to the profit and use of men:

Reason and Experience, by which all things are wont to be confirmed and established.

For by these, Physick itself, and other Sciences, for the most part, besides Mathematical

Arts, are supported. But such things as are to gain credit with men of an exact and

searching judgment, ought to be proved by the Line, year, to be examined by the

Touch-Stone. But what great thing can a Physitian undertake, if he endeavoureth by

Reason to convince, that herbs and Medicaments have strong effects, unless he could

prove it by Experience? 96

Lemnius does not concern himself with the subtleties and nuances of reason discussed by

Thomas Browne. Instead, like Laurent Joubert and Scipione Mercurio, Lemnius seems to perceive reason and experience as two distinct, separate activities that must work in conjunction

to form knowledge. But unlike Joubert and Mercurio, Lemnius argues for the primacy of

empiricism over rational thought. Reversing scholastic philosophy’s ordering of the relationship between reason and experience—the traditional view that argued for the primacy of reason—

Lemnius suggested that experience represented the most significant component in human

knowledge construction. For Lemnius, reason constituted an intellectual activity which helped

make sense of experience. But to truly “know,” a human being had to see, hear, smell, touch,

observe, and participate.

Like most natural philosophers, Lemnius believed unseen, inaudible, hidden forces

resided within the physical world, beyond the human capacity for sense perception. But for the

96 Ibid., cited from “The Preface to the Reader” of Book 1. The folio is listed as A3, Lib.6.c.34, but pagination may vary. The text cited above is drawn from the first and second pages of the book. 257 purposes of healing, Lemnius did not concern himself with abstract or complex theoretical

questions regarding such things. For Lemnius, healers should not be expected to master or

explain the ‘reasons’ and ‘causes’ of hidden forces within nature. What would be the point of

such conjecture anyway? With an assault on Christianized Aristotelian logic, Lemnius implies

that it is unnecessary to understand the reason, essence or cause of some quality or dynamic in

nature to reap the medicinal benefits of the matter in question:

There are many hidden and secret things in nature; things whose effects are unknown; it

would be indiscreet to declare the reason and the cause of the effect of such things.

Such things may seem destitute of reason and we may be bereft of the knowledge of

their causes; but this may not prevent a manifest demonstration of the sense and

understanding of such things; Physitians may call such things “hidden qualities.” I

might stir up the minds of the learned to search out demonstrations and causes of such

things in nature; I will, to the utmost of my power, endeavor to draw out the reason, by

a probable and artificial conjecture, or as near as I can be leveling to hit the mark. Yea,

I confess, there are many things in nature of an unknown original. 97

Lemnius rejected scholastic styles of deriving truth and knowledge with regards to questions facing the medical practitioner; indeed, he did not appreciate the necessity and relevance of such intellectual activity to healing. Hence, as a natural philosopher practicing medicine, or, more precisely, as a medical philosopher, Lemnius’s theory of knowledge and view of nature contrasted with the medical education taught at university.

97 Ibid., cited from “The Preface to the Reader” of Book 1. The text above is drawn from the second page of the book. 258 University dropouts tended to frame the argument more strongly. Consider the ringing

endorsement vernacular healers received from Peter Severinus in 1535. A former medical

student who quit school prior to graduation, Severinus urged natural philosophers:

[S]ell your lands, burn up your books, buy yourself stout shoes, travel to the mountains,

search the valleys, the deserts, the shores of the sea, and the deepest depressions of the

earth….Be not ashamed to study the astronomy and terrestrial philosophy of the

peasantry. Purchase coal, build furnaces, watch and operate the fire. In this way and

only this way you will arrive at a knowledge of things and their properties. 98

The idea of the simple enjoying a fundamental advantage over the trained physician enjoyed currency throughout sixteenth-century Europe. In France, the famous jurist

René Choppin remarked in 1575, “How many savants in medicine have been outdone by a simple peasant woman who, with a single plant or herb, has found a remedy for illnesses despaired of by physicians?” 99 As a French barrister defending a woman accused of

charlatanism, Choppin conveniently deployed a fairly popular idea for the sake of winning a

single case. For the Danish Peter Servinus, a self-proclaimed “Paracelsian,” the superiority of

vernacular healing constituted the central philosophical principle of his life.

Again, inspiration for such ideas existed at the very top of sixteenth-century French

society. Bourbon king Henry IV (1553-1610) maintained an interest in alternative medicine

throughout his life, keeping several Paracelsians in his personal medical entourage. Basle

98 Severinus, Peter , Idea medicinae philosophicae, quoted in Debus, English Paracelsians , 20. See also Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature , 161-162. 99 Quoted from Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France , 261n. 259 graduate Joseph Duchesne ranked among the King’s alternative medical philosophers. The subversive tendencies of Henry IV’s doctor emerge clearly in his most famous work:

If Hypocrates or Galen himself, were now againe alive, they would exceedingly reioyce

to see our art so inlarged & augmented by so great and noble addition, and would

patronize and upholde with their own hands, that which was hidden from the old fathers

in former ages: and rejecting many of those things, which before pleased them,

yeelding to reason & experience, would gladly embrace the new. 100

Indeed, the significance of reason, essence, and causes, as framed within the scholastic

tradition, came under fire from a wide variety of healers during the late Renaissance. Men like

Paracelsus, as explained in the previous chapter, believed that nature and the physical world

represented a giant playground which man needed to systematically observe, study, and test in

order to derive practical solutions to human problems. The forests, valleys, streams, and

meadows, not the libraries, constituted the proper theater of human inquiry. Remedies could not be derived by logical deduction, but by experience. Who cared about the “origins” or “causes” of

things? Of what value was theoretical “proof”? Curing illness involved trials and tribulations to

determine what actually works on human bodies, not linguistic debate and semantic jostling to

determine which human beings argue best. Again, many vernacular healers rejected scholastic philosophy as the ultimate arbiter of truth regarding questions facing the medical practitioner by

100 This text is taken from the English translation of Duchesne’s Ad veritatem Hermeticae medicinae ex Hippocratis veterumque decretis, published in Paris in 1604. The English translation, The Practise of Chymicall, and Hermetical Physicke, for the Preservation of Health, was written by Thomas Tymme and published in London in 1605. For the passage in Tymme’s volume, see fol. B4v. See also Brockliss and Jones, The Medical World of Early Modern France, 126, for a discussion of this matter, although they appear to have consulted a different version of the Tymme’s volume than the one I have used. 260 questioning the necessity and relevance of such intellectual activity to healing.

For the best examples we must return to northern Italy.

* * * * *

Much has been written about the sixteenth-century healer Leonardo Fioravanti, both in this dissertation and the larger field of European medical history. Nevertheless, no investigation of the feuds between scholarly medical practitioners and self-styled healers during the

Renaissance would be complete without a discussion of this enigmatic Bolognesan. Fioravanti

(1517-1588) studied, practiced, and wrote about medicine and healing. In fact, Leonardo

Fioravanti advised princes on medical matters, pressed lawsuits against medical institutions, and served prison sentences for malpractice. He also performed surgery, patented remedies, wrote eight major books, and published dozens of medical pamphlets. Fioravanti studied alchemy, practiced distillation, served in foreign armies, and performed in distant courts, winning fame, respect, and admiration from some while provoking hatred, scorn, and ridicule from others.

Throughout his life, he remained a vociferous critic of scholarly European medicine. 101

Leonardo Fioravanti claimed to have graduated from the with a

101 Giordano, Leonardo Fioravanti Bolognese. See also Gentili, “Leonardo Fioravanti Bolognese alla luce di ignorati documenti,” 16-41, and Latronico, “Leonardo Fioravanti Bolognese era un ciarlatano?,” 162-167. The most valuable modern work is Camporesi’s Camminare il mondo: vita e avventure di Leonardo Fioravanti. Camporesi also deals extensively with Fioravanti in La miniera del mondo, artieri, inventori impostori, especially “Parte Prima, Il Maestro di tutte le arti (Leonardo Fioravanti).” Also see Zanier, “La Medicina paracelsiana in Italia,” 627-53. In the English-speaking world, the best work has come from William Eamon. See “Science and Popular Culture in Sixteenth-Century Italy;” “Alchemy in Popular Culture;” and “With the Rules of Life and an Enema,” as well as Science and the Secrets of Nature , especially chap. 5, “Leonardo Fioravanti, Vendor of Secrets,” 168-193. But the best sources to consult are the books Fioravanti wrote himself. They are all available in Venice’s Biblioteca Marciana. A general discussion follows below. Fioravanti’s autobiography, entitled Tesoro della vita humana, provides the richest description of his life and the sum total of his major experiences, while Della fisica dell’ecellente dottore Leonardo Fioravanti provides the most systematic account of Fioravanti’s medical philosophy. 261 doctorate in medicine. But no such record exists at the school. In 1567, some Venetian physicians and apothecaries tried to prohibit Fioravanti from practicing medicine and selling his patented remedies. These men charged Fioravanti with operating without a license or a medical degree. Fioravanti requested documentation from the University of Bologna and a hearing ensued. The University issued Fioravanti a doctorate. 102 But the controversy did not end there.

Five years later he found himself challenged by a group of licensed physicians in .

The Milanese doctors charged Fioravanti with “failure to medicate in the canonical way, as we

do.” Fioravanti ended up in prison for malpractice. Writing years later, Fioravanti suggested the

reason for his incarceration stemmed from the legal medical community’s fear of competition.

The eccentric healer claimed to challenge the “professional physicians” of Milan with a concrete proposal: let them treat twenty or twenty-five sick patients while he treated the same number of

similarly ill people; if Fioravanti could not cure his patients more quickly and efficiently than his professional competitors, he would leave the city forever. No record of any response, if such a proposal was ever really made, exists. Fioravanti gained his freedom shortly afterwards. 103

Leonardo Fioravanti’s literary war on official medicine began with his earliest publications. Fioravanti directed a two-pronged attack: he questioned the intellectual authority of the ancients, and he dismissed modern university professors who institutionalized the old learning and politicized healing during the sixteenth century. “I say we must throw out the methods, techniques and teachings of the ancients,” wrote Fioravanti in 1565. 104 The daring

healer directed particular suspicion at the Aristotelian analysis of “cause” and “effect” and the

102 Fioravanti, Tesoro della vita humana , fol. 83r. 103 See Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature , 179. 104 Fioravanti, Del regimento della peste , fol. 117v. In the pages below, I hope to demonstrate that Fioravanti, whether he realized it or not, accepted much of ancient medical learning. But, for now, let us continue with his critique of official medicine. 262 subsequent emphasis on rationalization derived from “first principles,” that characterized so much of later western medicine.

The physicians [university] insist that the empirics do not know the cause of an

infirmity. But I have never seen any doctor really treat a cause. I have medicated and

have seen others medicate the disease, which is the effect. The cause is always first, the

effect follows after. As the cause is never cured, but only the effect is, why should you

have to know about the cause when it is never cured? To treat a wound you have to

know what is important to the wound, not why the man was wounded. 105

For Fioravanti, the highly intellectualized, theoretical disputes of philosophers and

logicians contributed nothing to the true art of healing. The university professor’s insidious

attempt to substitute trivializing, academic word-playing for empirically derived knowledge

aborted medical progress. Only experience, trial and error, time-tested solutions, and rigorous

attempts to catalogue valuable ideas could improve the art of medicine. “I put more belief in a

little experience,” wrote Fioravanti in 1561, “than in all the theories of the world put together.” 106

Fully understanding Fioravanti’s position requires analyzing his use of the word

“experience.” By experience, the self-styled empiric seems to have meant two main things: (a) extensive travel, collecting, surveying, chronicling and gleaning the ideas, methods, and techniques of anyone and everyone who manipulated the elements of the physical world in order

105 Fioravanti, De’ capricci medicinali , fol. 34r. Fioravanti’s remark “Se uno sara ferito, bisogna saper di che importanzia sia la ferita e non la cause perche e’ stato ferito,” has emerged as an oft-quoted statement in social and cultural histories of medicine. In my view, Fioravanti’s grasp of Aristotelian philosophy exceeded the overly simplistic logic displayed in his coy remarks about the wounded man. 106 Ibid., fol. 32v. 263 to find solutions to practical problems, and (b) systematically observing, recording, studying and testing nature for the hidden secrets bound within the earth and the cosmos. For Fioravanti, cures for illness resided within the physical world and the earth’s properties. But healers had yet to adequately observe nature and study the physical world. Learned physicians studied books, analyzed riddles, and wrestled with linguistically determined logic games. Their futile efforts held no potential to improve the art of medicine. They looked in the wrong places.

With this anti-modern, primitivist disposition and aversion to academic study, Fioravanti looked to the most basic human endeavors for solutions to medical problems. The shepherds who cared for animals, the farmers who planted seeds, the wet nurses who nurtured children—these were the people best qualified to develop practical solutions to basic human challenges, for they proceeded from experience. “I have witnessed very many peasants, artisans, citizens and other normal men, who without ever gaining even the slightest knowledge of medical methodology have uncovered many pretty secrets and experiences in medicine and have had many experiences with different sorts of infirmities,” wrote Fioravanti in 1561. 107 These people prospered, argued

Fioravanti, precisely because they were not constrained by theory. Instead, they were guided by

experience; their positions on sickness and health and their conclusions about medicine were

gleaned by what they had observed over time-tested trials and tribulations. For the true healer,

experience shaped and molded belief and daily observation informed flexible bodies of theory.

For the misguided “learned physician,” all experience had to be understood within the limits of

accepted theory and all observations hammered into the constraining borders of orthodox belief.

The physicians will study a very fine theory; they will discover the causes of infirmities

107 Ibid., fol. 21r-v. 264 and remedies to cure them, and they when they come upon some difficult case, they

will not know how to produce a cure. Then some very old experienced hag will come

along, who, with the rules of life and some enema will make the fever cease, with an

unction will make the pain go away, and with some fomentation will make the patient

sleep; and in so doing, the old hag will know better than the physician. 108

Eamon, Camporesi, and others have argued that Fioravanti’s primitivist, anti-intellectual

views and consistent emphasis on purging and evacuating the body of impurities directly reflect

ideational tendencies consistent with sixteenth-century religious reformation and Catholic

exorcism. As provocative as these ideas may be, I am content to consider Fioravanti’s criticism

of learned medicine on a more basic level here. In the literary war of words between professional physicians and neo-scholarly empirics, Leonardo Fioravanti typified the best of the latter. By placing experiential learning and empirically derived ideas above theoretically determined

knowledge, Fioravanti pulled the rug out from under those university professors locked behind

closed doors and rendered their self-proclaimed monopoly on truth worthless. Only the itinerant

traveler, the wandering collector, and the curious experimenter inhabited the truly valuable arena

of learning—nature’s physical landscapes; the valleys, streams, meadows, and forests that

composed mother earth.

Fioravanti’s nihilistic sweep of learned medicine equaled Laurent Joubert’s dismissal of

empirics in both nature and scope. For Fioravanti, the rise of institutionalized medicine

undermined the art of healing. When the state reserved the legal right to practice medicine for

108 Fioravanti, Della fisica dell’ecellente dottore Leonardo Fioravanti . Also see Eamon, “With the Rules of Life and an Enema,” 29-44, and Science and the Secrets of Nature , especially 186-187, as well as Camporesi, La miniera del mondo, artieri, inventori, impostori, 10-11. 265 university doctorates, vast numbers of ordinary people were denied proper medical care. The politics of exclusion kept the numbers of doctors low, their incomes high, and the sick in dire straits. 109

Leonardo Fioravanti seemed to think himself a rather unique individual. But the man was

neither exceptional nor peerless. In many ways, his life, career, and natural philosophy closely

resemble those of another sixteenth-century Italian humanist named Girolamo Ruscelli.

Girolamo Ruscelli (1500-ca. 1566), also known as Alessio Piemontese, was one of the

“professors of secrets” criticized by Tommaso Garzoni in 1585. 110 But Ruscelli also had many

admirers. In fact, Francesco Sansovino tells us that Ruscelli enjoyed a fine reputation as a

scholar and man of learning among Italy’s finest academics. 111 Indeed, Ruscelli traveled

extensively, studied language, translated ancient books, composed poetry, and published works

of literary criticism. He also practiced alchemy, wrote books on natural philosophy, and formed

organizations dedicated to research and learning. But most importantly, for my purposes,

Ruscelli displayed a keen interest in medicine and healing in the sixteenth century. 112

Like many others discussed above, Girolamo Ruscelli graduated from the University of

109 Fioravanti, Secreti medicinali, fol. 26. 110 Garzoni, La Piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo, fol. 80v. Readers will recall that Piemontese/Ruscelli was also criticized by Thomas Browne in print (see above). 111 For Sansovino’s praise, see Piemontese, Secreti nuovi di maravigliosa virtu , fol. ii, from my copy microfilmed by Venice’s Biblioteca Marciana. 112 The best insights into Girolamo Ruscelli/Alessio Piemontese can be found in the man’s books. See Secreti del reverendo donno Alessio piemontese and Secreti nuovi di maravigliosa virtu . In the second volume, Ruscelli claimed to be Alessio Piemontese. I have seen several publications in the archives of the University of Padua written by “Girolamo Ruscelli, a.k.a. Alessio Piemontese.” Secreti del reverendo donno Alessio piemontese ranks as one of the most heralded publications in 16 th -century Europe. Shortly after its appearance in 1555, it was translated into Latin, French, English, Dutch, and German. By the end of the seventeenth century, close to one hundred editions were printed in virtually every western European language. Ruscelli/Piemontese achieved a level of notoriety far in excess of Leonardo Fioravanti. See Maylender, Storia delle accademie d’Italia, as well as Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature and “Science and Popular Culture in Sixteenth-Century Italy, 471-485. See also Eamon and Paheau, “The Accademia Segreta of Girolamo Ruscelli,” 327-342. In addition, consult the following: Ferguson, “The Secrets of Alexis;” Ferguson, Bibliographical Notes on Histories of Invention ; Ferrari, I Secreti Medicinali, Cultura Popolare Nell’Emilia Romagna, Medicina, Erbe e Magia, “ Federazione Delle Casse di Risparmio e Delle Banche Del Monte Dell’Emilia e Romagna,” 82-97; Camporesi, La miniera del mondo, artieri, inventori, impostori; Stillman, “The Accademia dei Lincei;” and Middleton, The Experimenters: A Study of the Accademia del Cimento . 266 Padua. Although he did not take a medical degree, Ruscelli gleaned an insatiable interest in natural philosophy during his studies in northern Italy. But Ruscelli also developed an aversion to scholasticism, Aristotelianism, and conventional education while at Padua. After graduation,

Ruscelli traveled to Rome and contributed to the development of educational academies dedicated to the study of nature and philosophy. The goals of Ruscelli and his colleagues, if we may take them at their word, were to establish institutions dedicated to experimental research, the development of practical knowledge, and the enhancement of utilitarian scientific learning.

Ruscelli helped develop an institution called Accademia Segreta during the 1540s . The

Academy emerged as an establishment dedicated to the acquisition of “secrets” and the cataloging of remedies, formulas, and recipes to help people deal with the basic challenges and issues of everyday life. “Experimentalism” quickly emerged as the working methodology and official epistemological philosophy of the academy and medicine became their prime concern.

Ruscelli’s Accademia Segreta developed remedies and formulas for curing illness through the trials and tribulations of repeated tests, systematic observation, and meticulous record keeping.

In his medical literature, Ruscelli ignored Aristotelian rationalism and scholastic philosophy, deemphasizing the significance humoural theory placed upon balance and moderation for healthy regimens. Unlike scholarly works of sixteenth-century medicine, no

“philosophy of the body” or general statement regarding healthy lifestyles exists at the outset of

Ruscelli’s books. Also dismissed were the official drugs of classical pharmacology, composed of ingredients authorized by Hippocrates, Galen, and Dioscorides. Replacing the ancient pharmaceutical tradition of university with an eclectic mix of “secrets” that could be not be traced back to any single, coherent, systematic school of medicine, Ruscelli offered his own

“materia medica.” In fact, well over one thousand medicinal recipes and formulas seem to have 267 been produced by Ruscelli’s “ Accademia Segreta” in about five years, and the vast majority were catalogued in Secreti nuovi (1555) and I secreti (1567).

Ruscelli’s Secreti nuovi provides insightful understanding of the Accademia Segreta .

Here, Ruscelli explains how local physicians participated in the academy, administering the newly created drugs developed by the institution. More importantly, Ruscelli describes the philosophy of ‘experimentalism’ central to the Academy. The goal of the academy, Ruscelli explains, was to “try out” or “prove” all the secrets and formulas in manuscripts or printed books rarely consulted by most contemporaries. In addition, the group would test their own ideas and produce their own recipes. The Academy adopted a methodological position: all of the recipes endorsed would be “proven”—and here the word seems to be best translated as “tested”—three times before accepted as trustworthy. As Ruscelli explains:

During our years together, we constantly experimented on all the secrets that could be

recovered from books, printed or written by hand, ancient or modern, and in so doing,

we adopted a method and a style; the method of experimentation; a better method

cannot be found or dreamed up. Of all those secrets we found to be true by doing three

experiments on each. 113

This position demonstrates the collective dissatisfaction with the methodology,

epistemology, and modes of knowledge construction previously deployed by medical philosophers, university professors and private academies dedicated to research. 114

In Secreti del reverendo donno Alessio Piemontese , Ruscelli critiques scholastic

113 Ruscelli, Secreti nuovi, fols. 3v-4r in my volume, professionally microfilmed from Venice’s Marciana Biblioteca. 114 See Eamon and Paheau, “The Accademia Segreta of Girolamo Ruscelli,” 75: 327-342. 268 epistemology and the traditional theories of knowledge which dominated sixteenth-century

European universities. Qualifying the significance and relevance of human reason to matters of natural philosophy, Ruscelli writes, “The appointment and determination of God, concerning the life and death of man is so secret and so far beyond the capacity of man’s reason and understanding, that we know not when God hath prefixed the term of our life.” Nevertheless,

Ruscelli encourages his fellow man to fight sickness and poor health, writing, “In our infirmities and weakness, we [must] use those remedies that God hath created.”

In an early section, Ruscelli describes his background and relationship with learning:

From my earliest youth being given to studies, I have mastered not only knowledge of

Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Caldei and Arabic tongue, and also of many other nations and

countries. But above all things, having by a natural inclination, taken a singular

pleasure in philosophy, and in the secrets of nature, I have wandered and traveled

abroad in the world the space of many years, with the of gaining all sorts of

learning from all types of different men. Through diligence and curiosity I have learned

many good secrets, not only from men of great knowledge, but also of poor men,

artificers, peasants, and all sorts of men….I have traveled many times to the Levant and

all over the entire world, never staying in any single place for more than six months, all

for the purpose of gaining knowledge of the universal sciences.

