Medical Elites and Medical Practice
in Renaissance and Early Modern Italy
University of Warwick, 30 April 2004
The conference ‘Medical Elites and Medical Practice in Renaissance and Early
Modern Italy’, which was held at Warwick on 30 April, was the first event in
an ongoing collaboration between the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance
and the Centre for the History of Medicine at Warwick. Established in 1999,
the Centre for the History of Medicine brings together activities in medical
history from across the University. A lively, interdisciplinary community, the
Centre runs a programme of workshops, seminars and conferences, many of
which are open to the public. The Centre also coordinates the activities of the
MA in the Social History of Medicine, and a large cohort of postgraduate
students. The Centre has been awarded a Wellcome Trust Strategic Award of
£600,000, which will allow it to expand its range of activities over the next
five years under the general theme of ‘Cultures and Practices of Health.’ Two
major collective projects will be developed as part of this programme: ‘Health
and Workplace in Twentieth-Century Britain’ and ‘The Practice of Medicine
in Early Modern Europe.’
Following a welcome by Colin Jones and Jonathan Davies (Warwick),
the conference began with two papers which investigated the links between
elites, medicine, and religion. Jillian Harrold (Warwick) examined the
iconography of Saints Cosmas and Damian, analysing changes in the cult
across the Italian peninsula during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Focusing on eighteenth-century Bologna, Lucia Dacome (Wellcome Trust
Centre for the History of Medicine, UCL) discussed how anatomical models
became points of intersection between medical discourse, religious imagery,
carnivalesque culture, and Grand Tour display. There followed two papers
which considered the relationship between elite medicine and popular
medicine. Drawing on their project ‘Selling Health in Renaissance Tuscany’,
funded by the Wellcome Trust, James Shaw and Evelyn Welch (Sussex)
explored the retail market for drugs in Renaissance Florence as revealed by
the records of a single apothecary. Using sources from across Italy, Joseph
Wheeler (King’s College) examined the place of books of secrets between
learned and informal medicine. The last two papers focused on groups of
physicians. Sam Cohn (Glasgow) used late-medieval plague tracts to discuss
networks of doctors and ideas. These reached far beyond Italy to France and
the Holy Roman Empire. Silvia de Renzi (Open University) used a survey of
physicians in Rome between 1600 and 1650 to consider medicine as a career.
The conference concluded with a round table discussion which was
chaired by David Gentilcore (Leicester). In the course of the discussion, two
themes became apparent. First, the importance of prosopography as a means
of analysing physicians. Secondly, the need to place the physicians in social,
economic, political, religious, and cultural contexts.
Dr Jonathan Davies
University of Warwick