Appendix V — Papal Physicians
To make many sources of information with regard to this vexed question of the relation of the Popes to Science more readily available, a series of authoritative references to Papal Physicians so far as we know them and their work during the past seven centuries has seemed to me especially needed. Physicians at all times have been interested in phases of science besides medicine and have not infrequently made important discoveries in the non-medical sciences. Their constant occupation with scientific subjects in their professional capacity has always given them an open mind for scientific advances. As the Papal Physicians were at all times men chosen because they had reached distinction in medicine, they were usually scholars who thought for themselves and were ready to recognize the new in science in any department from which it might be presented. Many of the Papal Physicians made important contributions to other sciences and not a few of them laid important foundations, especially in the biological sciences. The fact that the Popes constantly had near them, in the confidential capacity so inevitable between a man and his physician, scientists of prestige in their chosen profession, so often the teachers of their generation in medicine and almost as a rule interested in the sciences related to medicine and not infrequently in physical science generally, is the best possible evidence not only that there could not be opposition, but on the contrary that there must have been, so far as human assumption may go, a constant favorable attitude of mind of the Popes toward science.
In my chapter on Papal Physicians in the first edition of this volume I gathered such references as would enable me to bring out the valuable services of many of the medical attendants of the Popes to medical and physical science. I was not aware then that a more or less complete list of Papal Physicians for some five centuries at least had been published, giving an excellent idea of what they had done and written in scientific matters. There was no copy of the work in this country so far as I could learn and it was only after considerable difficulty that I was able to secure the volumes through the kind offices of Rev. Father Hagan, S.J., who is the Papal Astronomer in Rome at the present time. From that work the History of the Papal Physicians, originally written by Mandosio at the end of the seventeenth century and extended and annotated by Marini at the end of the eighteenth, 50 it has seemed worth while to present such abstracts as will supply ample material for the consultation of those interested in Papal relations to science yet who have not the longer work available for reference. This will show that many of the Papal Physicians were, as I have said, leaders in the science of their time, not only in medicine and also the biological sciences generally, but in all departments of physical science.
Nicholas I the Great (858-67).—Almost needless to say the available list of the Papal Physicians does not go back much beyond the thirteenth century, though we have the name of one Ursus who is mentioned in a very old manuscript, No. 5696 (Fol. 184) of the Vatican Library. The author of this manuscript work is Anastasius the Abbot and he dedicates it to Ursus, Physician, Domestic Prelate of Pope Nicholas I. Beyond a mention of Ursus by Fioravante Martinello in his work, Roma ex Ethnica Sacra, (p. 414), nothing else is known of this old-time physician. Even this mention, however, seems to make it clear that there was a physician formally attached to the Papal See thus early in the Middle Ages.
Sylvester II (999-1003), Victor III (1086-87).—In the tenth century Gerbert, who became Pope under the name of Sylvester II, was famous for his knowledge of medicine as well as other sciences and the close personal friend of men who did much for medical education in France, as we have noted in the body of the book. Before the end of the eleventh century the Abbot Desiderius, as we have said, became Pope after having been for years the intimate friend of Constantine Africanus, to whom we owe the earliest serious development of the medical school of Salerno and the first important medical writings in modern Europe. We owe much of Constantine’s writing to Desiderius’ inspiration.
Innocent III (1198-1216), Gregory IX (1227-41), Martin IV (1281-85).—With the beginning of the thirteenth century the documents for the history of culture in Europe are better preserved and the list of Papal Physicians begins to be more complete. Guy of Montpellier was summoned to Rome to establish the Hospital of Santo Spirito by Innocent III just at the opening of the thirteenth century. Richard the Englishman was the physician to the famous Pope Gregory IX, one of Innocent’s successors in the first half of this century. Another Englishman, Hugo Atratus or Atractus, said to have been from Evesham, became the physician of Pope Martin II, 1281. Oldoino in his Athenaeo Romano mentions a series of books written by this Hugh of Evesham, as he is called in English. They bear the titles Medicinales Canones, Medical Canons, and De Genealogiis Humanis and there is besides an opusculum by him on the work of Isaac the well-known Jewish physician of the Middle Ages “On Fevers.” The physicians of Pope Honorius IV, Taddeo the Florentine, and of Nicholas IV, Simon a Corde, or as he is better known, Simon Januensis, are mentioned in the body of the book.