Recipes to cure gout, end baldness, remedy plague, heal wounds, treat burns, and the like

appear throughout this volume, generally written in itemized fashion, with one or two substantial paragraphs for each particular subject. After explaining his triple-test method, in which each 269 recipe is “proven” three times, Ruscelli further democratizes his approach, assuring the reader that physicians, surgeons, empirics, statesmen, gentlemen, monks, women, and ordinary peasants all participated in the assessment process. Indeed, “learned men of honor” may be able to

“provide a great many more reasons and explanations” of such things related to health and healing, but Ruscelli produces concrete, readily accessible, practical solutions to real human problems. In fact, Ruscelli anticipates unjust criticism from his over-intellectualized competitors, warning the reader that professional physicians, “moved by a certain pain and envy grounded in evil, with a streak of jealousy, are disposed to blame and attack things that they have not originated.” 115

Indeed, Ruscelli explains his motivation for publishing his secrets in a fashion critical of professional medicine and the state of sixteenth-century healing. Relaying a story of a dying

man, Ruscelli reflects upon an unfortunate bit of professional competition between himself and a

licensed surgeon in Milan. According to Ruscelli, a surgeon who knew his reputation for

medicinal remedies and rare secrets of nature consulted Ruscelli about the possibility of helping

a desperate artisan. Reluctant to share his secrets because he sensed the surgeon would “use them

for his own profit and honor,” Ruscelli offered to treat the sick man himself, free of charge. But

the surgeon refused the offer, fearing such a thing would ruin his professional reputation. After

much bickering and squabbling, according to Ruscelli, both the professor of secrets and the

licensed surgeon appeared at the sick bed of the artisan. But alas, the healers appeared too late:

I found him [the sick man] so near his life’s end that after he lifted up his eyes a little,

115 Piemontese, Secreti del reverendo donno Alessio piemontese , from my copy professionally microfilmed by Venice’s Marciana Biblioteca; see “ Lettori ;” Secreti, fol. *iii. Many different editions of this volume were printed in the sixteenth and seventeenth century; hence, pagination may vary. 270 casting them pitifully towards me, he passed from this world into a better life, not

having any need or use either of my secrets nor any other ideas with which to recover

his health.

Ruscelli claims to have retired to a secluded life in Piedmont shortly afterwards. But his conscience would not let him rest. As he relates in Secreti :

Not having any power to put this experience out of my imagination, I soon realized that

I was a murderer. For refusing to give the physician my secret remedy for the healing of

this poor man, I was in fact guilty. [Therefore] I have determined to publish and

communicate to the world, all that I have, quite sure that few others have as much

information as myself. I shall put forth the most true and proved collection [of ideas];

true and experimented, not caring if some of them be written or printed in other books

than this one. 116

Did this story actually happen as Ruscelli describes? Can we take this tale literally? It

would be foolish to underestimate Ruscelli’s penchant for rhetoric. Indeed, he was not even

“Girolamo Ruscelli” in this story. In this book, the good doctor passed himself off as Alessio

Piemontese. But whether literally true, embellished, or patently false, the story probably reveals

something at the forefront of Ruscelli’s mind, if not close to his heart: the disappointment he felt

concerning the state of healing. Professional jealousies, competition for patients, and battles for pride and reputation among healers from various backgrounds greatly detracted from the art of

116 Piemontese, Secreti del reverendo donno Alessio piemontese , “Lettori;” Secreti, fol. *ii. 271 healing. Turf wars and scathing critiques among different types of medical practitioners from different levels of the social scale emerged in the European medical marketplace.

But if such rivalries depressed Ruscelli, he did not refrain from participating in the war of words between licensed physicians and amateur healers himself. Indeed, one finds self-serving anecdotes, self-promoting analysis, and indirect dismissal of his main competition in much of

Ruscelli’s medical literature. A few examples shall suffice.

In 1518, while traveling on a ship captained by Pietro De Chioggia, heading from Milan to Corfu, Ruscelli claimed to experience an attack by pirates. “One of the mariners obtained a badly broken and badly burned arm,” explained Ruscelli. “The physician would have cut off the arm,” remembers Ruscelli, “but among other things I carried about with me, I had just the ointment necessary.” Ruscelli claims to have successfully treated the man’s wounded limb. “In the space of five to seven days,” claims the good doctor, “he was miraculously healed.” This was no stroke of luck, according to Ruscelli, as he concludes the tale by reminding the reader, “I have had many such experiences.” 117

In Secreti del reverendo donno Alessio , Ruscelli relates the story of a woman who suffered stomach problems for years, despite treatment from many learned physicians. To add credibility to his story, Ruscelli claims to have worked upon this woman with “a monk, of the order of St. Augustine, a man of great knowledge and full of marvelous secrets.” Ruscelli had the woman sleep with a special plaster upon her belly, fed her a diet of “gentle meats,” with “plenty of cinnamon and safron,” and “sliced oranges.” He had the sick woman drink his special “Acqua

Vite,” with “crushed flowers of Rosemary,” in the morning and the evening. Before long, the woman was “restored to health, made whole, colored and fair as before her illness…when no

117 The Secretes of the Reverende Maister Alexis of Piedmont, containing excellete remedies against divers diseases, fol. 17-18. 272 physician could ever find a remedy for her during her sickness.” 118

In Secreti nuovi , Ruscelli describes the collective disposition of the members composing

Accademia Segreta . “In addition to our pleasure and utility,” writes Ruscelli, “we devoted

ourselves equally to the benefit of the world in general and in particular, by reducing to certainty

and true knowledge so many most useful and important secrets of all kinds, for all sorts of

119 people, by they poor, ignorant, male or female, young or old.” One needs only a superficial familiarity with common perceptions of licensed medical practitioners during the sixteenth- century to sense the criticism implicit in these remarks. With these words, Ruscelli takes issue with regular physicians who treat only those capable of payment and ivory-towered medical philosophers who research, preach, and study for the benefit of small groups of colleagues.

But in the long run, Girolamo Ruscelli may have been aiming higher. Indeed, this globe-

trotting master of classical languages, author, healer, and founder of institutions dedicated to

“developing knowledge of the universal sciences,” may have had more than social criticism in

mind. In a larger sense, Girolamo Ruscelli may be remembered as a man dedicated to eradicating

the methodological errors that inhibited the advancement of natural philosophy. Ironically, only

two years after Ruscelli’s death, the man most closely associated with this endeavor in the annals

of traditional Renaissance histories was born.

* * * * *

In 1987, historian Peter Urbach argued that during the late seventeenth and early

eighteenth centuries, most European intellectuals considered Francis Bacon the “Father of

118 Piemontese, Secreti del reverendo donno Alessio piemontese , fol. 10r. 119 Piemontese, Secreti nuovi di maravigliosa virtu , Proem, fol. 3v. 273 .” 120 Admittedly, the view has not gone unchallenged. Furthermore,

“experimentalism” represents a loaded term and easily misunderstood concept in the context of

early modern European natural philosophy. Indeed, Francis Bacon (1568-1626) may be

considered a great Renaissance figure, but he had little patience with the basic intellectual

orientation of scholarly Renaissance natural philosophy. Examining Bacon’s style of

experimentalism allows us to appreciate the variety, diversity, and complexity of philosophical

thought during the early modern period.

Francis Bacon looked suspiciously at discursive activities that relied upon inherited doctrines, or sets of beliefs from the distant past, as the basis for theorizing. Bacon believed that seventeenth-century natural philosophy would not improve until inherited doctrines had been swept away and replaced by networks of experimentally derived principles and ideas. 121

Although Bacon separated religion and philosophy, he held that the two could co-exist. 122 Where

faith is based on revelation, for Bacon, philosophy ought to be based on reason. Crucially,

according to Bacon, the reason informing philosophy need be based on empirically derived

information.

“Men have sought to make a world from their own conception and to draw from their

own minds all the material which they have employed,” Bacon once wrote. “If instead of doing

so,” Bacon suggested, “if men would only consult experience and observation, they would have

the facts and not opinions to reason with, and might ultimately arrive at knowledge of the laws

120 Urbach, Francis Bacon’s Philosophy of Science , 4. 121 Most modern texts on Francis Bacon reflect some form of this idea. See Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, 7, and Kuhn, “Mathematical versus Experimental Traditions,” 31-65, especially 34. See also Ash, Power, Knowledge, and Expertise in Elizabethan England , especially the Introduction, iii, and chap. 4, “Francis Bacon and the Expertise of Natural Philosophy.” See also Farrington, The Philosophy of Bacon, especially chap. 3, “The Refutation of Philosophies.” 122 McKnight, The Religious Foundations of Francis Bacon’s Thought,; see the introduction. 274 which govern the material world.” 123 Bacon held that men of his generation did not understand nature because they had never adequately consulted, observed, and studied the physical world.

Bacon’s theory of knowledge depended upon acute observation of nature and physical phenomena.

The discovery of things useful to life is not to be looked for from the abstract

philosophies, as it were the greater gods, no not through they devote their whole powers

to that special end…but [instead] from sagacious experience and the universal

knowledge of nature, which will often by a kind of accident, and as it were while

engaged in hunting, stumble upon such discoveries. 124

Much has been written about Bacon and inductive reasoning. The traditional interpretation of the “inductive method,” in which networks of observations of particulars gradually constitute a scaffold from which logicians formulate general laws, graphically oversimplifies Bacon’s original idea. Bacon used analogy, conjecture, imagination, and intuition when inferentially combining observations to reach conclusions. 125 Bacon also held that no one could infer knowledge about physical phenomena by observations gleaned in isolated fashion or overly precise contexts; observations about the evaporation of water or a flower’s bloom must be contextualized against an imposing backdrop of axiomatic complexity regarding nature in general. For Bacon, one should not study evaporation under a tightly controlled experiment with strictly monitored variables; instead, one needed to consider evaporation in as many different

123 Bacon, De augmentis scientiarum (1609), cited from Vickers, ed., Francis Bacon: The Major Works, 24. 124 Bacon, De sapientia Veterum (1609), quoted from Eamon, “With the Rules of Life and an Enema,” 30. 125 See Park, “Bacon’s ‘Enchanted Glass,’” 290-302. 275 contexts as possible. Simply put, Bacon’s “inductive method” was a good deal less systematic than the “inductive reasoning” later associated with the fictive Sherlock Holmes. Western school children learn of “Bacon’s Inductive Method”—from one fact, deduce another; from sets of facts, produce an axiom; rigorously tested axioms may be combined to produce laws—but Bacon himself might not have endorsed such a method. 126

Nevertheless, Francis Bacon rejected the scholastic style of knowledge production which

relied upon rigorous logic and rational deduction proceeding from sets of orthodox principles. He

turned his back on the deductive syllogistic style of philosophy used in early modern

universities. In De augmentis scientiarum , Bacon suggested a methodology of learning in which

“new knowledge is discovered by ingenious adaptation of existing knowledge, rather than by

formal inference from fundamental principles.” 127

According to Bacon, the derivation of experimentally produced knowledge should initiate an endless cycle. Upon discovering a new relationship, Bacon suggested, one must ask what other ideas related to this newfound truth might also be valid. Bacon reversed the order of steps within given experiments to determine if corresponding knowledge, related to the conclusions drawn from the original inquiry, might also be gained. Sir Francis believed that multiple explanations of any given phenomena could be simultaneously valid. Bacon held that simply because a given principle or axiom had been determined true, it did not mean that other possibilities related to the point in question might not also be true. Water extinguished fire, but

certain amounts of water, under certain conditions, might also enhance fire. Glass was created by

heating sand, but glass might also be forged by some other totally distinct method. In short,

126 See Webster, From Paracelsus to Newton and The Great Instauration, as well as Webster, ed., Health, Medicine and Mortality . Also see Schmitt, Reappraisals in Renaissance Thought . 127 See Jardine, Francis Bacon: Discovery and the Art of Discourse, 144. See also Farrington, The Philosophy of Bacon , chap. 3, “The Refutation of Philosophies.” 276 Francis Bacon believed nature teemed with infinite dynamics, unlimited sets of relationships, and never-ending possibilities. Broad sets of “truths” derived from orthodox principles hardly reflected the Baconian theory of knowledge. 128

At first glance, it would seem reasonable to conclude that Francis Bacon’s natural philosophy and theory of knowledge dovetailed neatly with those of Alessio Piemontese,

Leonardo Fioravanti, and Isabella Cortese. Like “ i professori de secreti ,” Bacon engaged in the

“hunt for knowledge,” hoping to stumble upon those hidden secrets stored in the bosom of mother nature. Like Paracelsus, it would appear, Bacon believed nature to be teeming with life.

Indeed, it would be a quick jump to assume that Bacon believed all things within the physical world contained a basic “nature” of their own, as Paracelsus did, and that this “nature”could be unlocked and utilized for practical purposes. Furthermore, upon superficial examination, Bacon’s natural philosophy and theory of knowledge would seem to resemble that of Levinus Lemnius.

Both men viewed nature as a giant storehouse filled with delicacies awaiting human appropriation. Neither man seemed to care much for the subtle, nuanced hair-splitting of ancient philosophers with their emphasis on “cause,” “effect,” and “first principles.” Both Lemnius and

Bacon were primarily interested in useful knowledge, rather than thought for thought’s sake.

Indeed, with regards to their respective natural philosophy and theories of knowledge, the Dutch- born Lemnius, the Italians Piemontese, Fioravanti, and Cortese, the German-born Cornelius

Agrippa, the Englishmen John Symcotts, George Starkey, and Nicholas Culpepper, and the

French-born Ambrose Paré, would all seem to share crucial epistemological and metaphysical positions with Francis Bacon. Unlike Laurent Joubert, Scipione Mercurio, Tommaso Garzoni,

James Primrose, John Securis, and Johannes Dryander, the former group of natural philosophers

128 See Solomon and Martin, eds., Francis Bacon and the Refiguring of Early Modern Thought ; see also Henry, Knowledge is Power , and Rossi, Francis Bacon: From Magic to Science . 277 seemingly cared little for scholastic knowledge and the traditional orthodoxy of early modern universities.

With regards to natural philosophy in general and the art of healing in particular, we would seem to have a sharp divide separating two distinct camps, as outlined above. But that is only if we accept the binary arrangement of medical practitioners Laurent Joubert established in his 1578 Erreurs populaires . Falling into the polemical trap set by Joubert and his followers may help us organize our ideas about early modern medical philosophers, but doing so necessitates ignoring more than we consider.

If we describe various styles of natural philosophy deployed and the sum total of technical practices devised to cure illness during the Renaissance as “early modern healing,” we are talking about a daunting complexity of theory and action. The vast collection of discursive practices included in such a category cannot be meaningfully arranged in bipolar fashion. Even

the seeming similarities between Francis Bacon, the famous critic of scholasticism and “Father

of Modern Experimentalism,” and the “professors of secrets,” do not stand up to critical scrutiny.

* * * * *

According to Francis Bacon, most seventeenth-century natural philosophers tended to

neglect experimentation. But that hardly means Bacon approved of the quality of

experimentation that was being performed in the universities, academies, salons, and workshops

of the later Renaissance. In his voluminous literature, Bacon commented on many different

forms of experimentation conducted throughout Europe. Sir Francis rarely flattered his fellow

experimenters and colleagues in the field of natural philosophy. 278 In criticism that may well have been directed at the style of experimentation conducted by the Royal Society of London, where seventeenth-century natural philosophers worked to minimize variables, establish consistency, and maintain standardization in their experimental processes, Bacon complained about technicians who worked in conspicuously small and closed contexts. For Bacon, as described above, proper inquiries into nature were characterized by large questions on grand scales, so as to properly appreciate the huge of sweep of things in the physical world. Hence, Bacon criticized the scholarly Englishman William Gilbert, who prepared

129 a lengthy experimental treatise on the magnet in 1600. “The inquiry must be enlarged,” remarked Bacon, “so as to be more general.” In a series of remarks that may have also been directed at the Paracelsians, Bacon said, “no one successfully investigates the nature of a thing in the thing itself.” 130 Bacon believed the only way Gilbert could meaningfully understand the magnet, including its potential healing properties, would be to observe the object against the backdrop of the larger physical world. Sir Francis also seemed to think it silly to spend so much time worrying about magnets—a sentiment many scholars shared in their collective criticism of popular magicians and uneducated folks.

But Bacon also criticized learned natural magicians and their experiments. In a series of remarks that may well have been aimed at Giovanni Della Porta and his legion of followers,

Bacon criticized the preoccupation of natural magicians with provoking wonder. The natural

129 Gilbert, De magnete . 130 Cited in Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature , 288. Although Eamon offers no such argument, my feeling is that Bacon objected to the Paracelsian idea that all things contained a certain “virtue,” or core property, that might be called a ’s “nature.” Paracelsus believed the “natures” of things in the physical world could be liberated by chemical manipulation and utilized for healing purposes. Manifestations of this idea existed at many different levels of both early modern and ancient natural philosophy. At the nucleus of an onion resided pure “onionness.” At times, Bacon seemed to fall in line with such thinking. After all, his remark that “no one successfully investigates the nature of a thing in the thing itself,” implies that all things have an inner nature. But in my investigation of Baconian literature, ideas about liberating the “essence” or getting at the “vital spark” of something were usually dismissed. 279 magicians, according to Sir Francis, believed themselves to be privileged illuminators whose knowledge exceeded those natural philosophers of normal . The very phrases and labels such as “natural magician” and “cunning man,” Bacon implied, were shot through with implications of superiority. But Bacon derisively equated natural magicians with the clowns at the circus; their main purpose was to baffle, amaze, and astonish. Even when natural magicians achieved something of potential interest, they did so mainly to entertain, rather than master some useful practice or technique. As explained above, the scholarly physician James Primrose once argued that any authentic remedy or legitimate cure had to be grounded in a rational explanation; real remedies were only “secrets” to those who failed to understand the relationship between cause and effect and the nature of disease. Bacon sounded very much like Primrose when he wrote, “The mark of genuine science is that its explanations take the mystery out of things.” 131

But Francis Bacon may have directed his most incisive critique at the late sixteenth-

century “professors of secrets.” Bacon charged “ I professori de secreti ” with fundamentally

misunderstanding nature. In looking for this little secret here, that wonderful trick there, and the promise of new recipes to be found only in the Levant, these silly people failed to appreciate the

comprehensiveness and interconnectedness of nature. “Wandering and straying as they do with

no settled course, taking counsel only from things as they fall out,” wrote Bacon, “they fetch a

wide circuit and meet with many matters, but make little progress.” 132 Like a scholastic philosopher immersed in Galenic humoral theory, Bacon chided the naïve collector of secrets

who thought himself in possession of some aberration or inexplicable dynamic in nature after a

recent purchase at some ridiculous carnival. “What in some things is accounted a secret has in

131 Cited from Bacon, Refutation of Philosophers , in Farrington, The Philosophy of Bacon , 123; cf. Bacon, Novum Organum , in Works , 4:71-72. See also Rossi, Francis Bacon: From Magic to Science, 19-23, and Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature , 289. 132 Bacon, Novum Organum , in Works , 4:87, 104, 107; see also Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature , 289. 280 others a manifest and well-known nature,” Bacon remarked, “which will never be recognized as long as the thoughts and experiments of men are engaged only in the former.” 133

As Eamon has pointed out, Bacon denounced the practice, characteristic of the books of secrets literary tradition, of random compilation of experiments in bound volumes. Bacon insisted that experiments must be properly reported and arranged in tables, or “histories,” designed to lead investigators systematically toward axioms and larger principles. 134 Any student investigating the table of contents in a work from Piemontese, Fioravanti, Cortese, Zapata,

Timotheo Rossello, Pietro Bairo, Tommaso Bovio, Giovanni Capello, or any other author associated with the “books of secrets” tradition will instantly understand the criticism. The volumes all seem to lack meaningful arrangement or sense of order. Recipes and formulas remain listed in seemingly random fashion with little or no implication of larger meaning.

In a series of criticisms that may well have been aimed at Girolamo Ruscelli and the

Accademia Segreta , Bacon criticized the perception of experimentation he sensed among the professors of secrets. “Whereas the professors of secrets conceived of experiments as tests of whether a recipe worked,” William Eamon explains, “for Bacon an experiment represented an attempt to find an entrance into the secret of nature’s workshop.” 135 But if Bacon had entered

Girolamo Ruscelli’s workshop and experienced all the different aspects of the Paduan’s approach to natural philosophy, Sir Francis may have been pleasantly surprised. In many ways, Girolamo

Ruscelli was more “scholarly physician” and less “vernacular empiric” than simple observation might imply.

133 Cited in Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature , 289. 134 Ibid. 135 Ibid., 289. Eamon quotes Bacon from Novum Organum , in Works , 4:87, 104, 107. 281 * * * * *

Girolamo Ruscelli shunned the broad, imprecise remedies of Galenic medicine designed to restore “humoural balance” and the comprehensive “regimens of health,” which required long- term alterations in lifestyle for effectiveness. Instead, Ruscelli revealed the power inherent in nature by spelling out the formulas, concoctions, and solutions that worked when directly applied to specific medical problems. Empirically derived, tested, and proven by experimentation,

Ruscelli’s remedies offered sufferers immediate relief. In fact, no theories of “healthy regimens” or “philosophy of the body” exist in the preambles of Ruscelli’s books, as the culture of early modern scholarly medical publication generally required. Nor did Ruscelli pay homage to

Aristotelian rationalism and scholastic philosophy in his discourse on health and healing.

Semantic word-playing and intellectual jostling apparently meant little to Ruscelli and his audience. Nevertheless, a close look at Ruscelli’s work reveals many fundamental similarities between the healing methods of Accademia Segreta and the medical philosophy of early modern

European universities.

First of all, Ruscelli did utilize many basic concepts of humoral theory in his rambling discourse on healing. Concepts like “humours” and “complexion,” words like “balance” and

“moderation,” can be found in much of Ruscelli’s medical literature, even if the good doctor never started a book which proceeded from a working theory of the body, health, sickness, and healing based on such concepts. At times, Ruscelli’s insistence upon medicating during certain times of the year falls in line with learned astrological medicine of the Renaissance. At other times, Ruscelli’s encouragement to purge the body of corruption or eliminate putrefaction would seem to be directly derived from the pages of a sixteenth-century university text. Ruscelli rarely, 282 if ever, explained the concepts of humours or the ideas behind complexion, nor did he indicate why it might be helpful to medicate in September or October; he simply utilized basic theories of learned medical philosophy.

For some examples, let us begin with a topic Ruscelli believed himself fully qualified to address: pestilence and epidemics. Toward the end of Book I in I secreti del reverendo donno

Alessio piemontese , Ruscelli offers one of his many sections on such questions. But this particular entry sounds closer to orthodox humoural theory than the “book of secrets” tradition:

An advertisement and warning of great importance to preserve a man’s life in

times of pestilence .

Because the evil humors that exist in man’s body can easily be corrupted and infected

by bad air, it is good to keep the stomach and the head clean and purged, not to

overload them with eating and drinking, but to abstain from gross meats, and to purge

himself as often as possible after overeating of bad things with some gentle and familiar

[element] of purgation. 136

Ruscelli’s suggestions to “clean,” “purge,” and “abstain from overloading,” reveal a concern with balance, whether conscious or otherwise, that is almost certainly related to scholarly notions of humoural balance. Similarly, the curious use of the word “corruption”

(corruzione ) belies a strong scholarly influence. At the early modern university, properly ordered, well-functioning bodies enjoyed humoural balance with healthy complexions, characterized by harmonious amounts of heat and moisture; no word more succinctly defined the

136 I secreti del reverendo donno Alessio Piemontese , fol. 43v in my volume, professionally microfilmed by Venice’s Marciana Biblioteca. 283 loss of humoural balance better than “corrupted.”

On folio 4 of Book I in I secreti del reverendo Alessio piemontese , Ruscelli suggests a

“potion or drink, to be used instead of syrup, good for men of all complexions, that will drive away the evil humours.” 137 Later, in the very same section, this professor of secrets suggests a solution “that is to be taken twice a year, unlike some ordinary medicine; once in the Spring time and once in September.” 138 On the twelfth page of the same volume Ruscelli casually declares

that “all manners of canker disease and sores, which are commonly called pustules, actually

come from putrified humours.” 139 Several sections later, Ruscelli describes a remedy for “all sorts of pockes” that will “draw away evil humours” from any part of the body. The patient must simply apply the solution on the “corrupted part of the body.” The remedy will “draw all the corruption from such places,” and “restore balance” and good health. 140

These considerations hardly prove that Girolamo Ruscelli belonged to the scholarly camp of Renaissance physicians. Indeed, Ruscelli practically defined himself as one of the sixteenth- century’s “professor’s of secrets.” His two major books contain the word “ secreti ’ in the title.

Like most writers working in the “books of secrets” genre, Ruscelli did not preface his books

with elaborate theories of the body, discourses on disease, or long-winded discussions of cause

and effect. Judging by his literary style, one might conclude that Ruscelli was not a medical philosopher. The “secrets” of Alessio Piemontese did not flow from any systematic theory of

health, sickness, and healing. Early modern European universities considered legitimate medical practitioners to be natural philosophers engaged in healing. But there is nothing to indicate that

Girolamo Ruscelli shared that view.

137 Ibid., fol. 4v. 138 Ibid. 139 Ibid., fol. 12v. 140 Ibid., fol. 14r. 284 Or is there? In the proem of Secreti nuovi (fols. 1-7), one finds several interesting passages regarding Ruscelli’s thoughts on the art of healing. This book was organized by

Ruscelli’s nephew and published after Ruscelli’s death. Hence, there exists the possibility that

Ruscelli never intended for the proem to be published. At the very least, we may consider the possibility that Ruscelli never intended the proem to serve as the introduction to Secreti nuovi .

Nevertheless, the proem survives, and in it we read about Ruscelli’s Accademia Segreta :

Our intention was first and foremost to study and learn about ourselves, there being no

other study or discipline (this is especially true in natural philosophy) than such to

make the most diligent inquiries. A true anatomy of the things and operations of Nature

itself follows [the study of the self]. For one sees that the origin and development of

medicine, as well as the other disciplines central to human life, and the very ornaments

and things of the world, as helped by art. 141

The idea that studying the self, or the human being, represented a crucial component of the systematic contemplation of nature dominated many ancient, medieval, and early modern western philosophical traditions. With this passage, Ruscelli conjures up images of the microcosm/macrocosm relationship between the human body and the universe, so central to the scholarly natural philosophy. The body could only be truly understood by analyzing the cosmos, and the ultimate road to self-knowledge led to the study of nature. Similarly, conquering the mysteries of the body and the self could lead to a deeper understanding of the physical world.

Ruscelli’s passages may be interpreted in a variety of ways. For example, one might

141 Piemontese, Secreti nuovi , fol. 3v. 285 conclude that the Divine created both man and the world in His own image, imbuing both the human body and the universe with a certain divine spark; understanding the one would lead to better understanding the other. On the other hand, one might take a more structural and materialist view, holding that both the human being and the universe represent concoctions of physical matter which happen to be closely related, both governed by sets of laws that can only be understood through systematic observation. Arguably, Ruscelli’s suggestion that “a true anatomy of the things and operations of Nature follows the study of the self,” might fit the latter description. In this sense, both the human being and the universe consist of real matter, characterized and sustained by physical phenomena, and capable of being understood by close physical examination.

But the accuracy of my interpretation of Ruscelli on this point hardly matters. For now, I will be satisfied to demonstrate that Ruscelli does, in fact, possess a distinct philosophy of nature. In fact, he seems to think the art of medicine must proceed from a philosophy of nature.

“The very origin and development of medicine,” Ruscelli claims, “as well as the other disciplines central to human life,” must proceed from a set of ideas and their subsequent elaboration about nature. Like many other early modern men of letters discussed in this chapter, the Latin- and

Greek-speaking Girolamo Ruscelli seems to have been first and foremost a natural philosopher.

Indeed, in Girolamo Ruscelli we see a man disposed to think in terms of form, matter, essence, and dialectical analysis.

In his later years, Girolamo Ruscelli gravitated towards the art of healing. If we take his written testimony at face value, we may believe that in old age, he found it necessary to publish his life’s work for the benefit of public consumption. Viewed from this perspective, Girolamo

Ruscelli may be seen as a learned natural philosopher who studied health and healing, rather than 286 a vulgar peddler of old wives’ tales and folkloric medicine.

A comparable set of paradoxes emerges if we look closely at the life and career of

Leonardo Fioravanti. As explained above, many historians of medicine remember Fioravanti as a vociferous critic of scholarly European medicine. Indeed, in his eight major medical publications, Fioravanti offered scathing criticism of university-based healing. He criticized scholarly physicians and licensed healers for the corrupt politics of exclusion they employed within the medical marketplace; he rejected Aristotelian logic, scholastic philosophy, and contemporary reverence for ancient thinkers, and he warned that medical knowledge would never expand under the current conditions of its production. But whether he realized it or not,

Fioravanti himself remained heavily influenced by ancient medical teaching and Renaissance conceptions of health and healing.

Leonardo Fioravanti believed in the theory of the four humours, accepted the stomach as the origin and essence of humoural phenomena, and subscribed fully to ancient teaching regarding evacuation and purgation. Indeed, Fioravanti sounded like a scholarly physician when he insisted that a poorly disposed stomach exported altered blood, thereby upsetting humoural balance. “The first cause of all infirmities is the indisposed and corrupt stomach,” he wrote,

“from which follows the corruption of the entire body.” He commonly suggested drugs to induce evacuations (vomiting and bowel movements) and blood-letting to release bad humours from the blood.

From the corrupt stomach follows the corruption of the entire body and by reason of

this cause the blood along with the interior parts suffer, and it follows that to liberate

the body from all kinds of infirmities it is necessary to evacuate it of corrupt humours, 287 whether by vomiting or by purgation. The truth of this is verified every day by

experience, which shows that those medicines which provoke vomiting, evacuating a

great deal, cause much better effects than any other for the health of the sick body. 142

Indeed, when once forced to justify his medical epistemology, Fioravanti declared that his methods of healing were drawn from ancient Hippocratic doctrine, which happened to be completely misunderstood by the modern physicians. 143 Whether he viewed himself as a latter-

day Luther, divinely inspired prophet, or heaven-appointed agent of change, as Eamon has

argued, or whether his emphasis on purging impurities reflects the influence of sixteenth-century

reformation theology, as Camporesi suggests, one thing remains clear: Fioravanti remained

under the sway of Hippocratic/Galenic teaching and Renaissance manifestations of ancient ideas.

Laurent Joubert, Mercurio Scipione, and John Securis argued that university-based

medicine constituted the only proper form of healing. According to these men, only thoroughly

trained and properly licensed medical philosophers restored the sick to health. Untrained, naïve,

and ignorant amateurs did more harm than good for the misguided people who sought their

assistance. Fioravanti, Ruscelli, and Lemnius reversed the argument. For these self-styled

empirics, learned medicine constituted a hopelessly misguided discourse. Obsessed with logic

and philosophy, professional physicians searched books for answers that could only be found in

nature and the physical world. These arguments shared certain characteristics. Joubert, Mercurio,

Securis, on the one hand, and Fioravanti, Ruscelli and Lemnius on the other hand, all attempted

to rationalize and justify their professional activities and ways of life. But their arguments

142 Rostino, Compendio di tutta la cirurgia….Di nuovo ristampato, & dall’eccellente M. Leonardo Fioravanti, ampliato & aggiontovi un nuovo trattato, fol. 166 in my copy professionally microfilmed by Venice’s Marciana Biblioteca. 143 See Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, 181. 288 transcended purely technical questions. Indeed, the self-serving ideological polemics of these men were laced with righteous moral and ethical implications.

What might this mean? Joubert, Mercurio, and Securis seemed to think that empirics and vernacular healers committed crimes against nature by virtue of their existence. Joubert couched his perception of legitimate healers in Biblical proverbs. Mercurio, as well as James Primrose and Cosimo Aldana, never hesitated to associate non-learned healers with the black arts of witchcraft. Similarly, men like Fioravanti, Lemnius, and Ruscelli critiqued their adversaries with venomous language and stinging invective. Why did Fioravanti associate institutionalized medicine with organized crime and charge its individual practitioners with lawlessness? Why did

Fioravanti’s critics consistently bring up Leonardo’s lack of familiarity with the classical languages of Latin and Greek? Surely, the fact that university instruction relied upon those languages explains much, but a certain dynamic of social and cultural distinction would seem to emerge here. Were considerations of social class the driving force behind all this invective?

After all, the scholarly physicians described above all sprang from the . While men like Ruscelli tried to pass themselves off as Latin-speaking globetrotters, and Lemnius and John

Symcotts did attend medical school, the latter group of medical practitioners do tend to emerge from more modest backgrounds. Regardless of their socioeconomic standing, many of the self- styled empirics never finished university, a crucial component of cultural capital in these matters.

Does the antagonism and suspicion among men of different social standing explain the polemics among these healers?

Marxist historians still publish books on the scientific “revolution,” but class determined analysis does not explain the positions of people like Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, Francis

Bacon, or Paracelsus. Agrippa and Bacon came from aristocratic backgrounds, while Paracelsus 289 enjoyed wealth and privilege at various points in his life after thoroughly conquering the challenges of university education. All three men looked most suspiciously at scholarly medicine. But crucially, they dismissed scholarly medicine for different reasons .

How can we account for Giambattista Della Porta? Born a Neopolitan aristocrat, Della

Porta published prolifically in Latin for scholarly audiences. But Giambattista never attained a

university degree. Why did Francis Bacon equate Della Porta with circus clowns and second-rate

carnivals? Why were men like Sir Thomas Browne and James Primrose so concerned with the

gullibility of the crowd and the credulity of the masses? Why did Fioravanti and Paracelsus often

speak of cleansing society and purging the social order?

Thoughtful responses to the questions raised above could fill entire volumes. But

meaningful reflection on these issues should not focus upon the conceptual and discursive

languages of medicine, health, and healing. The clashes among these men cannot be explained by professional differences within the art of medicine or natural philosophy.

These medicalized culture wars did not take place in vacuums most suitable for study by

modern students of medical history. The disputes and debates surveyed above emerged in

socially and culturally constructed worlds quite different from our own, where perceptions of

legitimacy and the right to do natural philosophy depended upon prejudices regarding the

religion one practiced, the city of one’s birth, the native language one spoke, and the company

one kept. 290

Chapter Five

Regulating the Venetian Medical Marketplace: Charlatans, Mountebanks, Empirics, and Apothecaries—The Institutions that Governed Them and the Laws that Policed Them, 1500–1700

The middle years of the sixteenth century represented a difficult time in the professional

career of the Italian healer Jacopo Coppa. Although never a licensed physician, Coppa dedicated

much of his life to developing and selling medicinal remedies and healing agents. But from 1545

through 1568, he struggled to obtain licenses to peddle his merchandise in Venice and Florence.

In fact, the trials and tribulations involved in Jacopo Coppa’s attempts to gain commercial

legitimacy in Venice, Florence, Padua, and Bologna shed important light on the policing of early

modern Italian medicine.

In 1559, Coppa petitioned Venice’s Giustizia Vecchia , a bureaucratic body authorized to

supervise trade within the city, for a license to market his special medicinal syrup in the public

squares. 1 But the Giustizia Vecchia could not process Coppa’s request. Instead, the board

consulted another state body, the Collegio dei Medici (College of Physicians), for advice regarding Coppa’s petition. After a lengthy delay, the College of Physicians declared that Coppa would have to fulfill their licensing requirements, as well as obtain a permit from the Health

Office ( Provveditori alla Sanita ) in order to legally sell his product. 2 To help establish his

legitimacy, this self-proclaimed “charlatan” ( ciarlatano ) introduced a set of permits and

certificates from medical authorities in Bologna and Padua. But these measures seem to have

only added to the legal complexity surrounding Coppa’s application.

1 Biblioteca Marciana , Venice, Collegio Medico-Chirurgico, 9695, 10r-v. 2 A.S.V. , Provvedditori alla Sanita , Busta 730, 254v–256r. 291

The College of Physicians did not fully acquiesce upon receipt of Coppa’s documentation from Bologna and Padua. Instead, the board offered Coppa a “good news/bad news” reply. The good news was that Coppa’s medicinal product had been deemed acceptable and legitimate. The bad news was that only a licensed physician would be permitted to prescribe and sell such a thing. Coppa fumed that the physicians “treated me unfairly,” and acted with “hateful prejudice” when considering his request. 3 Somewhat surprisingly, the Health Office ( Provvedditori alla

Sanita ) granted Coppa a license to sell his syrup. But the College of Physicians ( Collegio dei

Medici ) never budged.

In one sense, the strange case of Jacopo Coppa does not typify the experience of non- learned medical practitioners seeking legal legitimacy in early modern Venice. As this chapter shall demonstrate, amateur healers routinely obtained licenses to market medicinal products, often in direct, straightforward fashion. But in another important sense, Jacopo Coppa’s experience does shed significant light on the policing of early modern Venetian medicine.

Coppa’s case exemplifies the jurisdictional disputes that often resulted when a variety of state bodies assigned to oversee common social phenomena interacted in Renaissance Venice.

Empowered with ever-changing, imprecise rules and regulations and burdened with overly broad, vague political objectives, a multitude of legal bodies attempted to police commercial

exchange in the Venetian medical marketplace. Haphazard, unbalanced, and inefficient legal

oversight resulted.

The purpose of this chapter shall be to describe the Venetian Republic’s attempt to

govern and legally police the ever-expanding medical marketplace during the period covered in

this dissertation. My focus shall be on the non-learned healers without university degrees—the

3 A.S.V., Provvedditori alla Sanita, Busta 730, 288r. 292 self-proclaimed “charlatans” and “mountebanks,” and those derisively described by licensed physicians as “empirics.” From time to time, examples of comparable phenomena in other parts of Italy and the larger European continent, especially England and Germany, shall be discussed as well. As with other aspects of this dissertation, the Italian experience often serves as a useful template for understanding healing practices in a larger European context. 4 The goal of this chapter shall be to demonstrate the expansion of the medical marketplace during the late

Renaissance and to provide another conceptual lens—in this case, the view gleaned from state regulation—of the wide variety of healing practices used to cure early modern illness. This chapter is necessary to explain the activities associated with various medical practitioners discussed throughout this dissertation.

But in a larger, more important sense, this chapter shall challenge some of the basic ideas and assumptions expressed in recent histories of medicine. In the last ten years, a significant amount of scholarship has been published concerning the legal organization of the early modern

Venetian medical marketplace. David Gentilcore, Michelle Laughran, Richard Palmer, John

Henderson, and Jon Arrizabalaga have examined the governance and legal regulation of drugs and remedies during the period covered in this dissertation. Several of these scholars have attempted to demonstrate how various players within the medical marketplace, such as apothecaries and pharmacists, tried to advance their interests as groups within the social, political, and economic order of Venetian society at the expense of their closest competitors.

4 To cite two brief examples, David Gentilcore suggests that the Italian “charlatan,” which shall be described in greater detail below, “represented the prototype for itinerant practitioners throughout Europe.” See Gentilcore, Medical Charlatanism in Early Modern Italy , 2. In the same volume, Gentilcore explains that the Venetian style of policing commercial medical exchange spread to other states on the Italian peninsula and to other areas in Europe; see 132. Much of the rest of Europe had policed commercial exchange of medicinal products long before the period covered in Gentilcore’s book, but as this chapter shall demonstrate, some important parallels can be drawn between Venice and England, France, Spain, and elsewhere. 293

Michelle Laughran has argued that during the sixteenth century, apothecaries attempted to

“professionalize” their craft by distinguishing themselves from illegitimate healers who prescribed fraudulent medical remedies. By establishing themselves as the legitimate producers of special services, according to Laughran, these apothecaries sought to hammer out and control a market for their own expertise, especially in relation to licensed physicians who prescribed officially recognized medicinal remedies. 5 Others have attempted to divide and distinguish the various non-learned healers of the early modern period into specific compartments. David

Gentilcore has argued that early modern Italian charlatans established a distinct identity as

Renaissance healers with shared sets of practice and common styles of self-fashioning. 6

Much of this scholarship has been empirical, quantitative (Gentilcore has established a

“Charlatan’s Database” which lists 1,596 licenses issued to 1,075 different charlatans over 250 years during the early modern period), structuralist, and positivistic. Several of these scholars seem to have assumed that evidence suggesting greater state efforts to govern the medical marketplace automatically translated into more efficient policing of drugs, remedies, and medicinal practice. Others have taken state attempts to legalize certain drugs and delegitimize others—the Venetian Senate established an “official botanical garden of medicine” ( Orto

Botanico ) at the University of Padua in 1545, and Pietro Michiel and Pietro Mattioli published official encyclopedic volumes of all legitimately recognized herbal remedies shortly thereafter— to mean that the greater part of medicinal herbs and remedies used in sixteenth-century Venice were thoroughly chronicled and widely understood by authorities.

5 See Laughran, “Medicating With or Without ‘Scruples,’” 95-107. 6 See Gentilcore, Medical Charlatanism in Early Modern Italy and Healers and Healing in Early Modern Italy . See also Gentilcore, “Was There a ‘Popular Medicine’ in Early Modern Europe?” and “For the Protection of Those Who Have Both Shop and Home in this City.” 294

My research indicates otherwise. Two basic conclusions described in the pages below merit brief description here. I shall suggest that a great deal of commercial exchange within the

Venetian medical marketplace—indeed, the vast percentage of services rendered and drugs purchased—took place outside the state apparatus of legal oversight and beyond the critical scrutiny of public regulation. Secondly, I shall argue that state regulation of the medical marketplace can only be properly understood within the context of political culture in early modern patronage society. Phenomena that might anachronistically be described as corruption, extortion, and heavy-handed state intervention represented basic aspects of Renaissance

Venetian society. Paying the state for the right to do business, greasing powerful palms, and sharing one’s prosperity with social superiors characterized commercial activity in the “Most

Serene Republic.” The licensing and regulation of commercial activity in the Venetian medical marketplace did not proceed from purely medical considerations. Instead, the political culture of patronage society most directly influenced the legal policing of the early modern Venetian medical marketplace.

With these arguments in mind, I hope to demonstrate that in early modern Venice, a much greater variety of drugs, remedies, and healing prescriptions existed than can be understood by surveys of statutory law. Furthermore, the compartmentalization of players within the medical enterprise into categories such as charlatans, mountebanks, or magical healers and the separation of various healing practices into distinct camps, such as religious healing,

Paracelsian, or humoral medicine, represent overly structural conceptualizations of modern historians imposed upon the past. My research indicates that many fundamental similarities existed among healing practices at the various social levels of early modern Venetian society.

Eight years elapsed between Jacopo Coppa’s first petition of Venetian law and his final 295 documented entry in the Italian archives. During that period, many non-learned healers were authorized to practice their trade within the squares and piazzas of Venetian society. Many others went about their business without regard for legal authorization. This chapter shall consider some of their stories. In order to do so, it shall be necessary to sketch a broad portrait of the legal institutions designed to police the public medical marketplace of early modern Venice.

* * * * *

The public squares and piazzas of Venice buzzed with medically related commercial activity during the Renaissance. Parish records, wills, guild proceedings, inquisition cases, diaries of individuals, and publications of licensed physicians indicate the thriving nature of

Venice’s public medical marketplace. But the actions and records of state regulatory agencies, or legal institutions authorized to oversee medically related commercial activity, also shed light on the Venetian healing industry. Early modern Venice featured many such institutions. In fact, there seemed to have been too many to do the job efficiently.

From 1540 to 1640, at least a dozen legally recognized institutions participated in the policing and regulation of commercial exchange in the Venetian medical marketplace. Some, like the Office of the Doge, the Ducal Council, the Council of the Forty, and the Council of the

Ten, represented fundamental components of Venetian constitutional government. These bodies regulated public healing indirectly by establishing subordinate legal structures and delegating authority, although some matters of medicinal exchange did come before the highest judicial structures. Some, like the Giustizia Vecchia , represented legal bodies of broad jurisdiction, that

were not specifically designed to concentrate on healing. Authorized to “supervise trade,” the 296 domain of the Giustizia Vecchia theoretically included medically related commerce, although this body rarely had the final word in questions regarding healing. Others, like the Provedittori alla Sanita (Public Health Office) and the Collegio dei Medici (College of Physicians) represented institutions specifically designed to deal with matters of public medicine. The latter institution originated as a civic body—an organization among doctors—that was essentially incorporated into the government and empowered with legal regulatory authority. The former institution represented a state body, conceived and directed by the Venetian government. Still others, such as the Collegio degli Spezieri (College of Apothecaries) represented lesser versions of the College of Physicians, in other words, civic bodies that petitioned government for regulatory power, but never achieved significant public authority. Even the Holy Office of the

Church participated in the regulation of healing and medicinal practice. Although the Church did not grant licenses or authorize individuals to sell remedies or practice medicine, the Holy

Tribunal could bring charges of heresy upon healers suspected of engaging in theologically invalid approaches to curing illness.

Relationships among the various legal institutions involved in the regulation of public medical commerce never stopped evolving during the period covered in this study. But internal squabbles between the Health Office and the College of Physicians tell only part of the story.

Legal authority to sell medicines could come from the outside as well. Throughout early modern

Italy, a non-learned healer could petition a powerful head of state for a license to sell medicines.

In Bologna, one could petition the Papal legate; in Milan, one could obtain permission from the

Spanish king’s representative; in Venice, one could seek favor from a member of the Maggior 297

Consiglio. 7 In Venice, written permission from the Incurables hospital essentially constituted a license to sell a medicinal product. Inconsistent official responses, perhaps best explained by the capriciousness of the authorities involved, further complicated the processes of legal regulation.

At times, licenses granted in one city were readily accepted in other locales; at other times, external authorization meant nothing.

Disentangling this mess of overlapping, intersecting, and perpetually evolving multiple jurisdictions represents a daunting task. To do so, we must examine the origins of state regulation within the Venetian medical marketplace, even if the earliest years of such activity remain unclear. The conspicuous professional “medicalization” of northern Italy can be detected by the rise of university medical faculties, hospitals and organizations of trained practitioners— this occurred from the thirteenth through the sixteenth centuries 8—but the selling of medicines by untrained merchants dates back to antiquity. When did the itinerant pedlars and public

merchants come under public scrutiny in the Venetian Republic? When did legal institutions

designed to police public medical commerce emerge?

A variety of state sponsored institutions dedicated to public health seem to have been

erected in the thirteenth century. 9 We may call them “ protomedicati ,” a term which refers to early modern tribunals legally authorized to oversee medical practices. 10 Although these protomedicati theoretically possessed authority over public medical commerce, their main responsibility seems to have been maintaining sanitary conditions throughout the Venetian

7 See Gentilcore, “Figurations and State Authority in Early Modern Italy.” 8 See Siraisi, Medicine and the Italian Universities, 1250-1600 . 9 Stefanutti, Documentazioni cronologiche per la storia della medicina, 37-40. 10 Pomata, Contracting a Cure, Introduction, xi-xvi. 298

Republic. 11 If we stick strictly to the historical record of documented evidence, many of these

institutions seem to have flourished during times of plague, only to go out of existence during periods relatively free of major epidemics.