Boniface VIII (1294-1303), Benedict XI (1303-04), Clement V (1305-14).—In the preface of his great text-book of surgery, written in the first half of the fourteenth century, Henry of Mondeville, whose work represents an important landmark in the history of surgery that has been reissued in our own generation in at least two editions, one in Germany, the other in France, declares that “I began to write this work... on the proposal and request of Master William of Brescia, distinguished professor in the science of medicine and formerly physician to Pope Boniface VIII, and Benedict XI, and Clement V, the present Pope.” This is almost all that we know of William, and he is not mentioned in Mandosio’s list of Papal Physicians nor in Marini’s additions to Mandosio. This is not so hard to understand because no printed edition of Mondeville, who died untimely from tuberculosis and whose work was left unfinished, was issued until our time. If William had done nothing else, however, than stimulate his younger colleague Mondeville to write his great book, which Pagel thought it worth while to edit in our generation and to which Gurlt, in his History of Surgery, devotes some forty pages, he would have a right to a distinctive place in the history of surgery. As it is we have Mondeville’s praise of him and as the French professor of surgery was himself one of the most scholarly men of that important period, his opinion is of great value.
Another of the physicians of Pope Boniface VIII, Angelus Camerinensis, is called by Oldoino “a most learned doctor of medicine (medicus absolutissimus) who made a fortune out of his profession and for many years not only pleased but benefited the students who crowded to hear him.” The two books from him that we know are on “The Regimen for Preservation from the Pest” and on “Protection against Poisons.”
One of the most distinguished of the Papal Physicians was Arnold of Villanova, who, after having been protected by Pope Benedict XI from enemies who insisted that his scientific writings were heretical, afterwards became the friend and physician of Pope Clement V at Avignon. He is the author of a great many writings which have gone through a number of editions. His works have proved a treasure house of quotations from a number of his colleagues in medicine and surgery who lived before his time, from whom nothing has been preserved except these quotations in Villanova. The edition of his works published at Lyons in 1504 contains some fifty-five different treatises.
One of the physicians of Pope Clement V, at least he seems to have been summoned in consultation when the Pope was suffering from a severe illness, the cure of which was attributed to him, was Petrus Aichspadius. He appears to have been a very Admirable Crichton of various learning, for Mandosius says of him that “he was distinguished for his knowledge of the best literature, and as a theologian as well as for his virtues, an excellent physician whose reputation had made medicine respected in his time.” With all this he was the Bishop of Basel and after Pope Clement’s recovery he was transferred to the See of Moguntum by the Pope, who declared that as he was such a happy curer of bodies it seemed only appropriate that he should be given a larger cure of souls.
Pope John (XXI) XXII (1314-16).—Gentilis Gentilis, said to have been the son of another Papal Physician of the name of Gentilis, was the medical attendant of John (XXI) XXII. His death was due to his faithful devotion to the citizens of Perugia during a time of pestilence. He is the author of a volume of Commentaries on Avicenna, of “The Best Councils for every Form of Disease of the Whole Body,” of a volume “On Fevers,” of a treatise “On Leprosy,” a monograph “On Baths,” and of a book that went through many editions after printing was introduced on “The Proportions of Medicine and the Method of Investigating their Composition and of Knowing the Appropriate Dose of Each Medicine.” This was printed at Padua more than a century after his death and later at Lyons, and there seems to have been another edition in the Low Countries. He wrote a series of smaller medical treatises on “The Activity of Medicines,” on “Phthisis” and on “Medical Dosage.” He also wrote “On the Pulse and on Urine” in a volume of which editions were issued at Venice and at Lyons.
Another of the physicians of Pope John XXII was Dino del Garbo, a Florentine, the son of Bruno del Garbo, a skilful surgeon and the disciple of Taddeo of Florence. He is sometimes known as Dino the Expounder because of his successful devotion to the exposition of Galen and Avicenna. Like many of the physicians of his time he had degrees in both medicine and philosophy and was celebrated for his scholarliness. According to Van der Linden, he wrote De Caena et Prandio Epistola, which was published by Jerome of Cartularius in 1545; Commentaries on Hippocrates’ Nature of the Foetus, Venice, 1502; a treatise on surgery which was published at Ferrara in 1485 and a subsequent edition at Venice in 1536. His Commentaries on Avicenna and the General Practice of Medicine were published at Venice in 1495 and his book on The Virtues of Simple Medicines, a commentary on the Second Canon of Avicenna, was published at Venice the same year. Dino is usually looked upon as one of the most distinguished contributors to medicine in the fourteenth century. His son Thomas is said also to have been in the service of the Popes and has written books on The Reduction of Medicines, a Commentary on Avicenna and a commentary on Galen’s work “On Fevers.”