The Venetian College of Physicians ( Collegio dei Medici) appears to have originated in

1258. The College originally consisted of university graduates hoping to advance their collective

interests in the field of medicine. In the corporate societies of late medieval/early modern Italy,

guilds represented a fundamental component of social and political organization, and university-

trained medical practitioners, like artisans and tradesmen, sought to benefit via legally

recognized organization. Before long, the Venetian senate assigned the College of Physicians the

ability to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate medical practitioners. Graduation from

a legitimate university with a documented specialization in medicine represented the most

fundamental requirement of any applicant. The College could theoretically marginalize any

healer by simply denying him entry into their organization. But again, this institution concerned

itself with licensed medical practitioners within professional contexts and had no significant

relationship with the public medical marketplace. Licensed physicians within the College

sometimes published manuscripts criticizing fraudulent medical practice outside the universities, but little or no legal policing of medical commerce resulted from such volumes.

The creation of the Venetian Public Health Office (Provveditori alla Sanita ), however,

would seem to mark the beginning of coordinated state regulation of public medical commerce.

Originally established in 1478, the Provveditori alla Sanita owed its existence to troubling

outbreaks of plague from 1460 to 1475. 12 Hence, it is reasonable to assume the responsibilities of

11 Bonuzzi, “Medicina e sanita,” 407-439, and O’Riordan, “Le professioni sanitarie,” 79-82. 12 Marchini, I Mali e I Rimedi della Serenissima , 24. 299 this body resembled those of the earlier Protomedicati. Indeed, Carlo Cipolla has argued that the

Health Office’s primary responsibilities consisted of disease control, sanitation, sewage, the proper maintenance of the poor, and the licensing of begging, prostitution, and hostelries. 13

But the Health Office was reorganized in 1537. More generously funded, “ Il Magistrato

alla Sanita , as it was known in those days, would now be directed by the Senate and the Maggior

Consiglio .14 Within a few years, the Health Office began working with the College of Physicians to oversee commercial exchange within the public medical marketplace. 15 Michelle Laughran,

David Gentilcore, and Richard Palmer have argued that during the middle of the sixteenth century, the Provveditori alla Sanita focused on the prosecution of individuals who possessed an understanding of medicinals but prescribed remedies without obtaining medical degrees and licenses from universities. Although I will take issue with this idea in the pages below, for now it shall be necessary to point out that in 1559, the Provveditori alla Sanita seemed to take a cue

from the Collegio dei Medici in declaring that all unlicensed physicians selling medicinals shall be lumped together; no distinctions among “Barbers,” Apothecaries, “Charlatans,” or others

would be made with regards to the public sale of medical remedies. 16

Why did the Venetian Republic feel compelled to regulate and police public medical commerce in the middle of the sixteenth century? Several factors would seem to have relevance.

Many historians of medicine agree that the art of healing experienced a commercialization in mid-sixteenth century Europe. Both in Italy and elsewhere, so the story goes, medical practices

13 Cipolla, Public Health and the Medical Profession in the Renaissance , 32. 14 A.S.V. , Provvedittori alla Sanita, Capitolare 1, b. 2, c. 136 t, 9 novembre 1537, cited in Marchini, I Mali e I Rimedi della Serenissima , 65. 15 See Palmer, The Studio of Venice and Its Graduates , 10-11, and Laughran, “Medicating With or Without ‘Scruples,’” 98. 16 A.S.V. , Provveditori alla Sanita , Rubrica delle leggi del magistrato eccellentissimo alla sanita, Reg. 11, 74r-78v, cited in Marchini, Le leggi di sanita della Repubblica di Venezia , vol. 4, 175. 300 were transformed into series of services, each of which carried a certain monetary value. 17 The

significance of the printing press and the rise in literacy levels, especially in sixteenth-century

Italy, may have also been a factor. 18 The publication of remedies, formulas, and medicinal

“secrets” theoretically made the healing arts accessible to anyone who could read. 19 Medical books enjoyed a strong circulation in the public Venetian medical marketplace. In this sense, the

Venetian Republic’s desire to regulate mid sixteenth-century medical commerce probably featured a strong economic component.

But the process of “social discipline” often associated with the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation of the sixteenth century may also have been a factor. The sixteenth century witnessed great change in western Europe. Vast percentages of Europeans died from epidemic disease. Demographic shifts exceeded previous centuries as more Europeans relocated than ever before. In the theater of spirituality and religion, Europe witnessed heresy, reformations, and reactions; in politics, Europe witnessed a plethora of war and saw new forms of state organization emerge; even new forms of knowledge construction appeared—the rise of intellectual trends like humanism and the “scientific method,” associated with empirically derived knowledge, made their mark in the sixteenth century. As with any generation, graphic change brought uncertainty, alienation, and fear.

Transformations in medical practice and new approaches to healing demanded attention.

17 See Siraisi, Medieval & Early Renaissance Medicine, especially chap. 5, “Disease and Treatment,” 115-153, and Lindemann, Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe , especially chap. 7, “Practice,” 193-231. See also Brockliss and Jones, The Medical World of Early Modern France , especially “The Unitary Medical World of Early Modern France,” 8-20; Gentilcore, Healers and Healing in Early Modern Italy, especially chap. 3, “Medical Practitioners and Medical Practice,” and chap. 4, “Charlatans and Medical Secrets,” 56-125; and Gentilcore, Medical Charlatanism in Early Modern Italy , especially chap. 3, “Origins,” 91-118. 18 See Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy, especially chap. 2, “Venetian Schools in the High Renaissance,” 42-71, and Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, vol. 1. 19 See Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature , Introduction. 301

Much of medieval Europe considered medicine a sacred art. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) obliged physicians to insist that patients summon a confessor before any other treatment and strictly forbade the use of any medical treatment by “sinful means” (for example, prescriptions to consume meat on fast days). Furthermore, in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries, theologians argued about the legitimacy of charging fees for the transmission of medical knowledge. 20 As we have seen, thoroughly grounded in a Christianized Aristotelian logic, medical knowledge itself possessed a divine flavor in the eyes of theologians, philosophers, and other learned men. The sight of vulgar capitalists peddling medicinal “secrets” with a song and a dance in public squares must have seemed undesirable to many sixteenth-century Europeans. For these reasons, the expanding sixteenth-century medical marketplace may have inspired thoughts of discipline within the aristocratic Venetian Senate. 21

The development of the Republic’s official botanical gardens in Padua (1545) may have

contributed to increased regulation of public medical commerce within Venice as well. Designed

to increase knowledge of medicinal plants and to chronicle and categorize all known simples, the

“Orto Botanica ” seems to have stirred interest in healing agents across a wide range of the

Venetian social spectrum. 22 According to Gentilcore, “When the Venetian Senate founded the botanical garden in Padua in 1545, it intended it to increase the knowledge of simples, and so do away with errors and frauds in pharmacy which were causing deaths.” Hence, Gentilcore concludes, “It is no coincidence that Italy’s Protomedicato tribunals were either created or reinforced in the second half of the sixteenth-century. [They] were necessary to control both the

20 Siraisi, Medieval & Early Renaissance Medicine , 44. 21 For ideas regarding the concept of social discipline in the context of the European Reformation, see Hsia, Social Discipline in the Reformation; Schilling, “Confessional Europe,” 641-81; and Reinhard, “Reformation, Counter- Reformation, and the Early Modern State,” 383-404. For some interesting ideas specifically related to Venice, see Martin, Venice’s Hidden Enemies, and Ruggiero, Binding Passions: Tales of Magic, Marriage, and Power . 22 See Ongaro, “La medicina nello studio di Padova e nel Veneto,” especially 126-132. 302 use and the making and selling of medicines.” 23

It is my contention that the licensers of medicinal commerce sought to “control the use,

making and selling of medicines” in order to squeeze profit from the public medical marketplace.

In this sense, the legal regulation of public medical commerce would serve the general

orientation of patronage society. To demonstrate this point, it shall be necessary to look more

closely at the earliest legal stipulations. It is to this task that I shall now turn.

* * * * *

Researching the legal regulation of early modern Venetian medical commerce can be a tricky business. As described above, the College of Physicians ( Collegio dei Medici ) represented the first institution empowered to license medical practitioners. Unfortunately, most of the

College’s records were destroyed by fire in the early nineteenth century. Today, the surviving documents of the College remain mixed with the records of the Health Office ( Provveditori alla

Sanita ) in Venice’s Archivio di Stato . This makes perfect sense because these two institutions, as explained above, combined during the 1540s in an attempt to regulate medical commerce within the city. Unfortunately, the records of the Provveditori alla Sanita remain incomplete, disorganized and difficult to consult systematically. With no index of statutory law as it emerged chronologically, readers must uncover the regulatory principles indirectly, through exhaustive readings of case studies, many of which are incomplete. Both native Italian researchers and foreign scholars generally rely on the compilations of Nelli-Elena Vanzan Marchini for basic

23 Gentilcore, Medical Charlatanism in Early Modern Italy , 101. 303 stipulations of early modern Venetian law. 24

In sixteenth-century Venice, only the College of Physicians could endow a university

graduate with full legitimacy as a licensed medical practitioner by accepting him into their

corporation. At the other end of the spectrum, the Provveditori alla Sanita issued regulations

regarding the sale of public medicines by healers without university training, up until the 1540s.

But in January 1546, the two institutions combined their efforts to oversee commercial exchange

in the public medical marketplace. From this time on, the College and the Health Board worked

together to license those without university training who wished to sell medicinal remedies in the

squares and piazzas of Venice. 25 The Health Office declared the right to examine “all Barbers,

Apothecaries and Charlatans…and every other person not incorporated in the College of

Physicians, that sold medicine publicly. 26 Those caught selling medicines without licenses would be subject to punishment, although no written set of rules existed to describe fines and penalties

to potential merchants. Punishments would be calculated on a case-by-case basis after hearings

conducted by the Health Board. Indeed, what remains foreign to our modern sensibilities is the

fact that aspiring merchants had no specific set of legal guidelines to consult prior to entering the

commercial marketplace. Licensing procedures would be established upon interview with

24 How the writers of the Nelli-Elena Vanzan Marchini compilations gained access to information otherwise unavailable is unknown to the archivists of Archivio di Stato. Canadian scholar David Gentilcore, who has done more research in this area than anyone else in the English-speaking world, relies heavily on Nelli-Elena Vanzan Marchini himself. The main publications are as follows: Marchini, ed., Le leggi di sanita della Repubblica di Venezia (Vicenza, 1995); I mali e I rimedi della Serenissima (Venice, 1985); Dalla scienza medical alla pratica dei corpi: fonti e manoscritti marciani per la storia della salute (Vicenza, 1993); and La Memoria della salute: Venezia e il suo ospedale dal XVI al XX secolo (Venice: 1985). Much of the statutory law cited in these books would appear to be no longer available in the records of the Provveditori alla Sanita . Further complicating matters is the fact that some threads of early modern legal regulation of medical commerce can be found only in Venice’s Biblioteca Nazional Marciana. Unless otherwise noted, I consulted all the information cited in the pages that follow myself, although some of my information has been cross-referenced with the printed versions published in the Marchini editions. 25 Biblioteca Nazional Marciana Venezia , Collegio Medico-Chirurgico, Libro delle Parti (It. VII), 134r-135v. 26 Ibid. 304 prospective merchants. In other words, merchants hoping to sell medical remedies would have to

appear before the Health Office, explain their proposal, and meet the requirements subsequently

determined by the board.

During the 1540s, the Provveditori alla Sanita began issuing proclamations regarding

untrained healers publicly selling medical remedies. Such proclamations were called

“terminazioni ,” or “ disposizioni .” Although these terms are generally translated into English as

“edicts,” 27 it is important to realize that these proclamations must not be confused with concise articulations of statutory law or succinctly framed rules. Rather, these “edicts” generally represent miniature diatribes and sporadic critiques of merchant behavior. Sixteenth-century

Venetian Health Board edicts typically characterize the comportment and activities of untrained medical merchants, and they are almost always negative.

The earliest recorded edicts, printed in 1543 (three years before the official collaboration between the Health Office and the College) describe collections of unofficial healers as people who “mount banks, sing and dance, perform tricks and tell stories…prior to dispensing medical treatments.” 28 In regions politically dominated by Venice, such as Mantua and Padua, David

Gentilcore has uncovered edicts criticizing charlatans for “acting against Christian charity,” and bemoaning the “excesses [used] in charlatan remedies.” 29 “Throughout Italy during the early

modern period,” writes Gentilcore, “edicts decried disorders which happened daily, singling out

the hyperbolic, misleading and specious names charlatans gave their remedies…condemning

27 See Gentilcore, Medical Charlatanism in Early Modern Italy and Healers and Healing in Early Modern Italy for two major examples. 28 Originally noted in Giovan Antonio Boncio’s “Rubrica delle leggi,” in Marchini, ed., Le leggi di sanita della Repubblica Venezia , I. 400, Edicts of January 4, 1543, and May 2, 1543. 29 See Gentilcore, Medical Charlatanism in Early Modern Italy , 58-59. The first edict comes from Archivio di Stato Padova, Sanita, 157, 40, June 8, 1693, the second from Archivio di Stato Mantua, Oct 2, 1624, originally quoted in Luigi Carnevalli’s “ Igiene e annona: Medici e farmacisti a Mantova prima del 1700.” See Gentilcore, Medical Charlatanism , 59. 305 their practices of deceit perpetrated on the simple poor with their ineffective and sometimes harmful remedies.” 30 Incredibly, following these diatribes, the edicts generally outlined broad guidelines for licensing vendors to sell medical merchandise. The general guidelines changed frequently (“A Venetian law,” holds a sixteenth-century proverb, “lasts but a week” 31 ). When

consulting the records of Health Office interviews for the purposes of licensing, one senses that

these broad principles were loosely enforced.

Let us examine some of the broad licensing guidelines issued by the Health Office during

the time under consideration. In 1567, medical merchants outside the College of Physicians were

asked to leave a sealed sample of their proposed remedies with the Health Office. Presumably,

this sample could be compared with remedies subsequently sold, to ensure that such merchants

offered the public the same remedies they presented the authorities. 32 In 1590, the Board required

that prospective peddlers produce evidence of the efficacy of their medication, supplying the

names of patients willing to testify that they had benefitted from the remedies under

consideration. 33 Whether this new stipulation rendered the 1567 rule obsolete remains unclear;

the original principle is never mentioned in second law. One thing, however, is quite certain: both these stipulations were routinely ignored in cases awarding untrained healers licenses to sell

medicine. Many documented cases, as we shall see below, make no mention of the principles

described in 1567 and 1590. Indeed, from 1575 onwards, empirics were theoretically prohibited

from treating the sick without prior approval from licensed physicians within the College. 34 But such an idea, as I plan to demonstrate, must be interpreted as sheer rhetoric, with little or no basis

30 Gentilcore, Medical Charlatanism , 59. 31 Finlay, Politics in Renaissance Venice , 37. 32 Boncio, Rubrica delle leggi ecc. del Magistrato eccellentissimo alla Sanita , I. 400. 33 A.S.V., Provveditori alla Sanita, Busta 736: 8 January 1590 m.v. 34 Boncio, Rubrica delle leggi ecc. del Magistrato eccellentissimo alla Sanita , I. 400. 306 in the reality of healing and commercial exchange within the Venetian medical marketplace.

My research suggests that the Venetian Health Office approved applications and issued vending licenses to non-trained medical merchants in a fairly routine fashion. For all the harsh rhetoric and polemical criticism directed at non-trained medical merchants by university- educated physicians and elite medical philosophers and in spite of all the negative remarks contained in the “edicts” from the Health Office, Venetian legal authorities generally licensed empirics, charlatans, and mountebanks to peddle remedies with no discernible reluctance. Simply put, aspiring vendors willing to pay application fees usually gained licenses to sell medicine without considerable difficulty.

Let us consider some examples. In 1601, one Francesco Sian’s “secret remedy” to alleviate the sore breasts of nursing females, which he described as “being of great help to many poor women,” seems to have been licensed without complication. Sian’s application, a vague description of the remedy and a note of brief testimony constitute the sole paragraph contained in the official record. The application is routinely signed by two health officials and summarily dated. 35 Nine months later, in March 1601, Davide Tribulone’s special remedy for the “French

disease” (generally believed to be syphilis by medical historians) gained legal legitimacy without

complication. In his interview with the Health Board, Tribulone described himself as “a man that

knows a great many secrets of nature…for healing a wide variety of illnesses.” A citizen without

a university degree, Tribulone successfully argued that the remedy he brought before the board

today “would cure all those presently suffering from the French disease…as [it had] helped so

many in the past.” Officials Zuane Molini and Zuane Contarini indicate that they have heard

adequate testimony to support Tribulone’s claims to heal people. The Health Board granted

35 A.S.V., Provveditori alla Sanita, Busta 737, 8 June 1601. 307

Tribulone a license without extensive examination or interrogation. 36 Molini and Contarini may

have been feeling generous. The following month, they approved a commercial license for one

Sarafin Polaco to sell his “medical secrets” in Venice’s public squares. Polaco, who described

himself as a man of “ secreti meraviglioso ” (marvelous secrets), claimed to have done many

“esperimenti” in his quest to find formulas and recipes for curing illness. Although not a medical

school graduate, Polaco seems to have easily convinced the officials of his “confidence in

healing.” Oddly enough, the documentary summation contains no specific lists of the medicinals

Sarafin Polaco hoped to publicly sell. 37

A few years later, according to David Gentilcore, one Gregorio, son of Ferranti, whom

the physician Thomas Sonnet described as a “notorious and shameless charlatan,” was licensed by Venetian medical authorities to publicly sell “orvietan,” an electuary against poison and other

infirmities. 38 On July 24 1602, a man named Paulo Zonginello received a hearing from the

Health Office. Although not a licensed physician belonging to the College, Zonginello claimed

to be a “surgeon.” 39 In a letter presented to the board, Zonginello describes himself as a “selfless public servant,” who has “frequently worked without salary.” The man claims to have toiled as a volunteer for the “ Sestier di Canareggio ,” dealing with “many victims of the contagion that passed through these parts recently.” But now Zonginello wanted to earn some money. A

36 Ibid., 14 March 1602. 37 A.S.V., Provveditori alla Sanita, Busta 737, c.126r, 8 April 1602. 38 Gentilcore, Healers and Healing in Early Modern Italy , 98. 39 As explained in previous chapters, in early modern Italy, “surgeon” or “barber” represents a broad term generally describing practitioners that, among other things, commonly set broken bones, removed teeth, lanced boils, drew blood from swollen accumulations of flesh, and attempted to cure infections with applications of heat. Although well below the status of a legal physician, students could train in surgery within medical schools. But most early modern “surgeons” were technicians cast from the craftsman’s mold. The different Italian states dealt with surgeons in various ways. Florence expected surgeons to enroll in the “College of Apothecaries, Grocers and Surgeons.” As described above, in Venice after 1559, the authorities would lump surgeons (“barbers”) into one general category of non-learned medical practitioners. For information on the legal standing of surgeons in early modern Florence, see Park, Doctors and Medicine in Early Modern Florence . For Bologna, see Pomata, Contracting a Cure . 308 reference letter on his behalf indicated that Zonginello has knowledge derived “from all the relevant books of our time,” and by all accounts his record of service had been “legal and authentic.” Zonginello claims to have learned many skills and remedies and now would like to put them to use. No specific set of proposed medicines appear in the documented record and it is unclear exactly what type of license this man requests. Nevertheless, authorities do sign the record in a fashion indicating legitimation of Zonginello’s testimony, and we must assume the applicant has been granted the right to practice in Venice. In all likelihood, this man simply wanted to be sure he could practice his craft and use his medicinals without legal harassment.

Although the surviving record typifies the vague, often incomplete nature of these documents,

Zonginello’s hearing seems to have gone well from the applicant’s point of view. 40

In November 1602, Health Board officials Zuane Molin and Lorenzo Rimondo passed judgment on Ruggier di Orsati’s request to legally sell two special remedies for toothaches. “My secret for the teeth,” boasts Ruggier in written testimony, “is a root called Pilastro,” which he describes as a “powerful but safe remedy.” This untrained healer explains that his other favorite remedy, “ l’ongia della gran Bestia ” (nails of wild beasts), has always been efficacious for toothaches as well. “Pilastro,” which later came to be known among medical botanists as hypericum or “St. John’s Wort,” refers to an herb commonly found in northern Europe, often used in a wide variety of healing formulas. “Pilastro” can be found in the “books of secrets” tradition, including works by Girolamo Ruscelli, Leonardo Fioravanti, and Isabella Cortese.

Higher up on the social scale, Pietro Matthioli catalogued a description of this medicinal herb in his encyclopedic volume prepared for the Venetian Republic. 41 Hence, this particular herb does

40 A.S.V., Provveditori alla Sanita, Busta 737, 24 July, 1602, c.139v. 41 Matthioli, I Discorsi di M. Pietro Andrea Matthioli , 709. 309 not represent a novelty. But one suspects Ruggier’s formula regarding the “nails of wild beasts” represents an alternative pharmaceutical tradition bearing no relation to the classical pharmacology which theoretically served to underscore official Venetian medicine.

Nevertheless, the Health Board licensed Ruggier di Orsati to liberally dispense these remedies without impediment throughout Venice in 1602. 42

But the first decade of the seventeenth-century did not represent a unique period in the

Venetian medical marketplace. The three previous decades leave evidence of similar phenomena regarding the dissemination of medicinal products and the state’s attempt to regulate medical commerce. By Paulo Preto’s count, in an eight-month period from 1576 to 1577, twenty-two

Venetian citizens successfully petitioned the Health Office for permission to sell a variety of secret remedies, antidotes, and medicinal formulas for treatment of plague victims. 43 Judging

from contemporary plague tracts, many other untrained healers attempted to market plague drugs

without bothering to pursue commercial legitimacy. 44

But plague did not represent the only epidemic to stir commercial action in the early modern Venetian medical marketplace. In fact, Laura J. McGough’s study of the French Disease during this period provides valuable insights into many of the questions and issues regarding state efforts to oversee medical commerce raised above. 45 Precisely because McGough did not

concern herself primarily with the legal regulation of the medical marketplace, her work may be

free of many of the misguided notions from which recent historical writing in this area suffers.

McGough compared archival material from Venice’s Inquisition records from 1580 to

42 A.S.V., Provveditori alla Sanita, Busta 737, 9 November, 1602, c.133v, 134r. 43 Preto, Peste e societa a Venezia nel 1576 , 90. 44 See Cipolla, Cristofano and the Plague and Public Health and the Medical Profession , as well as Calvi, Histories of a Plague Year, and Cohn, The Transformed, especially chap. 4, “Signs: Chronicles, Plague Tracts, and Saints’ Lives,” 57-82. 45 McGough, “Demons, Nature, or God?” 219-246. 310

1650 with mortality data from the same period in order to investigate responses to the Mal

Francese . “It is little wonder that patients thought the disease was curable,” writes McGough,

“since they could hardly navigate the city without encountering a vendor of medicines for a wide

range of ailments, including the French disease.” 46 According to McGough, university-trained physicians and popular healers sold their remedies as well as recipes for how to make them side by side in the medical marketplace. “Recipes included a variety of everyday herbs and

substances, such as incense, chamomile, earthworms, and chicken fat, along with an occasional

exotic ingredient, such as Artemsia dramaculus or tarragon.” 47 None of these ingredients could be found in the official Venetian pharmacopia of university, but all of them could be discovered in the self-help “books of secrets” authored by Alessandro Gardano, Alessio Piemontese,

Leonardo Fioravanti, and Isabella Cortese. 48

In discussing the later part of the sixteenth century, McGough writes, “When a practitioner applied for a license to sell medications from a ‘secret recipe,’ the Health Board

required that the healer produce some evidence that the medication was effective.” After

surveying several cases, McGough concludes that “the Health Board routinely approved such

applications.” 49 To support her argument, McGough describes the case of Anzola del Sala, a

married woman who successfully applied for a license to treat the French disease and other

similar illnesses. 50 McGough would have bolstered her argument even further had she included the case of one Giovanni F. Mira, an amateur healer who successfully obtained a license from the

46 Ibid., 230. 47 Ibid., 231. 48 With regards to the texts mentioned above, see Gardano, Secreti diversi & miracolosi ; Fioravanti, De’ Capricci medicinali , Secreti medicinali , Il tesoro della vita humana , and Dello specchio di scientia universale ; Cortese, I secreti ; and Piemontese, I secreti del reverendo donno Alessio Piemontese . 49 McGough, “Demons, Nature, or God?” 234. 50 Ibid. 311

Venetian Health Board in 1582 to sell his medicated wine for the treatment of pustules and sores associated with the French disease. Mira used a license from the Roman Protomedicato and a testimonial from Venice’s Incurable Hospital as evidence to support his request even though, as far as I know, no written statutes acknowledge the significance or legitimacy of such things. 51

The Venetian Health Office, restructured in 1546 to include the services of both the original Provveditori alla Sanita and the Collegio di Medici , regularly approved applications and issued vending licenses to non-trained medical merchants during the period considered in this dissertation. Nevertheless, signs of relatively stringent oversight, capricious policing, and meticulous regulation of medicinal commerce in Renaissance Venice do exist. Scholars like

David Gentilcore, Richard Palmer, and Michelle Laughran, who have focused on the legal regulation of the early modern Italian medical marketplace and emphasized the restrictive nature of such oversight, have produced evidence to support their claims of stringent policing. After all,

Jacopo Coppa, the sixteenth-century amateur healer discussed at the outset of this chapter, never gained full commercial legitimacy in Venice. It is to similar stories and an analysis of their historical value and overall meaning that I shall now turn.

* * * * *

In a collection of essays published in 2003 on healing in early modern Italy, David

Gentilcore discussed the legal regulation of commerce in the public medical marketplace. “The medical authorities sought to keep a tight rein on what medicines were sold,” wrote Gentilcore,

“[concentrating] on public health as it was then practiced and enforced.” According to

51 A.S.V., Provveditori alla Sanita, Busta 735, 10 May 1582, 87v. 312

Gentilcore, “financial interests coincided with the desire to uphold the moral order.” 52 Citing an

example of such legal regulation, Gentilcore relates the case of one Marchio Fedeli, a non-

learned medical practitioner, arrested by the Health Office for selling a purgative pill in Venice’s

Piazza dei Signori on May 4, 1641. 53 Gentilcore compares Fedeli’s written defense with testimony provided by another charlatan named Buonafede Vitali, for the purpose of examining some of the remedies offered by such healers. Thanks to Gentilcore, these medicines, which include “some rancid oils, a few crushed herbs, some honey [and] the most powerful arcana,” may be examined by the modern reader as they were by the Venetian authorities almost four centuries ago. Marchio Fedeli’s defense failed to persuade the Health Board. 54

In the same volume, the like-minded Michelle Laughran chose to emphasize the case of one Zuan Alvise, a self-proclaimed surgeon, brought before the Venetian Health Office for illegally dispensing medicines in 1559. “Alvise was prosecuted for medicating without a license from the College of Physicians,” explained Laughran, “fined L.150 and forbidden to practice further without permission from the Collegi of Physicians and Surgeons.” In the same passage,

Laughran also relates how “Ciprian, an apothecary from the shop of the Annunciata (or Noncia , in Venetian dialect) near the Church of the Frari , was likewise charged and fined L.50 di piccoli .” Laughran concludes that “while the practice of popular medicine was not monolithic, the Health Office seems nevertheless to have targeted the full spectrum of its practitioners.” 55

Similarly, in his 1985 essay entitled “Pharmacy in the Republic of Venice in the Sixteenth

Century,” Richard Palmer relates a curious tale of an aspiring medical merchant named Galeazzo

52 Gentilcore, “For the Protection of Those Who Have Both Shop and Home in this City,” 115. 53 Gentilcore, Medical Charlatanism in Early Modern Italy , 84. 54 Ibid., 84-85. 55 Laughran, “Medicating With or Without ‘Scruples,’” 98-99. In the case of Alvise, Laughran cites Archivio di Stato, Provveditori alla Sanita, Busta 730, 13 April, 1559, 234r. For the case of Ciprian, Laughran cites Archivio di Stato, Provveditori alla Sanita, Busta 730, 5 December, 1559, 251v. 313

Corniani. According to Palmer, “Corniani told the Venetian College of Physicians and the

Giustizia Vecchia of his intention to make the drug theriac, and [was told] it had not been made properly for many years.” Palmer explains how the Venetian authorities relied upon the

Republic’s medical philosopher and author Pietro Matthioli, who, in 1548, had written about the impossibility of manufacturing authentic theriac due to the unavailability of crucial ingredients.

Matthioli argued that “ cinnamomo , balsamo , petroselino macedonico , mirrha , folio , meo ,

chalciti , amomo , aspalatho and calamo aromatico were among the list of missing items necessary to brew proper theriac.”56 Although no conclusive summation survives, we may assume that Galeazzo Corniani never obtained legal permission to manufacture and sell theriac.

After all, the authorities suggested, such a thing could not be done properly.

These scholarly works share several basic ideas and raise a series of similar implications.

Gentilcore, Laughran, and Palmer believe a meaningful image of healing can be gleaned by

studying the legal regulation of commerce within the public medical marketplace of early

modern Venice. These scholars attempt to derive information regarding drugs, medicinal know-

how, and shared sets of healing practices at the non-scholarly level by surveying statutory law

and consulting the legal records of institutions designed to oversee medical trade. There is much

to be said for approaching the historical record in this fashion, and these scholars (Gentilcore in particular) deserve credit for the vast amounts of research they have conducted. But the idea that

realistic reflections of healing practices in the early modern period can be derived from

56 Palmer, “Pharmacy in the Republic of Venice,” 109. Palmer’s citation of Matthioli is quite accurate. See Matthioli, “ I Discorsi di M. Pietro Andrea Matthioli, 411. What Palmer does not point out is that if Matthioli were correct, many self-help medical books sold in the squares and piazzas of sixteenth-century Venice would be problematic. The books of Alessio Piemontese, Leonardo Fioravanti, and Isabella Cortese, to name just a few, routinely call for the use of cinnamomo , balsamo, and mirrha for medicinal purposes. Furthermore, theriac, “authentic” or otherwise, was routinely marketed in Renaissance Venice, regardless of the Health Office’s position. See Stossl, “Lo spettacolo della Triaca.” 314 consultations of statutory law and records of judicial process may be misconceived. In the paragraphs that follow, I would like to examine some of the theoretical questions involved with

this issue, while offering some views on early modern Venetian healing that differ significantly

from those recently published.

In my view, the vast percentage of social phenomena related to healing in the early

modern Venetian Republic—consultations between patients and practitioners, sales of remedies

and formulas, basic medical services—took place outside the influence of the legal structures and

lawful institutions designed by the government to police such things. Most patients and healers,

as best I can tell, sought cures and prescribed remedies in fashions largely unrestrained by

statutory laws. More unlicensed healers sold remedies than licensed healers. More remedies

concocted without regard to legal stipulations changed hands than remedies that conformed to

state law. If this is true, and I shall offer evidence to support this idea momentarily, then the

significance attributed to the Health Board by the scholars described above may be problematic.

Let us consider Michelle Laughran’s treatment of such questions during the crucial period around the middle of the sixteenth century. According to Laughran, after the Health

Office and the College of Physicians combined their resources in 1546, “the Provveditori declared the privilege of the Venetian College of Physicians to examine and license all Barbers,

Apothecaries and Charlatans of whatever status and condition, both residents and foreigners, and every other person either male or female, who are not educated in general studies.” 57 As

Laughran explains, “they also required that the Collegio keep track of the names of all those practitioners who had received licenses and then communicate them to the Provveditori alla

Sanita , so that the Health Office could know who was licensed and who was not….[T]hose

57 Laughran, “Medicating With or Without ‘Scruples,’” 98. 315 caught practicing without such a license could be fined up to L.300, imprisoned for three months, and then banished from Venice for five years.” 58 Crucially, for the consideration of non-learned healers, Laughran explains:

At the same time, the Provveditori began to focus their efforts on prosecuting those

individuals who traditionally possessed an understanding of medicinals but medicated

without authorization. The extant records indicate that between the mid-1540s and the

mid-1560s, the Provveditori would prosecute at least twenty times, individuals, from

remedy-peddlers to mountebanks, from itinerant healers to a possibly possessed

woman, Elena Drago (who may have been eventually investigated a little over a decade

later by the Inquisition)….The Health Office seems to have targeted the full spectrum

of its practitioners. 59

But we must ask if twenty attempts at prosecution over a period of twenty years

constitutes a significant amount of legal policing. Are we to believe that an average of one

annual indictment greatly influenced the nature of commercial exchange in the sixteenth-century

Venetian medical marketplace? Perhaps such negligible prosecution records stem from strict

licensing procedures that ensured the legality of all aspiring medical merchants before they

entered the public marketplace. But according to Laughran, between 1541 and 1561, the

Venetian Health Office officially licensed less than six medical merchants per year. 60

58 Ibid., 98. Laughran cites Palmer’s The Studio of Venice and Its Graduates , 55. 59 Ibid., 98-99. 60 Laughran cites B.M.V. Collegio Medico-Chirurgico, Notizie tratte dai libri dei Priori , It. VII, 2342-9695, 118r. See Laughran, “Medicating With or Without ‘Scruples,’” 105, n32. 316

Such sparse numbers cannot be easily reconciled with sixteenth-century testimony regarding the prevalence of amateur healers within the public squares and piazzas of Venice. We have seen how the Augustinian monk and social critic Tommaso Garzoni (1549-1589) dedicated several pages of his book Piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo (1585) to the

“professors of secrets, charlatans, mountebanks” and other suspicious types who engaged in

healing activities without proper training in my chapter on Isabella Cortese. According to

Garzoni, the piazzas and squares of Venice and other northern Italian cities swarmed with all

sorts of jokers and frauds willing to sell fantastic healing remedies and formulas. 61 Originally published in Venice, Garzoni’s work went through twenty-nine Venetian editions.

Garzoni’s testimony is corroborated by the Englishman Thomas Coryate. After a journey

to Venice in 1598, Coryate wrote that “the greater concourse of mountebanks exists here

[Venice] than in other cities, for in Rome etc, they are restrained from certain matters as I have

learned which are heere allowed to them.” 62 Coryate may have been technically mistaken regarding the legal aspects of such questions, but his firsthand testimony probably tells us more than any statutory law. Besides, the law probably did not matter much. In her study of early modern Italian female mountebanks, Beth Mirabella suggests that “as medical practitioners, mountebanks generally lacked university education and must be considered informal as opposed to formal healers….[A]s such, Italian mountebanks were drawn into the fiercely competitive world of early modern healing, where not only were academically trained physicians obliged to compete with each other in the public medical marketplace, but they also competed with a world

61 Garzoni, La Piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo , fol. 80f-80v in my copy, professionally microfilmed by Venice’s Biblioteca Marciana . 62 Coryate, Coyrats crudities, hastily gobbled up in five moneths travells in France, Savoy, Italy, 272. Many thanks to Mary Fissell and the librarians at the Folger Institute’s Shakespeare Library for making me aware of this source. 317 of empirics, herbalists, and magical practitioners of every kind.” 63 In a second visit to Venice in

1608, Thomas Coryate related how the mountebanks of San Marco’s piazza “set up their many stages twice a day, that is, in the morning and the afternoone.” Coryatt described the “musicke, plays and tricks,” generally followed by “an oration to the audience by the principall

Mountebank.” After the speech has ended,

The principall Mountebank delivereth out his very commodities by little and little. The

major things that they sell are oyles, soveraigne waters, amorous songs printed,

Apothecary drugs, and a Commonweale of other trifles. As many as a thousand people

may flocke together about their stages. 64

Even if Coryatt exaggerated the numbers attracted by San Marco’s mountebanks, it is

hard to imagine how such popular activity could be enacted in strictly legal fashion given the

state’s modest licensing figures.

Fynes Moryson, a late sixteenth-century English visitor to Italy, described the unusual healers and vendors of secrets he saw in Venice and elsewhere:

Italy hath a generation of empiricks who frequently and by swarmes goe from citty to

citty and haunt their markett places. They are called montibanchi or mounting banckes

or ciarletani of prating. The wares they sell are commonly distilled waters and divers

oyntments for burning aches and stitches and the like, but espetially for the itch and

63 Mirabella, “Stealing Center Stage: Female Mountebanks and the Negotiation of the Public Space in Early Modern Europe,” publication forthcoming, delivered at the Folger Institute’s “Vernacular Health and Healing Colloquium,” April 20, 2007, Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC. 64 Coryate, Coyrats crudities, 410-411. 318

scabbs, more vendible than the rest. Some sell Angelica of Misnia at twelve pence

English the ounce, naming a remote Country to make the price greater, for otherwise

that colde Country shoulde not yealde excelent herbes. Many of them have some very

good secrets, but generally they are all cheaters. 65

It is ironic that Moryson mentioned “divers oyntments for the itch and scabbs,”

suggesting that such remedies were “more vendible than the rest,” for Mercurio Scipione, the

harshest critic of Italian charlatans, mountebanks, and other non-learned healers, objected most

vigorously to the unguents charlatans sold for scabies and the remedies they sold for chronic

itching. Any ointment that superficially treats the skin, according to Scipione, does more harm

than good to a sufferer who has not been purged of the illness causing the itch. “The ointment

closes and dries the scab,” explains Scipione, “which, if left alone, would [work] to discharge the bad humour [causing the itch]…[I]nstead, the bad humour becomes enclosed within the body

thanks to the unguent and can cause very serious problems or death.” 66

Mercurio Scipione’s work belongs to the literary tradition described in Chapter 4,

“Boundaries, Turf Wars and Scathing Critiques: The Various Social Levels of Medical Practice

Examine Each Other, 1550-1680 .” As previously explained, Scipione was a learned medical philosopher and licensed practitioner advancing a polemical critique of untrained healers in order

to protect his place within the medical profession. Readers will recall that Scipione’s 1603 De gli

errori popolari d’Italia represented a response to Laurent Joubert’s invitation to European physicians to record popular errors concerning medicine and health among untrained healers.

65 Cited in Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, 237. Eamon cites Moryson’s Fynes Moryson’s Itinerary , 424- 425. 66 Scipione, De gli errori popolari d’Italia, libri sette, 267. 319

Joubert, the chancellor of the Faculty of Medicine at Montpellier, published Erreurs populaires in 1578 to initiate an attack on non-learned healers by scholarly medical doctors. 67 While it is not

necessary to meticulously revisit the work of Joubert and Scipione here, some tidbits of

information from their respective texts will serve the current argument regarding the sheer

volume of non-learned, unregulated medical exchange in the Venetian public medical

marketplace.

For Laurent Joubert, the major problem facing the medical profession in the sixteenth century was that Europe’s major cities were packed with ignorant healers encroaching upon the domain of scholarly physicians. Joubert relates a story attributed to Alfonso d’Este, a late sixteenth-century duke of Ferrara, in which the duke’s buffoon suggests there are more

“physicians” in the city than any other type of person. “There are almost two hundred of them— and I only passed through one avenue between my house and yours….I’ll wager I could find more than a thousand in this city if I were to go through all the streets. Find me as many people in any other profession,” challenges the duke’s buffoon. 68 But Joubert was in no laughing mood

when he charged that “almost everybody is copying the prescriptions of physicians, taking sick people’s pulses, examining urine, giving opinions, and ordering the very opposite of what the physicians say.” Joubert complained of the “surgeons, barbers, apothecaries, attendants,

midwives, charlatans, and other quacks such as merchants, who, in order to cut in on a portion of

the profession, are master meddlers,” within Europe’s major cities. 69 Could Venice, one of the most famous cities in Renaissance Europe, be excluded from Joubert’s critique? If so, the

67 Joubert, Erreurs populaires . Although I have used the original version, obtained from Venice’s Biblioteca Marciana , there is also a version translated into the English language by Gregory David de Rocher. I indicate precisely in these notations which version I am citing. 68 De Rocher, trans., Popular Errors, 68-69. 69 Ibid., 69. 320 chancellor of the Faculty of Medicine at Montpellier did not say.

But for direct testimony on Italy, we can turn back to the Italian native Scipione. Like

Joubert, Mercurio blamed the poor state of medical affairs on the untrained, ignorant healers who took advantage of the naive public. Speaking of Venice, Mercurio attacked the “errors committed in the piazza,” by empirics and charlatans, who endangered the public with their misconceived and often fatal remedies. Scipione could not understand how people could actually purchase “remedies made of useless junk…authorized by the presence of some vagabond dressed in velvet, approved by a clown and encouraged by some whore, confirmed by a million false witnesses and just as many lies.” In the style of a university scholar forever immersed in

Aristotelian logic, Mercurio complained that “the charlatans have no understanding of the causes of disease.” 70

But the neo-scholarly empiric Leonardo Fioravanti, who had attended university, debated medical philosophers, and published several books, toiled many a hot summer day in the public piazzas of Venice, and he looked cynically at Mercurio Scipione’s emphasis on causes. “I don’t know any worthy doctor who treats the cause,” wrote Fioravanti in 1561. “As for me, I have never seen anyone treat the cause, but I have certainly medicated, have seen others medicate, the disease, which is the effect. Why should you have to know about this damned ‘cause’?” 71

Whether Fioravanti more closely represents one of the “professors of secrets” who aroused the suspicion of Tomasso Garzoni or one of the quacks or charlatans so thoroughly scorned by Mercurio Scipione is not important. What matters is that Fioravanti’s medical recipes and formulas, many of which resided completely outside the official Venetian medical tradition

70 Scipione, De gli errori popolari d’Italia, 265-270. 71 Fioravanti, Secreti medicinali ; in my copy, professionally microfilmed by Venice’s Biblioteca Marciana , this passage appears on fol.26r. Pagination may vary. 321 of university, were available for sale every day in the public medical marketplace. His published recipes for “olio benedetto,” “sciroppo magistrale,” “dia aromatica,” and “pietra filosofia” may not have been duly recorded with samples filed at the Venetian Health Office—no law on the books demanded any such thing—but they were readily available to anybody in the city who could read. 72 In fact, those incapable of reading might still benefit from Fioravanti’s presence.

“Anyone who would like to avail himself of my remedies will find me in Venice at San Luca,”

he wrote in Capricci medicinale (1561), “where I will always be ready for the service of all.” 73

* * * * *

Medically related commercial activity flourished in the public squares of many northern

Italian cities during the Renaissance. Indeed, in much of sixteenth-century Europe, urban medical marketplaces and medical economies were transformed by new providers of new medical services. With little time, patience, or resources for the overbearing medical philosophy and comprehensive regimens for living prescribed by scholarly doctors in Chapter 1, many early modern Europeans took active interests in the new drugs, new treatments, and new ideas of the late Renaissance. As medical services began to take on specific monetary values, competition helped transform the public medical marketplace of cities and large towns. The ever-expanding medical marketplace attracted healers from all different social classes, with various educational backgrounds. “The changing medical marketplace attracted a multitude of medical empirics and

72 Medical books deemed contrary to the Catholic faith could theoretically be placed on the Holy Inquisition’s list of censored volumes. No such books of Leonardo Fioravanti appear on any list of banned works. Isabella Cortese’s 1561 “ I secreti ” was published in Venice the same year as two of Fioravanti’s works. As explained in the previous chapter, Cortese’s volume must have enjoyed commercial success as it was reprinted dozens of times. Yet Isabella Cortese’s recipe for improving the male member, which included borax, storax, and two parts of crushed large wing ants, never aroused legal reaction from the authorities. See Cortese, I secreti . 73 Fioravanti, Compendio dei secreti rationali , 43. 322 charlatans, who sold nostrums and powders in the piazzas and taverns of Italy’s cities,” writes

William Eamon. “Venice, in particular,” according to Eamon, “was renowned for its swarms of charlatans and mountebanks, who peddled their miracle drugs in St. Mark’s square and delighted visitors with their music, dance and entertainment.” Eamon suggests the printing press accelerated these trends, “since it was but a small step from purchasing a remedy from a pharmacist to buying a book of remedies to cure oneself.” 74

Venetian authorities noticed such developments. In the middle of the sixteenth century, bureaucratic and administrative reform created greater legal oversight of commercial activity within the public medical marketplace. Several scholars have studied the period’s statutory law and consulted the records of judicial process in order to better understand the legal regulation of medical commerce. From these documents, these scholars have tried to glean reflections of healing practices among late Renaissance Venetians. Much potentially valuable information has been uncovered in the process. But the theoretical approaches and methodological practices of such scholarship have their limitations.

The records of statutory law and judicial process under consideration, which are broadly dispersed in a wide variety of unrelated historical documents, indicate a fairly limited amount of commercial activity during the century from 1540-1640. As described above, the historical record indicates twenty attempts at state prosecution directed at allegedly illegal medical commerce during a twenty year period from the 1540s to the 1560s. In addition, the records indicate the newly revamped Venetian Health Office issued an average of less than six licenses per year from 1541 to 1561. These figures do not seem to reflect serious policing of the voluminous amount of healing related activity indicated by other sources for the period in

74 Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, 138. 323 question. The testimony of contemporary visitors, the reflections of contemporary practitioners, the records of publishing houses, and the books sold at the time, among other things, all indicate an ever-expanding, diverse, unrestrained medical marketplace. Cross-referencing the documentary records themselves would seem to indicate, in my view, a more permissive form of legal regulation than the restrictive policing portrayed by recent scholarship.

Perhaps the conspicuous willingness to deductively draw conclusions from surviving archival evidence reflects a disposition common to Venetian historians. The “Most Serene

Republic” left lots of records. More than a few historiographical debates have originated with the controversial use of Venetian sources. But historians of medicine studying other areas of Europe have approached sources concerning the legal regulation of medical commerce cautiously. For example, in her study Patients, Healers and the Law in Early Modern Bologna, Gianna Pomata examined the licensing of non-learned medical practitioners by Bolognese authorities. According to Pomata, “these licenses were clearly used to integrate popular medicine, at least in part, into the official medical system. The Protomedicato’s attitude toward popular healers had a punitive side (the enforcing of disciplinary actions) but also a permissive one (the issuing of licenses).”

Toward the end of the book, Pomata reflects cynically on the capacity of the Bolognesean state to efficiently legislate on complex matters of healing. “In the juridical pluralism of the old regime [the early modern period], that labyrinthine tangle of competing jurisdictions, early modern people—even the common people—knew how to find their way to the court or magistrate presumably most favorable to their case.” 75

Similarly, in her reflections on legal regulation of healing activities in early modern

Germany, Mary Lindemann never attributed efficient, insightful, or meaningful policing to state

75 Pomata, Contracting a Cure, 83 and 145. 324 institutions. In discussing the health boards and regulatory agencies of seventeenth-century

Germany, Lindemann writes, “the German situation reveals many of the same traits that characterized German political structures as a whole: it was a hodgepodge. No clear division of responsibilities existed. A mix of privileges persisted and confused the relationships between governors and the governed.” In speaking of the larger European continent, Lindeman remarks,

“By 1800, almost all governments had regulations in place to define legitimate practice and practitioners. Still, these various ordinances seldom reflected the reality of medical practice.

Moreover, the constraints governments set on practice did not necessarily coincide with popular understandings of ‘proper’ or ‘appropriate’ healers.” 76

Deborah Harkness’s analysis of the legal regulation of early modern London’s medical marketplace renders equally cynical conclusions. Discussing the case of one Paul Fairfax, an amateur healer who sold a ‘miraculous brand of water’ in 1589, Harkness writes, “Fairfax, like most medical practitioners in London, understood all too well how the medical market worked and how, if necessary, someone without a license might evade the multiple, overlapping regulatory bodies that vainly attempted to oversee the practice of medicine in the City.”

According to Harkness, “The system was riddled with gaps in coverage and a clever use of print culture, patient testimonials, a false university degree, good connections, and the laws of supply and demand, enabled Fairfax and other practitioners to work for years before running afoul of a regulatory body like the College of Physicians.” Harkness concludes by suggesting the walls between physician, surgeon, elite and empiric practitioner were remarkably permeable, while casting doubt on the “seemingly confused palimpsest of guild regulations and city laws”

76 Lindemann, Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe, 177 and 198. Also see Lindemann, Health and Healing in Eighteenth-Century Germany , especially chap. 1, “Medicine, State and Society,” 22-71. 325 attempting to regulate disputes among them. 77

The highly structural, positivistic research and theorizing of recent Venetian scholarship seems to ignore more than it considers. The surviving documentation of legal regulation in the early modern medical marketplace is not adequate to glean meaningful images of the diversity, variety, and magnitude of Renaissance healing practices. The sources can never shed light on all the healing activities that unfolded outside the legal structures and institutions of regulation.

Deductive reasoning based on the information drawn from these sources is neither entirely possible nor especially helpful. In a sense, drawing firm conclusions based on severely limited documented evidence conjures up the intellectual dilemma expressed by — how can we know that which we hold to be true or realistic is not best explained by considerations outside our understanding, rather than the product of our insights? Are our convictions the children of our limitations?

But the problem runs deeper. Portrayals of early modern healing gleaned from legal sources tend to assume that health laws flowed mainly from medical considerations. When historians of medicine examine the legal regulation of healing phenomena for the purpose of understanding the “medical cosmology” of a given society, they proceed from a particular perception of the relationship between health law and healing. If health law reflects healing practices, then it must be reasonable to conclude that a given social order’s perception of the body, interpretation of disease, and popular therapeutic methods shape and mold the laws pertaining to such things. But the construction of law is never a simple matter. State regulation of the medical marketplace in any society can only be properly understood within the context of

77 Harkness, Deborah, The Jewel House of Art and Nature, 69-71 of my manuscript version. Many thanks to Professor Harkness for permission to cite these passages. 326 that society’s political culture. Broadly speaking, the political culture of early modern Venice may be described as that of “patronage society,” where the state, or more specifically, the social and political power brokers within the society, sought to benefit from public commerce, reinforce social hierarchies, and squeeze capital from those unable to resist their power. In my view, the political culture of patronage society represented the most direct influence on the legal policing of the early modern Venetian medical marketplace. In the final section of this chapter, I shall examine this idea.

* * * * *

In an essay concerning law and authority in the early modern Venetian Republic, Gaetano

Cozzi noted that two principles, ‘authority’ and ‘equality,’ have long been regarded as the linchpins of Renaissance Venetian society. But in much of early modern Venetian life, Cozzi suggested, the reality of ‘authority’ held the upper hand over any theoretical notions of

‘equality.’ 78 This phenomena certainly held true in the sphere of business and commerce. In the

Venetian commercial marketplace, as elsewhere in early modern Europe, not everyone enjoyed equality, but everyone had some experience with authority.

Nevertheless, by early modern standards, high percentages of the Venetian population engaged profitably in business. “A large proportion of this population is employed in commerce,” reported the Spanish ambassador Don Alonso della Cueva in his 1618 report to his crown, “and they make more money than they would in any other place.” 79 In the realm of

78 Cozzi, “Authority and Law in Renaissance Venice,” 317. 79 Report on Venice attributed to Spanish ambassador Don Alonso della Cueva, Marquis of Bedmar: BL Additional ms. 5471, ff. 147-53, cited in Chambers and Pullan, eds., Venice, A Documentary History 1450-1630 , 260. 327 business in general and the public marketplace in particular, early modern Venice possessed an

unusual complexity and variety of social actors. Unlike other major European cities, no cultural

disposition prevented nobles from pursuing commercial activities. Hence, economically

advantaged Venetians conducted business alongside more modest merchants, while a variety of

itinerant traders passed in and out of the great commercial hub that was Venice.

But a commercial marketplace featuring participants drawn from various levels within

the social scale invited certain problems. Don Alonso della Cueva noted that nobles prospered

significantly in the Venetian theater of commerce, “and their gains are all the greater because the

authority and superiority over other people which they have acquired for themselves free them

from the dangers that beset other merchants.” 80 Although the Spanish ambassador never specifies

the “dangers that beset other merchants,” it is clear that ordinary citizens enjoyed less social and political organization and consequently less leverage and power than Venetians higher up on the

social scale. A quick example will suffice to make this point: while university educated medical practitioners belonged to the College of Physicians and could present their interests in all legal

disputes with the power and authority of a well organized and respected institution, most

charlatans, mountebanks, and other non-learned empirics belonged, at best, to a guild, that did

little more than charge them membership fees.

Judging by his checkered past, itinerant ways, and personal testimony, Jacopo Coppa, the

hapless amateur healer whose story opened this chapter, appears to have been, at best, an

ordinary citizen and a person of modest means. 81 This should not surprise us. Nancy Siraisi

suggests that in early modern Italy, lay practitioners and untrained healers generally appear to

80 Ibid., 257. 81 A.S.V., Provvedditori alla Sanita, Busta 730, 254v–256r. 328 have belonged to the milieu of urban guilds and crafts. “It is evident that empirics usually occupied a lowly social as well as occupational position,” writes Siraisi, adding that “the practice of medicine [at this level] was frequently combined with one or more of a variety of other petty trades or crafts.” 82 Did Coppa’s relatively disadvantageous social standing adversely affect his petition for legitimacy? Perhaps, but it is difficult to say precisely how this may have been the

case.

When Coppa complained that the physicians of the Health Board “treated me unfairly,” what exactly did he mean? Did Coppa refer to the chemical composition and physical quality of the medicinal syrup he hoped to legally market? Probably not, because the Health Board deemed the syrup acceptable and legitimate. But they would not permit an unlicensed physician to sell it.

The Board apparently had more than health and healing in mind.

Partly composed of university-educated licensed physicians, the Health Board may have been trying to maintain the distinction between scholarly doctors and amateur healers. But this is unlikely. The Health Board existed not to prevent the commercial marketing of new products, but to benefit from them. As David Gentilcore cautiously points out (but never emphasizes), “the licensing fees [collected by regulatory agencies] constituted a necessary source of revenue.” 83

Like the Holy Tribunal of the Venetian Inquisition, the Health Board depended upon the confiscation of capital from those within its clutches for its very existence.

It was not unusual for the Health Office to proceed to license a charlatan whom they had earlier fined for operating without a license. 84 Multiple legal jurisdictions, or the overlapping

82 Siraisi, Medieval & Early Renaissance Medicine , 26. 83 Gentilcore, Medical Charlatanism in Early Modern Italy , 108. 84 Ibid., 121. Gentilcore makes this point as well, but he brings it up in order to suggest that charlatans were not perceived as a threat by the medical authorities. 329 authority of regulatory agencies—a guild could license a practitioner to sell a remedy, the

Giustizia Vecchia could authorize a healer to trade a medicinal product, the Incurable Hospital could license an empiric to sell a formula, only to have the Health Office issue a fine for “illegal commerce”—m ay have represented more of an opportunistic play to join the party of exploitation and less a function of early modern legal disorganization.

During the second half of the sixteenth century, the Venetian Health Office started incorporating amateur healers into the process of legal authorization itself. Presumably, such measures represented an attempt at greater regulatory efficiency. The individuals involved would be motivated by the potential for personal gain. Hence, in 1563, Leone Tartaglini became the

“capo for charlatans,” as appointed by the Provveditori alla Sanita .85 Some years later, one

Bartolomeo Gregolini gained a similar position with the Health Office. Gregolini gained authority to oversee charlatans and other characters “who sell their medications without regard for the laws and statutes of this office.” Gregolini’s salary would be a fraction of the fines the office collected under his guidance. 86

Approximately seventy years later, the Venetian Health Office made this position a bit more formal. In the 1630s, a university-educated physician would be appointed “protomedicato,” a sort of modern-day Surgeon General, and empowered to oversee all matters of medical commerce within the city. 87 Gentilcore relates how the Venetian physician Cecilio Fuoli became the third in his family to become protophysician, succeeding his father and his uncle. The job seems to have paid well. The protophysician “received all the emoluments and profits belonging

85 A.S.V., Provveditori alla Sanita, Busta 731, 5 July, 1563, 4v. 86 A.S.V., Provveditori alla Sanita, Busta 732, 21 June, 1572, 21v-22r. 87 Marchini, ed., I mali e I rimedi della Serenissima , 67-73. 330 and pertaining to the said office.” 88

But if some untrained healers benefited from incorporation into the policing institutions,

more amateur medical practitioners suffered. In the early years of the seventeenth century,

Mantua, which had been politically dominated by Venice, began imitating Venetian initiatives.

The duke of Mantua started placing charlatans and empirics in regulatory agencies. In 1613, the

Mantuan College of Physicians ordered that charlatans prepare their medicines in apothecaries’

shops, under the supervision of trained physicians. One Tristano Martinelli, a man with no

medical training from any university, complained that “charlatans could no longer make a living, because the apothecaries wares cost four times more than in Venice.” Martinelli went on to say

that the charlatans “have to grease the palms of the College protophysician and notaries, which

was not the case before.” 89

Perhaps the necessity of greasing palms had been the case for Jacopo Coppa from 1545 through 1568. This type of thing seems to have been quite common in the experiences between citizens and bureaucratic organs of the state. Specifically discussing the sixteenth century,

Gaetano Cozzi writes, “According to certain contemporaries, the frequency of cases of embezzlement in the Venetian administration in this period was due to the fact that many jobs were filled by men forced by their wretchedness to extort profit greater than that offered by the normal salaries.” 90 We should not be surprised that government employment and the occupation

of jobs within regulatory agencies struck many Venetians as opportunities for personal gain and

individual benefit. Such ideas were institutionalized. After all, Bartolomeo Gregolini’s position

88 Gentilcore, Medical Charlatanism in Early Modern Italy , 105. Gentilcore cites Archivio di Statto, Provveditori alla Sanita, Busta 740, 164. 89 Gentilcore, Medical Charlatanism , 108. 90 Cozzi, “Authority and Law in Renaissance Venice,” 299. 331 with the Health Office paid no salary per se. Gregolini’s compensation, as described above, would be a fraction of the fines he collected with the power and authority of his legal position.

Ambition and greed undoubtedly drove certain individuals to excess. Even the visiting Don

Alonso della Cueva noticed in 1618 that “leading servants of the state, in positions of the highest trust, have helped themselves and taken stipends far in excess of the rewards due to them for their efforts.” 91

But such notions of authority, privilege, order, and power did not flow solely from styles of state formation and political culture. These ideas had an intellectual history as well. Many years ago, Benjamin Kohl and Ronald Witt argued that the “secularization” of European culture began in the Renaissance as the Middle Ages gave way to the early modern world. During this transformation, the social and political prominence once enjoyed by ecclesiastics and military authorities gradually gave way to the rising class of merchants and bankers. Kohl and Witt credit the early Italian humanists such as Francesco Petrarca, Coluccio Salutati, Leonardo Bruni,

Francesco Barbaro, Poggio Bracciolini, and Angelo Poliziano as being facilitators of this process. 92 For Kohl and Witt, the Italian humanists provided the philosophical rationale

necessary to supplant an obsolete system of values created by loosely organized agricultural

societies with a new intellectual foundation for urban life dominated by commerce. Later

generations of early modern social and cultural historians have attacked ideas associated with

91 Report on Venice attributed to Spanish ambassador Don Alonso della Cueva, Marquis of Bedmar: BL Additional ms. 5471, ff. 147-53, cited in Chambers and Pullan, eds., Venice, A Documentary History, 258. 92 Kohl and Witt, eds., The Earthly Republic; see the general introduction, 3-22, for my remarks concerning the secularization of the Renaissance and the intellectual and philosophical justification for new social orders based on banking and commerce. The humanist essays briefly alluded to may be listed as follows: Francesco Petrarca, “How a Ruler Ought to Govern His State,” 35-78 of the Kohl and Witt volume, originally published as Rerum Senilium liber XIV. Ad magnificum Franciscum de Carraria Padue dominum, in the 14 th century; Francesco Barbaro’s “On Wifely Duties,” 189-228 of the Kohl and Witt volume; Alberti, The Albertis of Florence; and Poggio Bracciolini’s “On Avarice,” 241-292 of the Kohl and Witt volume. 332

“secularizing” trends, arguing that religion and spirituality endured in a variety of ways during the late Renaissance. In addition, the value of top-down intellectual history has been roundly questioned by many social and cultural historians. Nevertheless, essays such as Petrarca’s “How a State Ought to be Governed,” Francesco Barbaro’s “On Wifely Duties,” Leon Battista Alberti’s

“The Alberti’s of Florence,” Leon Battista Alberti’s “Della Famiglia,” Poggio Bracciolini’s “On

Avarice,” and Niccolo Machiavelli’s demonstrate that an intellectual rationale existed for early modern Italian social hierarchies as reinforced by codes of honor, notions of privilege, perceptions of order and of power. Dennis Romano has argued that in the hierarchically ordered world of sixteenth-century Venice, as the efficiency of the state’s coercive power grew, conflict between individuals in unequal relationships conformed to culturally constructed notions of privilege, order, and codes of honor. 93 Jacopo Coppa almost

certainly encountered such realities.

Perhaps he just did not pay enough money. Forking over cash for the privilege of doing business, greasing powerful palms, and sharing one’s income with social superiors seems to have

typified public commerce in early modern Venice. One thing is certain: the licensing and

regulation of commercial activity in the Venetian medical marketplace did not proceed from purely medical considerations. Even a close reading of statutory law reveals otherwise.

Larger case studies, anecdotes, and stories reconstructed from surviving letters also reveal much about the history of licensing and patenting within the Venetian Republic. David

Chambers and Brian Pullan have pieced together the tale of a Jewish physician attempting to

93 Romano, Housecraft and Statecraft : Domestic Service in Renaissance Venice , 239. See also Romano, Patricians and Popolani: The Social Foundations of the Venetian Renaissance State . 333 gain a license to practice medicine in Venice during the year 1589. 94 The story of David de

Pomis, a Jew who claimed to “hold doctorates in medicine and philosophy for more than forty years,” has been reconstructed through the discovery of a formal dispatch of an Archbishop to

Pope Sixtus V, and a corresponding letter written by de Pomis to the His Holiness. Again, the tale implies that the legal regulation of healing had more to do with sociological phenomena and political culture than purely medicinal considerations.

“I know David de Pomis by name,” wrote Archbishop Matteucci to Pope Sixtus V, on

February 4, 1589. “Although a Jew,” explained the Archbishop, “he has the reputation of being a good man.” Matteucci described how several leading senators of the Collegio approached him during a recent ‘Festival of the Purification.’ They urged him to grant licenses to two Jewish physicians to practice medicine in the Venetian Republic. “When I explained that I had no authority to do so, they pressed me, in a way that brooked no refusal, to obtain one for them from the Pope himself.” Impressed by the testimony of these senators, Matteuci decided to write Pope

Sixtus on behalf of David de Pomis. 95

Might the phrase “they pressed me, in a way that brooked no refusal,” actually imply some form of graft, coercion, or enticing attempt at persuasion? Perhaps, but it is difficult to say.

What is clear is that Matteuci’s letter neglects the professional qualifications, technical skills, and styles of medicinal practice associated with the applicants. Instead, Matteuci emphasizes that de Pomis has “dedicated some work to the Doge in the past,” and “would attend to the senators and their families.” Similarly, de Pomis’s personal letter to the Pope ignores questions of medical skill and healing potential. Instead, the Jewish physician speaks of the lexicon he has dedicated

94 Chambers, and Pullan, eds., Venice, A Documentary History, 340-41. 95 Ibid., 340, “From a dispatch of the papal nuncio, Archbishop Mantteucci, 4 February 1589: ASVat. DN, filza 26, f. 477.” 334 to the Pope and his willingness to attend to Venetian citizens during times of epidemics, as a service to the state, without any reward, if necessary. Although he specifically requests a license to practice medicine, de Pomis speaks of his writing skills as a potential resource for the

Venetian government. 96

No records exist regarding the outcome of this story. But the nature of the petitions

described above reveals something about the mediation and negotiation of legal authority

concerning medical matters in late Renaissance Venice. De Pomis’s Jewish background

represented the greatest obstacle to his desire to practice medicine within the Republic. His

subservience and willingness to assist his social superiors in whatever form necessary, he seemed

to think, represented his greatest assets. The medicinal solutions he perfected, the cures he prescribed, and the healing practices he mastered had no place in his quest for legitimacy.

* * * * *

In writing histories derived from statutory law and legal regulations regarding medical practice, historians of medicine produce stories determined by the limits of their sources. If not

careful, scholars of medical history may come to assume that their consultations of legal records

and judicial process somehow produce an image of social practice within the medical

marketplace. But in early modern Europe, the legal regulation of medical practice represented an

attempt on the part of states to participate in those healing activities significant enough to

warrant attention. State intervention generally constituted a modest influence on the sum total of

all healing-related activities.

96 Ibid., 341, “Petition of the Jew David de Pomis to Pope Sixtus V, 1 July 1589: ASVat. DN, filza 28, f. 282.” 335

It is anachronistic to believe early modern states closely policed healing practices with rigorous efficiency across the social scale. The bureaucratic and administrative capacity of states to reach every nook and cranny of social life was still several centuries in the future. Given the limits of early modern legal authority and the inefficient regulation of social practices at the everyday level, it is reasonable to assume that in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Venice, virtually everybody enjoyed a realistic, if not a legal, freedom to medically treat a willing patient.

As a result, a wide variety of healing phenomena ensued. Medicinal recipes totally foreign to the officially recognized pharmacological tradition changed hands in the marketplace.

Healing formulas that were technically “illegal,” or simply not recognized as legitimate, were printed and sold every day. The boundaries between official, irregular, learned, amateur, physician, surgeon, charlatan, mountebank, and quack were constantly blurred when sick people sought cures for illness. 336

Conclusion

The Secrets of Health: Early Modern Views on Healing

The first recorded successful Caesarean section performed on a living mother occurred

over five hundred years ago. The woman, who went on to have more children, lived to the age of

seventy-seven. The surgeon, Swiss born Jakob Nufer, returned to his profession of castrating

farm animals. The pig-gelding Nufer never undertook scholarly medical training. 1

Understanding this event requires appreciating two fundamental ideas: a) the vast

majority of early modern medical phenomena took place beyond the parameters of learned, or

officially sanctioned practice, and b) ideas and skills associated with fundamental aspects of

medicine and healing developed considerably on virtually every level of the early modern social

scale.

During the Renaissance, a fundamental level of medical knowledge and familiarity with basic healing principles represented a necessity for everyday life among ordinary people.

Because medicine had yet to become thoroughly professionalized and because no adequate cadre

of learned practitioners efficiently reached the various levels and far flung corners of early

modern society, most people had to fend for themselves. Regarding early modern England, John

Henry suggests, “the conviction that everyone was responsible for their own health

[dominated].” According to Henry, “before medicine was established as the specialist preserve of

a professional elite…a knowledge of medicine was regarded as an important element in the

make-up of a cultured gentleman or gentlewoman. Lower down the social scale, a basic level of

1 See Henry, "Doctors and Healers: Popular Culture and the Medical Profession,” 197, and Connor, A People’s History of Science, Miners, Midwives, and “Low Mechanicks,” 312. The operation took place in 1500. 337 medical knowledge was regarded as essential for daily life.” 2 The same held true for northern

Italy, where the vast majority of sick folks rarely consulted officially licensed practitioners during bouts with illness. 3

Jacob Nufer’s successful Caesarian section surgery constituted a remarkable achievement, but there was nothing miraculous about the context in which his feat emerged. The vast majority of early modern children were born without the aid of university-trained doctors.

Scholarly practitioners had no realistic opportunity to compete with vernacular healers and ordinary citizens for the conquests and triumphs of technical innovation and medical breakthroughs. University-trained physicians were outnumbered, outflanked, and overwhelmed by the competition of amateur healers everywhere.

Amateur practitioners, rather than scholarly physicians, typically suited the needs of most early modern folks. Vernacular healers and their patients sought cures that promised immediate relief for specific problems. The broad, imprecise remedies of Galenic medicine designed to restore humoural balance or comprehensive regimens of health, which required long term alterations in lifestyle for effectiveness, did not necessarily suit ordinary folks suffering from gout, dropsy, or hemorrhoids. Not surprisingly, medical practitioners on the margins of academic society, sought to bridge the gap between theory and practice implicit within university

2 Henry, "Doctors and Healers: Popular Culture and the Medical Profession,"199 . 3 If recent research indicates that Renaissance Europe featured a relatively high percentage of medical practitioners per citizen, it is mainly because the newly appreciated healers were not learned physicians. A 1630 Tuscan census indicates a Florentine population of 86,000, which featured only 33 licensed physicians (see Cipolla, Public Health & the Medical Profession, 80). In 1427 the total number of official physicians and licensed surgeons combined in the Florentine tax registry numbered only thirty-six (see Siraisi, Medieval & Early Renaissance Medicine , 25, and also Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber, Tuscans and Their Families, 115, 122, and 125). During the sixteenth century, 603 advanced degrees in medicine were granted within the Venetian Republic (see Trebbi, “ Le professioni liberali, i medici e i chirughi ,” 475). But that only represents approximately six per year, for a city whose population generally fell between 120,000 and 150,000 during the sixteenth century. Lindemann estimates that there were only 400 licensed physicians in all of France in 1520. By 1650 the figure rose to approximately 1,750, but most of these doctors resided in the university towns of Paris, Montpellier, and Lyons, leaving the rural folks without professional medical care. Sixteenth-century England featured similar demographic breakdowns and comparable ratios of licensed physicians to citizens (see Lindemann, Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe, 197). 338 medicine. Even official medicine often sought to simplify the ideational components of its own foundation during practical application; let us recall the minimalization of scholarly astrology by medical philosophers in manifestations of late Renaissance bloodletting.

Nevertheless, we have seen that healers outside university did not necessarily represent poor imitations of their more learned competition. Many vernacular healers seemed more influenced by ‘natural magic,’ ‘alchemical theory,’ or ‘hermetic philosophy’ than classic humoural theory. As a result, the distinction between and relationship among scholarly physicians and vernacular healers remains a loaded question. The post-war expansion of

‘traditional histories of medicine’ into modern ‘histories of healing’ has added to the controversy among scholars in the field.

For these reasons, when contemplating how people of the early modern period dealt with illness, one’s research may easily develop two heads. On the one hand, one may be seduced into thinking about the history of medicine as an intellectual discipline. On the other hand, one may gravitate towards stories about how most early modern people actually pursued health care.

Maintaining a well-ordered investigation requires an unusual combination of analysis, contextualization, and synthesis.

I have grappled with this challenge throughout this dissertation. In my conclusion, while summarizing the major themes of this paper and offering recommendations for future research, I shall advance some final thoughts on this subject. I believe an unspoken assumption exists at the forefront of most historical investigations into early modern healing. Scholars assume that the closer they look at early modern medical practitioners, the more they will appreciate the distinguishing characteristics that separate and define the various healers. But I think if we approach our sources differently and listen more closely, we shall find profound similarities exist 339 among healers from a wide variety of social levels within early modern Venice and the larger continent of Europe. The main reason, I shall suggest, is that most perceptions of the body and healing practices were intuitively derived, and subsequently dressed up in various styles of discursive language and cultural convention.

* * * * *

The sets of discursive practices and styles of knowledge production we know as ‘science’ constitute relatively new things. Modern scientific methods, with their emphasis on experimentation, rigorous methodology, time-tested models for establishing conclusions, and ever advancing technology, represent fairly recent phenomena. But before the gravity chambers, atom smashers, halogen microscopes, and centrifuge technology, inquiries about physical phenomena and the natural world were more purely intellectual endeavors. Similarly, before mercury thermometers, stethoscopes, x-ray machines, and magnetic resonance imaging technology, perceptions of the body, health, sickness, and healing were largely derived through intellectual debate, intuitive thought, common sense, instinct, and imagination. Hippocrates and his followers could not literally see the chemical reactions of digestion, nor understand precisely how drugs affected the body. The humoural model of the body represents the product of philosophical discourse, but it is also speculative, conjectural, and intuitively derived.

Hippocrates did not discover humours. He invented them.

The point here is that pre-modern views of the body, health, and healing were not necessarily gleaned via direct investigation of the body itself. Instead, pre-modern perceptions of the body were shaped by ideas within larger narratives about other questions. As a subset of natural philosophy, Hippocratic theory corresponded to the orientation, logic, and poetics of a discourse not essentially corporeal. In fact, humoural philosophy corresponded to historical ideas 340 about the physical world. Humoural theory and the microcosm/macrocosm view of the relationship between the body and the cosmos grew up together. Renaissance perceptions of sickness and disease were viewed as dysfunctions between human bodies and the natural word, which constituted, in a sense, transgressions against nature itself. Given the wide variety of forces exerting influence upon Hippocratic theory, from its original conception down through its appropriation by competing scholars during the late Renaissance, it is not difficult to understand the constant evolution of this body of knowledge.

In the early centuries of humoural philosophy, Galen used Aristotelian logic, or at least second century manifestations of such, to elaborate, develop, systematize, and arguably, enhance

Hippocratic teaching. Galen combined ancient ideas about the body and health, to produce new knowledge. But the new knowledge represented products of Aristotelian logic, not conclusions drawn from Hippocrates’s systematic observation and empirical testing of the human body.

In this sense, humoural theory has always been influenced by a great deal of “external thought,” or sets of ideas outside purely corporeal and physiological considerations. In fact, a great deal of moralizing resides within pre-modern regimens of health. Good health depended upon the moderation of passions and emotions, the restraint of orientations toward pleasure, the control of lust and sexual impulses—in short, a form of mental discipline characterized by the policing of human desire.

Moderation, balance and harmony represented the crucial virtues in the system of logic and philosophy that was humoural theory. Each humour possessed a color, flavor, and character, yet survival of the larger system depended upon humoural harmony. The same principles held true for the relationship between individuals and social collectives. Humoural theory represented 341 a collection of ideas human beings told themselves about themselves. Its major precepts were derived by looking outward and upward, not inward.

Over the centuries, as I have argued in my first two chapters, humoural theory would be transformed by a wide variety of external forces. Reconciliation and development with

‘Aristotelianism’ changed humoural theory. Exportation to foreign lands changed humoural theory. The linguistic translation, appropriation, augmentation and synthesis with Indian,

Egyptian, and Chinese learning, at the hands of scholars from the Arabic east, transformed ancient western philosophy. More alterations ensued upon humoural theory’s rediscovery by western European scholars during the Medeival period. The Christianization of pagan logic and subsequent institutionalization of humoural theory in European universities meant more change for this rather malleable set of ideas.

In my second chapter, I compared humoural theory to the topsoil of a fertile field, repeatedly tilled, used, replenished, and abused evermore. I chose the analogy for its broad basis of appeal. The physical landscape always presents great potential for producing meaning. The mountains, valleys, plains and forests, the oceans and the sky, represent the ultimate building blocks of language and thought. Hippocrates had the same idea when he compared himself to the cosmos, as others surely did before him.

Humoural theory owed its long life to an intuitively plausible, commonsensical nature.

Many of its most basic tenets were self-evident. Many of its most fundamental principles were reinforced in a wide variety of human activity. A model calling for moderation in all things; a regimen predicated on avoiding exhaustion, overeating, inebriation; a mentality characterized by composure and reason—the basic pillars of humoural theory would seem beyond reproach. The 342 model’s basic principles surely occurred to most people, or at least struck most pre-modern citizens as reasonable.

Humoural theory provided a physical basis for understanding vice as a cause of sickness.

Humoural theory taught that domination by any one character, ingredient, or principle within a group of equals brought dysfunction. Humoural theory implied that in order for an entity composed of individual parts to survive, the parts must cooperate and interact harmoniously.

Humoural theory implied that all those things we cannot necessarily see, yet utterly depend upon, conform to natural, divine law.

Galen once wrote, “health consists in natural activities, illness consists in unnatural ones; health consists in the natural conditions, illness consists in the unnatural conditions; health consists in the dispositions, and illness consists in them too.” For Galen, health depended upon a lifestyle, frame of mind, and set of physical activities, including diet, most closely related to and efficiently aligned with the harmony of nature. The strategic manipulation of the body, whether in the form of surgical intervention or the use of foreign substances, aroused suspicion among many humoural theorists. Today, people espousing such views of the body, health, sickness, and healing may be said to possess a ‘naturalist’ view of medicine. The anti- implicit in such views calls for a return to the pristine days before chemical drugs, authoritarian approaches to correcting and controlling the body, and a strong willingness towards invasive surgery and physical intervention. Modern medical naturalists seek a return to yesteryear; humoural medicine was conceived before modernity.

But the intuitive plausibility of humoural theory is best illustrated by the fact that the model’s basic principles were held by people separated by vast spans of space, time, and cultural 343 background. This point constitutes a critical idea within this dissertation and merits further

attention.

* * * * *

Why did so many basic principles related to healing gain expression in similar ways at a

variety of social levels within early modern society? The question may be extended to philosophical discourse on nature, which, as we have seen, must never be separated from views

of the body, health, sickness, and healing during the Renaissance. Why do a plethora of views

regarding nature, heaven, the cosmos, and the human body emerge in eerily similar fashion

among people from widely different backgrounds?

Indeed, we have seen that even ways of thinking about these questions share common

characteristics among people separated by vast spans of space, time, and cultural context. The

Hermetic tradition’s restrictive ‘law of silence’ regarding the dissemination of knowledge about

the natural world serves as an example. According to legend, Asclepius, the Greek god of

medicine, warned his students not to “reveal the secrets of any profane person who is a stranger

to our art,” lest the secrets lose their power. Eighteen centuries later, Isabella Cortese spoke for

countless amateur natural philosophers when she echoed those remarks. “You must maintain the

secrets of your work,” wrote Cortese, “[and] do not teach these arts to anyone, [for] revealing

these secrets will force them to lose their efficacy.” At one time or another, Leonardo Fioravanti,

Girolamo Ruscelli, and Giambattista Della Porta echoed similar sentiments. Cortese had read

such things in the literature of earlier masters like Ramon Lull, John of Rupescissa, and Arnald

of Vilanova. She had studied, in fact, in a variety of languages that most sixteenth-century

vernacular healers would never know. Yet at the trials of the Venetian Inquisition, one hears

similar testimony regarding the value of secrecy from half-blind, semi-literate, elderly women. 344

Notions regarding the discretion necessary to preserve the efficacy of special knowledge emerged at a variety of social levels within early modern Europe. Closely related to these ideas remained questions concerning legitimate objects of inquiry. What could man consider? What should man consider? When did scientific inquiry cross the line of holy propriety? Again, we

find an amazing set of similarities among perspectives on these questions from very different sets

of people.

Since the earliest days of Christianity, theologians characterized ‘curiosity’ as a vice. We

should not be surprised that Augustine, Aquinas, and Tomasso Garzoni all warned against

unnecessary investigation into the mysteries of God’s providence in the eighth, thirteenth, and

sixteenth centuries respectively; these were all men of the cloth. But highly unorthodox

Christians held similar ideas. Despite his conviction regarding the vast healing potential hidden

within the natural world, Paracelsus never advocated unrestrained curiosity. Instead, the

sixteenth-century alchemical healer spoke of forces that “were too wonderful to ever be

thoroughly investigated.” The scholarly trained Levinus Leminus also believed the largely

unexamined physical world represented the key to improving the art of medicine. But in De

Miraculis occultis , the Dutch-born medical philosopher warns of excessive curiosity and the

vices of misguided investigation into nature, the physical world, and God’s creation. 4

Perhaps Lemnius’s association with the University of Padua influenced his views on this

subject. After all, his Paduan colleague Andreas Vesalius expressed similar concerns about

‘curiositas ,’ and Vesalius’s empirically driven anatomical program depended upon an investigative disposition. Both men operated under the constraints established by Aquinas during the thirteenth century. But Paduan protocol does not explain the common concerns and shared sensibilities among people outside university.

4 Lemnius, The Secret Miracles of Nature in Four Books, originally published in 1572. See bk. 4, sec. 33, 351-352. 345

Neither Paracelsus nor Isabella Cortese ever expressed sympathy for scholastic teaching or university-based medicine. Both complained that reverence for ancient teaching and traditional learning limited the art of healing. These thinkers would not explain their views regarding the limits of legitimate inquiry in Paduan terms. Nor would sixteenth-century healer

Elena Crusichi.

Like many of the semi-literate, vernacular healers of the north Italian countryside,

Crusichi dismissed questions about the metaphysical nature of her cures as inappropriate. Under interrogation, she politely reminded Inquisitors about the “mysteries of God and faith.” When asked how and why her prescriptions actually worked, Crusichi scolded her interrogators by reminding them of her trademark motto: “It is in the name of Christ, the glorious Virgin Mary and the Holy Trinity that the Lord is the one who liberates [victims] from disease.” 5 Although they could vividly describe the material basses of their cures with pride, vernacular healers like

Crusichi and Giovanna Semolina preferred Christian mystery and divine inscrutability to purely rational metaphysics.

Perhaps Crusichi deliberately related her stories in Christian terms to avoid the wrath of her interrogators. Or perhaps notions regarding the limits of proper inquiry occurred to her intuitively. In the history of healing, not all ideas were formally transmitted via direct instruction, research, and reading. Most of the basic ones, in fact, seem to have been intuitively derived by wide varieties of people, owing to the sheer plausibility of such ideas. The best example is the micro/macrocosm view of the human body’s relationship with the cosmos. This view also represents a set of ideas seemingly shared by healers at every level of early modern Italian society.

5 A.S.V., Sant’Ufficio , Busta 30, August, 1571, fol. 3r . 346

* * * * *

Hippocrates suggested that understanding man represented the key to understanding

nature and the universe. As we have seen, a wide variety of learned western thought, before and

after Hippocrates, subscribed to the same general principles. Hermetic, Platonic, Aristotelian,

Neo-Platonic, and Galenic appropriation of Hippocratic teaching all engaged the

micro/macrocosm idea.

Twenty centuries after Hippocrates, Isabella Cortese espoused her view of the

relationship between man and the cosmos. “For man and nature are united,” she wrote, while

emphasizing the significance of this relationship in the context of healing. “I want you to

understand [this principle] not in the way philosophers have taught, or perhaps in a way they do

not understand.” Cortese believed God created man in his own image, but He also created the

world in His own image and imparted the image of the world into man and vice-versa. Cortese’s

view resembled that of Paracelsus, but differed significantly from the scholarly Neo-Platonic philosophers or students of classical . Simply put, Cortese rejected the classical

neo-Platonic principle which held that man and the cosmos were composed of the same

elements; hence, the spirits that influenced the cosmos must simultaneously influence man.

The point is, Isabella Cortese held a view of the micro/macrocosm principle, but her view

differed from many of the previous articulations of the general idea. Cortese’s view was probably comparable to, but different from, the view of Elena Crusichi, who used the spirit

within the tides to wash a body’s sickness back out to sea. Crusichi’s sense of the correlation between the physical world and the body probably did not surprise her fellow inhabitants of the

north Italian countryside. In discussing ordinary folks at the everyday level of early modern life, 347

Mary Lindemann suggests that “people thought about the inner workings of the body, to be sure, but more often they spoke about balances and sympathies, weighed the relationship of one humour to another, one organ to another, and related the entire human microcosm to the larger macrocosm of the universe.” 6 As Lindemann rightly concludes, “what went on inside the body was hard to discern and the ways people referred to bodily processes tended to be metaphoric.” 7

I have attempted to demonstrate subtle differences in general views held by people from

very different backgrounds. People acquired ideas from various sources and made use of

knowledge in different ways. For many years, historians, folklorists, morphologists, and

anthropologists have debated the implications of common thought held by people separated by

vast spans of time and space. 8 Does the discovery of an underlying structure common to ideas regarding the relationship between the human body and the heavenly cosmos imply derivation from a single source? Can the cultural transmission, whether written or oral, of common ideas and sets of practices across vast territories over centuries be persuasively demonstrated? Can a broad substratum of common beliefs about the body, health, and healing emerge and endure

coincidentally? Carlo Ginzburg suggests that when we encounter conspicuously common

elements of thought regarding specific ideas, such as rituals to cure illness or battle demons,

among people separated by huge tracts of space and time, we should consider four alternatives:

“the analogies that exist may be attributed to (1) chance, (2) the necessity imposed by mental

structures common to the human experience, (3) diffusion, or (4) a common genetic source.” 9 I will be satisfied to suggest that various manifestations of the micro/macrocosm idea naturally

6 Lindemann, Medicine and Society , 15. Roy Porter and Dorothy Porter suggest the same idea was especially true for early modern English people. See Porter and Porter, In Sickness and in Health , 46. 7 Ibid., 15. 8 For example, see Propp, Morphology of the Folktale ; Murray, The Witch Cult in Western Europe ; and the following works of Carlo Ginzburg: The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults ; “Deciphering the Sabbath,” and Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath . 9 Ginzburg, “Deciphering the Sabbath,” 128. 348 occurred to different people separated by vast spans of space and time, owing to its intuitive plausibility. As Ginzburg suggests, “research in this direction will have to make use of less rudimentary means of interpretation and analytical categories than those so far employed.” 10 In other words, we have to be willing to make reasonable assumptions.

Indeed, it would be unreasonable not to conclude that comparable ideas regarding health and healing occurred to wide varieties of different people. Let us consider a basic principle we have encountered throughout this dissertation: the view that nature provided the remedies to cure all illnesses affecting humanity; the physical world, so the story goes, represents a great warehouse of potential healing ingredients. We have seen how ancient writers on materia medica , medical botanists at university, alchemical healers of the Paracelsian brand, and a wide variety of vernacular healers throughout northern Italy and continental Europe held this view.

Andrew Wear suggests this idea resided at the heart of most vernacular therapeutics in early modern England. “The whole of the natural world seemed to comprise a vast repository of remedies,” Wear states. For evidence, Wear points to scriptural sources. “Scripture gave credence to the Greek and Arabic use of nature for remedies, for as Ecclesiasticus 38:4 put it,

‘The Lord hath created medicines of the earth, and hee that is wise will not aborre them.’” For

Wear, the idea represents a foundational principle of scholarly and vernacular medicine. 11

But where else, if not the physical world, would remedies for illness come from? Must we search for literary sources, evidence of oral transmission, or signs of historically specific practices, to prove that the people of the past possessed common sense? Furthermore, may we not assume that comparable forms of common sense existed among people at a wide variety of social levels?

10 Ibid., 135. 11 Wear, Knowledge and Practice in English Medicine, chap. 4, “Remedies.” 349

As a discursive formation, humoural theory had not been conceived via rigorous investigation with specific tools particular to an exclusive niche within society. It had been conceived and developed by collective rationalization, debate, consensus, and imagination. As an explanatory set of ideas, humoural theory sought to describe, rationalize, and justify. It drew from a wide variety of ideas readily accessible to most people. Its basic principles and operational virtues were commonsensical.

Until fairly recently in human history, most views on health and healing were largely derived through intuition and imagination. Prior to modern science, the vast majority of knowledge about health and sickness were constructed with qualities and activities available to everyone. Common forms of empirically derived knowledge existed at a wide variety of social levels, even if different forms of discursive language and cultural convention camouflaged such things. The Augustinian priest and scientist Gregor Mendel is credited with inventing genetics.

But is it not reasonable to believe agrarian peasants were strategically pairing off farm animals long before Mendel’s highly intellectualized articulation of such ideas?

* * * * *

Most of the issues and challenges facing historians raised in this dissertation can be summoned forth with two basic questions: a) how do historians organize their knowledge and ideas about the various types of medical practitioners during the Renaissance? and b) how can historians meaningfully analyze the production of an early modern medical publication? The first question might be rephrased as follows: how do historians conceptualize the various healers of the early modern period? If one broadly divides early modern healers into two camps—scholarly university graduates, or “rational doctors,” on the one hand and amateur, vernacular healers, or 350

“empirics,” on the other hand, there shall be direct consequences for the analysis that follows from such a division. In other words, how we conceptualize the healers of the past determines how we organize and make sense of the knowledge and ideas gleaned during our research and investigation of yesteryear’s medical practitioners. The second question concerns rhetoric and the challenge of interpreting texts. Put most simply, the question might be rephrased as follows: how can we understand the relationship between text and context? A sixteenth-century volume published by a medical author constitutes a document with which to study early modern healing.

But naïve readings of rhetorical publications, as though such books offer clear windows into the past or represent solid historical documentation suitable for non-critical interpretation, will do more harm than good. For the challenges of developing a hermeneutic style suitable for analyzing Renaissance medical publications, historians may look to the discipline of literary criticism, as I shall explain below.

New theoretical approaches to understanding the relationship between text and context, in fact, can draw both questions raised above into a fairly singular, potentially interesting consideration. The question of text and context can refer to a medical author’s relationship with, and production of, the text he or she publishes. In considering each volume, historians should ask: Why did the author write the book? How is the writer attempting to advance his professional interests with this volume? Was the author trying to fit within a certain niche of the medical arena or make a name for himself by attacking an established school of thought? How did the culture of medical publishing shape, mold, define, or constrain the scope, nature, and style of the book?

These questions shall be directly influenced by the general perception of the larger medical landscape the historian brings to the archive. If the historian thinks himself to be 351 examining the overly unified stable ground of reality known as the “Age of Humoural Theory,” or the nice, neat phase of medical evolution known as the “Era of Experimentation,” the historian’s perception of the text shall be immediately saturated with particular meaning. Even choosing to study “the period in which Empiricism replaced Scholasticism” encourages a scholar to mentally deposit a text into one of a precious few tidy interpretative compartments.

A post-structuralist view of the medical landscape, however, which seeks out the various range of certain discursive activities, considers how knowledge intersects with class, examines the social and anthropological roots of all knowledge production, and resists oversimplified, reductionist views of shared mentalities, would enrich considerations of every question raised in the paragraphs above. What might be called constant “intertextual readings” of the author’s relationship with the text, the text’s relationship with the context, the tension of conflicting ideas within the text, and the historian’s perception of the past, would help emancipate historical investigations from the constraining style of dichotomous analysis and bi-polar thinking currently dominating studies of early modern medicine. 12

Post-structural theory and literary approaches to historical research may promise

expanding conceptions of historical reality and meaning, but they can be difficult to implement.

In discussing the possibility of linking literary and historical studies, Albert Ascoli remarked, “It

is generally more easy to theorize the desirability of such interdisciplinarity than it is to put it

into persuasive practice, since its broadly synthetic objects and aims invariably call for a wider

range of scholarly methods and interpretative strategies than any single discipline-based study

12 These ideas, which shall be further explained below, are most directly influenced by the scholarship of Hayden White, Dominick LaCapra, Lloyd Kramer, and, of course, indirectly informed by the intellectual legacy of Friedrich Nietzche and Michel Foucault. A more detailed bibliography shall follow. One fairly concise discussion of most of the thoughts described above can be found in Kramer’s “Literature, Criticism and the Historical Imagination: The Literary Challenge of Hayden White and Dominick LaCapra,” 97-128. 352 has available, not to mention a far greater fund of plausible evidence. 13 Nevertheless, historians

of early modern natural philosophy have already published books that can help point us toward better studies of Renaissance medicine and healing.

* * * * *

In 1993, Mario Biagioli published Galileo, Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Age

of Absolutism . In this work Biagioli develops a thesis regarding the major influences shaping

Galileo’s thought, publications and professional behavior. Biagioli sets out to explain the essence

of what he calls Galileo’s “socioprofessional identity.”

Biagioli’s main argument can be summarized as follows: the demands of patronage

society and the behavior necessary to advance in the culture of absolutism directed Galileo’s

thought, shaped his work, and governed his behavior. The production of Galileo’s natural philosophy and his cultivation of court employment emerged simultaneously; Galilean science cannot be understood without strong emphasis on the political considerations Galileo believed necessary to advance his career. For example, according to Biagioli, Galileo’s reputation as a controversialist cannot be assigned to any particular psychological disposition or crucial discovery within the sixteenth-century Tuscan’s personal research. Instead, the fact that Galileo knew that his duty as court philosopher would be to attract interesting challenges from respected counterparts in other courts, and to arrange entertaining public disputes, strongly influenced

Galileo’s proclivity for raising controversial questions. According to Biagioli, the cultural dynamics of career advancement in patronage societies did not represent one aspect among many

13 See Ascoli’s review of John J. Najemy’s Between Friends: Discourse of Power and Desire in the Machiavelli- Vettori Letters of 1513-1515 . 353 in Galileo’s mind; strategies and considerations of advancement constituted the essential forces driving Galileo’s behavior, and, ultimately, the construction of his natural philosophy.

“The unremitting focus on patronage as the shaper of scientific careers and scientific knowledge is the provocative strength of Biagioli’s study,” remarked colleague Steven Shapin. 14

I would recommend historians of early modern European medicine approach their work with

similar focus. If we consider natural philosophy at the highest levels of early modern European

society, we find that perceptions of truth and reality, whether derived via scholastic logic,

empiricism, experimentation, or gleaned from a tarot reader’s cards, had to be effectively

attached to contours of power in order to have significant meaning. Politics meant more to the

construction of high scientific thought during the Renaissance than it does in modern Europe.

Neglecting the cultural dynamics of professional advancement within patronage society ignores a

crucial component, or arguably the essence, of Galileo’s mentality.

As discussed in this dissertation, historians have disagreed over Joseph Duchesne’s

Paracelsian tendencies, although the Frenchman’s generally subversive point of view regarding

university medicine cannot be denied. But how enriched might such inquiries be if they focused

on Duchesne’s desire to be premier physician in the house of Bourbon King Henry IV? How

much more insightful would our investigation of the sixteenth-century debate between Paduan professor Giovanni Argenterio and humanist medical philosopher Klaus Tubingen on materia

medica be if we could piece together their respective ideas and strategies concerning professional

advancement? The same types of anthropologically driven inquiries could also be mapped onto

historical investigations of non-scholarly healers.15

14 Shapin, review of Biagioli’s Galileo Courtier, 505-507. 15 The introductions, prefaces, and acknowledgement sections of many non-scholarly early modern publications reveal much about whom the author hopes to please. 354

Biagioli challenges us to see the early modern scientist in the same manner that social historians of art and literature have encouraged us to see their subjects. 16 Why should it be inappropriate to attempt to understand Galileo in the same fashion and manner that historians of art attempt to understand Michelangelo or historians of literature attempt to understand

Shakespeare? What makes it wrong to analyze the production of Galilean natural philosophy with the same set of questions we might use to understand the production of Shakespearian literature? Could it be that modern historians are reading some perception of the distinction between science on the one hand, and art and literature on the other, back onto the early modern period? Might modern scholars unconsciously, or perhaps consciously, think that literary and artistic knowledge are somehow less valuable than scientific knowledge for comprehending the world? Do we reserve positivistic rather than relativistic conceptions of historical knowledge for the great men that gave us modern science?

In 1993, John Najemy’s Between Friends: Discourse of Power and Desire in the

Machiavelli-Vettori Letters of 1513-1515 linked literary theory with historical reconstruction in order to better understand the evolution of Niccolo Machiavelli’s political philosophy. With close readings of a series of letters between Machiavelli and Francesco Vettori, Najemy attempted to understand how the dialogue between these two men influenced the former’s style of thinking, political analysis, and strategy for professional advancement. The book mainly concerns the issues and challenges of interpreting texts.

In his introduction, Najemy addresses the problem of “impoverished critical readings” among historians. In discussing the surviving letters between Machiavelli and Vettori, Najemy complains that few historians have provided close readings and even fewer have considered the significance of dialogue. “Historians of political thought,” explains Najemy, “have used the

16 Shapin makes this point in his review of Biagioli’s Galileo Courtier, 505-507. 355 letters somewhat selectively and with greater focus to locate the origins or to trace the development of the political ideas that found their way into the major works.” But by “selective reading,” Najemy meant that historians often separated important passages of texts from their larger whole, reading them in deliberate isolation or associating them with other highly particular passages culled from distant, seemingly unrelated letters. “If crucial passages are read in isolation from their respective full texts, and if each letter is similarly read in isolation from the dialogue of the ongoing correspondence between Machiavelli and Vettori, as they often are, they can be made to yield meanings compatible with any number of larger interpretations of

Machiavelli.” Najemy warned of readers who deliberately hunted for bits and pieces of evidence that might support overly simplistic arguments or partial interpretations. “Smart readers who know what they are looking for will usually find it,” declared Najemy. 17

Najemy’s analysis seems especially relevant for questions regarding the interpretation of early modern medical texts. Every major medical text I have ever consulted—scholarly works from medical professors, neo-scholarly works written in vernacular languages for larger audiences, volumes from the “books of secrets” tradition, and itemized recipe books for everyday use—all contain concrete ideas and pieces of information in some places that are impossible to reconcile with ideas in other places. Indeed, if the various types of books on healing published during the early modern era share one distinct characteristic, it is that within each book there exists something for everyone. “Smart readers,” as Najemy might say, can find

Galenic assumptions in Paracelsian alchemical texts, elements of ‘sympathetic healing’ in university text books, and elements of Aristotelian logic in vernacular recipe books. It is not uncommon to find descriptions of “elixir,” or recipes for one solution that will cure any illness, in books whose introductions strongly imply that no such thing exists.

17 Najemy, Between Friends: Discourses of Power and Desire, Introduction, 4-5. 356

During the early modern period, as described in my first two chapters, medical schools struggled to unambiguously divide theory from practice. Scholarly medical books published during the late Renaissance reflect the tension between the theoretical and practical aspects of medicine. Most texts were mainly philosophical works. Discussions of healing practices followed the highly intellectualized narratives at the forefronts of the books. The introduction, preface, and opening chapters of scholarly texts often outline a body of medical theory and philosophy, while the rest of the book describes healing practices. Incredibly, to our modern sensibilities, the balance of these books often describe sets of practices that are in no significant way related to the theory with which the volume begins. In a sense, the medical philosophy serves as an aesthetic rather than a binding set of principles. The discrepancy between the general philosophy initiating a text and the sets of practices that followed became something of a literary convention in scholarly medical books. Theory and practice represented two different things.

Neo-scholarly books written for larger audiences contained similar fundamental discrepancies, albeit for slightly different reasons. The literary culture of early modern natural philosophy demanded that medical practitioners demonstrate reverence to the great authors of antiquity at the outset of each work. Conforming to literary convention required authors to pay a certain lip service to the famous thinkers dominating the field of medicine. The larger manuscripts that followed generally strayed significantly from the superficial allusions which opened each work. The books often began with a literary genuflection to some ancient thinker, then quickly transformed into a simpler treatise designed for the non-specialist.

The “professors of secrets” wrote in a similarly paradoxical style. At the margins of

academic society, men like Girolamo Ruscelli, Leonardo Fioravanti, and Tommaso Bovio felt 357 compelled to kneel before the major power brokers of universities, publishing houses, heads of state, patrons of academies, and benefactors of the arts. At the outset of their books, “ i professori de secreti ” often professed profound admiration for the learning and insights of men they

subsequently ignored in the balance of their work.

By definition, the very nature of “ i libri secreti ” defied the order and internal consistency

that would later become synonymous with works of scientific literature. These books were

eclectic. The authors portrayed themselves as resourceful collectors that had traveled the world

over, accumulating remedies and formulas to solve every type of foreseeable problem. As a

result, they produced unwieldy compilations. The “books of secrets” reflect the nature and

disposition of their wide-eyed, ambitious authors; having outflanked their competitors, these

tireless men and women of the world set out to demonstrate the full range of their bag of tricks.

They made no pretense of issuing rigidly orthodox ideas that could be traced back to unifying

sets of foundational principles.

Each type of texts described above remains vulnerable to selective readings. As Najemy

says, “smart readers who know what they are looking for will usually find it.” Perhaps historians

have, as suggested a few paragraphs above, applied overly quantitative, positivistic, literal

interpretations to the texts left behind by the men and women credited with pioneering modern

science. To do so is, among other things, anachronistic. As a natural philosopher, Galileo philosophized about nature, just as the political philosopher Machiavelli philosophized about politics. Both men were artists. Galileo was not a modern scientist. To reserve modern scientific

approaches to interpretation and comprehension for Galileo’s work is to fundamentally

misunderstand the early modern period.

But I do not think that is the main problem with histories of early modern natural 358 philosophy. I believe the real problem is that the modern historian is not listening closely

enough. Most published interpretations of the dozens of texts described above lack the quality of

criticism necessary to derive insightful meaning from debates among early modern natural philosophers.

* * * * *

John Najemy’s Between Friends, Discourses of Power and Desire in the Machiavelli-

Vettori Letters of 1513-1515 offers great insights with regards to the dilemmas of historical theorizing described above. Najemy provides a standard of criticism for modern readings of

Renaissance texts. With his emphasis on “intertextual analysis” Najemy constantly rethinks the relationship between language and thought, the influence of the dialogue between two men on what each man writes, the impact that contemporary (1513-1515) events have on their writing, the meaning of seeming paradox and contradiction within the letters, and the ambition of

Machiavelli, among other things, while he engaged Vettori (“Machiavelli was quickly and confidently forging the terms of his new vocation as a political theorist”). Simply put, Najemy reads the text like a literary critic.

In his review of Najemy’s book, Albert R. Ascoli acknowledges that “historians tend to give notoriously literal and selective accounts of written texts, ignoring the complex formal and literary-historical elements—generic, narrative, figurative, and so on—through which their meanings are shaped. 18 Similarly, Dominick LaCapra expressed hope that “perhaps greater attention to the way that literary critics and philosophers read great texts would challenge the modern historian’s desire to “reduce certain texts to representative, illustrative, or symptomatic

18 See Ascoli’s review of Najemy’s Between Friends: Discourses of Power and Desire . 359 functions.” 19 What Lloyd Kramer calls the “reductive reading style” of modern social historians I

am content to label the “naïve reading style,” in that modern scholars often take the voices of the past at their word. LaCapra’s of words—“the modern historian’s desire to reduce certain texts to representative functions”—implies a conscious effort by the modern scholar to facilitate his research by professing to have located hard evidence. In any case, Kramer, LaCapra, and I myself all refer to poor critical readings of historical texts. Paraphrasing LaCapra, Kramer writes:

In contrast to the reductive reading style of social history, LaCapra urges historians

to read historical texts and contexts in ways that recognize their complexity and that

might lead to new kinds of writing too, since the style one adopts in writing is

connected with the style one adopts in reading. 20

With regards to the texts I have been discussing, the short form of this advice would be to simply acknowledge early modern texts as rhetorical constructions; read them critically; constantly consider the motives of the writer and the ideological perspectives articulated; and resist the temptation to reduce each text to the status of evidence of which it professes to be true.

In her book Medical Conflicts in Early Modern London: Patronage, Physicians and Irregular

Practitioners, 1550-1640 , Margaret Pelling begins her analysis with testimony from two

scholarly physicians. As explained in Chapter 2, John Securis’s 1566 A Detection and

Querimonie of the Daily Enormities and Abuses Committed in Physick blasted untrained, irregular medical practitioners throughout London and suggested the same held true for Paris.

19 LaCapra, Rethinking Intellectual History, 24 and 344. Also, see Kramer’s “Literature, Criticism and the Historical Imagination: The Literary Challenge of Hayden White and Dominick LaCapra,”especially 105-106. 20 Kramer, “Literature, Criticism and the Historical Imagination,” 106. 360

Securis blamed the gullibility and credulity of the London masses for allowing such fraudulent activity to flourish. Supporting Securis’s testimony with like-minded words from John Hall

(another licensed physician) and manuscript records from London’s College of Physicians,

Pelling establishes a conceptual framework for her book, characterizing the world of early modern London medical practice as a bi-polar struggle between university-trained physicians and irregular healers. 21

A critical reading of Securis’s book, which consistently analyzed the relationship between text and context, would probably not allow Pelling to frame her work on such tenuous grounds. Unfortunately, once Pelling has established her theoretical framework featuring dichotomous categories of polar opposites, all subsequent evidence gleaned from archives will likely be hammered into one of her two camps or simply ignored because her framework has not the capacity to appreciate it. In 1931, Herbert Butterfield complained that many of his fellow historians “tend in the first place to adopt a Whig or Protestant view of the subject, and very quickly busy themselves with dividing the world into the friends and enemies of progress.” 22

Butterfield emphasized that the way scholars organize and arrange their historical knowledge at

the outset of inquiries will affect the way they theorize, think and write about history. This same

is still true today.

Of course, it is not difficult to understand why historians of early modern European

natural philosophy, especially healing, feel compelled to devise strong organizational

frameworks at the outset of their investigations. As I explained in the introduction to this

dissertation, framing consistent theoretical models and establishing meaningful historical criteria

21 Pelling, Medical Conflicts in Early Modern London, 7-8. Again, also see Harkness’s soon-to-be-published essay, “Sir John Lack-Latin, a Peddler, and a Presumptuous Woman: Situating Women’s Medical Experiences in Elizabethan London,” 1. Also, see Harkness, The Jewel House, especially chap. 3, “The Contest over Medical Authority: Valerie Russwurin and the Barber-Surgeons.” 22 Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History, 5. 361 for understanding early modern European healing represents an enormous challenge. As virtually all early modern people sought cures for illness and the basic issues of maintaining health touched nearly every aspect of Renaissance life, scholars of medicine have always faced one fundamental challenge: bringing order to a vast array of unwieldy phenomena. Desperately trying to gain some form of organization at the outset of their inquiries, scholars feel compelled to adopt methods of compartmentalization, distinguishing approaches to healing and styles of medicinal practice in order to compare and contrast similarities and differences among healers.

As a result, images of early modern healers and styles of medical practice described by contemporary historians have generally been defined in opposition to each other and subsequently compared. Faced with the challenge of organizing inquiries into vast collections of often similar yet crucially different styles of medical philosophy and sets of healing practices, historians have felt compelled to divide and distinguish.

But these clear, neat, tidy organizational frameworks can lead to many a blind alley.

Inadequate readings of texts and insufficient appreciation of contexts have produced impoverished analysis. Historians of medicine have read the present back onto the past and imposed artificial distinctions on early modern healing activities that would be meaningless to most sixteenth- and- seventeenth-century Europeans. When we read historical texts on medicine and healing we consistently find them fraught with paradox, contradiction, and inconsistencies.

What do these tensions imply about the contexts they are supposed to reflect? Similarly, when we read the critiques Renaissance medical philosophers and healers leveled at each other, we notice most of the voices of the yesteryear seemed to be talking past each other. What does this paradox imply about our understanding to the larger early modern context?

Dominick LaCapra would suggest resisting any reduction of historical reality during the 362

Renaissance to some notion of its essential or pretextual qualities. Mario Biagioli would suggest we more seriously consider the professional ambitions and cultural context of the actors we consider. Although neither LaCapra nor Biagioli study early modern medicine, both men, I assume, would suggest that our analysis of texts and our reconstruction of context will not necessarily reveal truths about a relatively stable and unified reality in the past. We cannot understand Renaissance perceptions of the body and healing the way our modern scientists understand our bodies and our health concerns.

In fact, historians of early modern European medicine might do well to stop trying to explain what happened—who influenced whom, when one medical philosophy gave way to another, which bacillus caused bubonic plague—and simply try as best they can to render

interpretative descriptions of the past. Rather than pursuing the epistemological, metaphysical,

and ontological foundations of early modern thought, we might be better off investigating the political control of knowledge and the diffusion and dissemination of ideas. We can never really

understand how Isabella Cortese gained her view of the relationship between the cosmos and the body or what Elena Crusichi thought about the impact of the ocean’s tides on human health;

indeed, we cannot even agree if William Harvey and Andreas Vesalius were ‘Aristotelians,’ but

we can attempt to understand how the ideas and practices of historical actors were diffused,

disseminated, and received. Inquires into such questions would be more realistic, so long as we

emphasize the sociological aspects of our work and remember that histories of medicine concern

more than intellectual debate, philosophical discourse, and medically related phenomena.

Simply put, the history of early modern European medicine needs more anthropologically

driven research. As I suggested in my chapter on the policing and regulation of medicinal

commerce in early modern Europe, historians of medicine must remember that Renaissance 363 healing took place in historically influenced sociological contexts. In that chapter, I argued that scholars studying the regulation and policing of early modern medicine failed to adequately consider the social dynamics of patronage society. During the Renaissance, citizens from modest levels of the social hierarchy, hoping to gain , typically found themselves at the mercy of well positioned power brokers within the public sphere. If one wanted to do business, one had to pay any of a number of pipers. Hence, analyses concerning the licensing of apothecaries or the patenting of healing remedies cannot proceed from purely medicinal considerations, as many of them do. In retrospect, I might have asked why the Venetian

Inquisition mainly targeted female healers while the Provedditori alla Sanita almost exclusively licensed men to sell medicinal products. Such an investigation might have represented a social and anthropologically driven inquiry about medical phenomena and healing activities without the risks of anachronistically imposing a modern sense of order on the distant past.

Similarly, my chapter on the critiques of certain medical practitioners by other medical practitioners attempted to expose the limits of bi-polar, dichotomous analysis, naïve readings of rhetorical productions, and insufficient appreciation of cultural context, but more work needs to be done in this area. I may have adequately emphasized that the medicalized culture wars between men like Joubert and Mercurio on the one hand and Fioravanti and Ruscelli on the other

did not take place in vacuums most suitable for study by modern students of medical history. But

I would have liked to have further emphasized certain questions within Chapter 4.

The critiques of men like Joubert, Mercurio, and Securis were filled with righteous

vehemence. These men seemed to think vernacular healers represented the worst characters in

their respective societies. Joubert advanced his perception of ‘legitimate healers’ in high-minded

Biblical proverbs. Mercurio, James Primrose, and Cosimo Aldana associated vernacular healing 364 with the sacrilegious, diabolical black arts. Similarly, men like Leonardo Fioravanti, Levinus

Lemnius, and Girolamo Ruscelli hurled vituperative crtiques at their principle adversaries within the field of healing. Fioravanti associated institutionalized medicine with organized crime and charged its individual practitioners with theft and larceny.

I suggested that class-determined analysis cannot fully explain disputes among these men. After all, Cornelius Agrippa, Francis Bacon, and Paracelsus all hailed from aristocratic backgrounds or enjoyed wealth and privilege at various points in their lives, yet all three men looked critically at scholarly medicine. Even our modern notions of wealth, privilege, and university training do not necessarily fit the sixteenth century. Giambattista Della Porta, a rich

Neopolitan aristocrat, published prolifically in Latin for scholarly audiences. But Della Porta never attained a university degree.

But why did Francis Bacon so viciously attack the eclectic compilation of ‘natural magic’ of Della Porta by comparing it to tricksters, clowns, and buffoons of circus acts and carnivals?

Why did Thomas Browne, James Primrose, and Cosimo Aldana focus so directly upon the credulity and intellectual vulnerability of the masses? Why did men like Paracelsus, Fioravanti, and Girolamo Ruscelli sound like religious crusaders hoping to cleanse morally bankrupt societies?

Unfortunately, this dissertation does not provide answers to these questions. I hope to have emphasized the idea that meaningful reflection on these issues should not focus upon the conceptual and discursive languages of medicine, health, and healing. The clashes among these men cannot be explained by professional differences within the art of medicine or natural philosophy. The disputes and debates surveyed above emerged in socially and culturally constructed worlds quite different from our own, where perceptions of legitimacy and the right to 365 do natural philosophy depended upon prejudices regarding the religion one practiced, the city of one’s birth, the language one spoke, and a variety of other biases and preconceived notions about the relative worth of people. But only further and deeper sociological analysis can thoroughly explain such phenomena.

* * * * *

The major themes of this paper may be summarized in four paragraphs. In early modern

Venice, and, to a lesser extent, the larger European continent, healers from a wide variety of

social levels shared similar ideas and common assumptions about the body, health, sickness, and

healing. The main reason for these similarities is that ideas about such things were intuitively

derived, mentally plausible, and commonsensical; hence, they occurred to many different people.

Historians of medicine have imposed artificial distinctions upon early modern healing, dividing

medical practitioners, knowledge, and healing practices up into separate categories for their own

organizational needs. But these anachronistic distinctions would have little meaning for the vast percentage of early modern European inhabitants.

Most histories of medicine and healing remain heavily influenced by perceptions of

scholarly, university-based medicine. This is due to the fact that scholarly medical practitioners

left the greatest amount of readily discernible evidence for historians to consult. But most early

modern Europeans consulted vernacular healers or pursued their own cures when suffering

illness. During the period considered in this dissertation, scholarly medicine suffered a discursive

crisis. Ironically, the major players in Renaissance universities—scholastics, humanists,

Galenists, Aristotelians, empiricists and maverick medical philosophers—engaged in many of 366 the same activities as modern historians of medicine: in a period of professional crisis characterized by the expansion and fragmentation of their field, they investigated the past, seeking information by which to affirm and secure their own scholarly positions at the expense of others. Both then and now, the stories such people produce oversimplify the rich and complex history of early modern medicine and pigeon-hole its practitioners into narrow stereotypes.

Early modern healing took place in social contexts and must be understood

sociologically. Many historians rely too heavily upon the purely medicinal aspects of healing

stories and fail to appreciate the social and cultural dynamics of the early modern societies in

which healing occurred. Anthropologically influenced history represents our best chance of properly understanding early modern healing. Hermeneutical styles associated with modern

literary criticism represent the most desirable way of studying early modern medical publications. What may be called “intertextual readings” of a medical author’s relationship with

the text he produces, the text’s relationship with the cultural context in which it emerged, the

tension of conflicting ideas within the text, and the historian’s anthropologically influenced

appreciation of the past, might help emancipate historical investigations from the constraining

style of dichotomous analysis and bi-polar thinking currently dominating studies of early modern

medicine.

Finally, the idea that most perceptions of the body and healing practices were intuitively

derived and subsequently dressed up in various styles of discursive language and cultural

convention, contains some important implications for historical writing on early modern Europe.

Perhaps it is wise, as Roger Chartier and Peter Burke suggest, to view broad bodies of

knowledge within early modern Europe as being held in common, but used differently, by all

levels of society. Such a view might reduce the historian’s tendency toward reductive thinking, 367 characterized by pre-conceived searches for distinguishing characteristics among historical figures and social practices. John Henry suggests the medical hierarchies in most Renaissance societies were more matters of social distinction than theoretical or intellectual division. In this sense, it may be best to consider how knowledge intersects with social status rather than searching for clues regarding the origin, circulation and transmission of ideas.

368

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John G. Visconti Vita

EDUCATION

Bachelor of Arts 8/79-5/83 Fordham University Rose Hill, Bronx, New York

Major: Political Science Minor: History G.P.A. 3.57

Certificate of Completion (non-accredited) 1/93-11/94 New York University School of Continuing Education New York, New York

Major: International Relations Course Work: Six courses in International Relations, including studies in global economy, military affairs and international political theory.

Master of Arts University of Miami 8/94-5/97

Major: Modern Europe Minor: American History G.P.A. 3.9

Continuing Studies in Education 7/97-7/98 Florida International University

Course Work: Completed undergraduate course work required for Florida State Certification in Social Studies. Curriculum consisted of five education courses, two economic courses and one geography course.

Doctor of Philosophy (Phd) Pennsylvania State University 9/00 – 8/09

Early Modern European History

Completed course work requirements during the period of 9/00 – 5/03. Spent two academic semesters studying in Harvard University’s History of Science Department during 2002.

Conducted archival research abroad from 1/03 – 6/05. Dissertation title: The Secrets of Health; Views on Healing from the Everyday Level to the Printing Presses in Early Modern Venice, 1500-1650 .