John XXII (1316-34), Clement VI (1342-52), Innocent VI (1352-62), St. Urban V (1362-70).—Of Guy de Chauliac, physician to the Popes at Avignon, enough has been said in the text of this book to make clear how important was his place in the surgery of his time and, indeed, of all the modern time. I have written on him more at length in my Old Time Makers of Medicine (Fordham University Press), and during the ten years that have elapsed since the writing of the original edition of this volume on The Popes and Science, Guy de Chauliac’s fame and merits have come to be recognized everywhere.
Gregory XI (1370-78).—One of the well-known physicians of the Popes at Avignon was Jean de Tornemire, known by his Latin name of Tornamira, the physician of Pope Gregory XI, who on the death of that Pope went to Montpellier, where he became Dean and Chancellor of the Medical Faculty. Gurlt, in his History of Surgery, says that he must be “counted among the most learned and expert physicians of his time.” He wrote a commentary on Rhazes and some notes of his on stone in the kidney and bladder show how careful an observer he was. His Rhazes was published at Lyons, 1490. His collected works were published in many editions in the sixteenth century.
Urban VI (1378-89), Innocent VII (1404-06), Martin V (1417-31).—Francis Casinus, the son of a noble family of Siena, one of the best-known of the physicians of North Italy in the fourteenth century, was chosen physician to Urban VI in 1378. His son Francis was physician to Pope Martin V, 1417. A brother of Francis Casinus, John by name, was Papal Physician to Pope Innocent VII. Isadoras Ugurgerius in his work “Le Pompe Sanesi” says, “The Casini among the philosophers and physicians of their time held easily the first place. John lectured on the theory of medicine at Siena about the year 1370 and afterwards was summoned to Rome by Pope Innocent VII, by whom he was admitted among his most intimate friends and declared the guardian and conserver of his health.” One of John Casinus’ sons became Cardinal Antonius Casinus, and another, Bartholomeus, was the Abbot of Valombrosa, while the son of Francis Casinus, his brother, became Bishop of Massa and is famous for a collection of manuscripts made during the first half of the fifteenth century.
Another of the physicians of Pope Martin V was Andrew Gamuccius, who had also been physician to Pope John XXIII. He was a descendant of a noble family of San Gemignano, well known for scholarship and for the number of distinguished men who came from it.
Eugene IV (1431-47) chose as his physician John Baptist Verallus, doctor of medicine and philosophy, to whom he gave besides the title of archiater to the Pope that of chief physician of the city. Verallus is famous for his work in improving the health of Rome itself and represents one of the pioneers in public hygiene. At various times most of our modern hygienic regulations were anticipated at Rome. The ancient Romans had brought in water from a distance, because they had experienced the seriousness of contamination and during the early Renaissance the aqueducts which had fallen out of repair were gradually restored. The contagiousness of tuberculosis began to be suspected at this time and the idea of intimate contact with patients suffering from disease as a definite cause took shape. In a chapter of “The Century of Columbus,” Catholic Summer School Press, N. Y., 1914, I reviewed some of these anticipations in Italy of our modern hygiene due to thinking physicians, of whom Verallus was one of the pioneers.
Another of the physicians of Pope Eugene IV was Ludovicus Scarampus. His fame was for surgery rather than medicine, so that it is interesting to learn in spite of the supposed ecclesiastical opposition to surgery that Pope Eugene learned to think so much of him that he made him a Bishop and then Archbishop of Florence, and afterwards Patriarch of Aquilea with the rank of Cardinal. More than one distinguished medieval surgeon in Italy had been a colleague in the episcopal dignity. Practically all the historical writers of Scarampus’ time give him a prominent place in their histories.
Nicholas V (1448-55).—One of the physicians of Pope Nicholas V, the Renaissance patron of learning, was Bernard Garzonius, distinguished for his knowledge of philosophy and medicine, who had been professor in the medical school at Bologna before being summoned to Rome. Alidosio in his volume I Dottori Bolognesi di Teologia, Filosofia, Medicina, ed Arti Liberali (page 29) gives an interesting account of the hours and subjects of his teaching at Bologna. At nine in the morning Garzonius lectured on the Theory of Medicine, and in the afternoon on the Practice of Medicine. Besides there were special lectures on Moral Philosophy probably setting forth the moral principles of medical practice on the festival days. Garzonius died in Rome of the pest in 1454, having devoted himself to the care of those suffering from the disease, though the mortality was so high that most of those who could, including even not a few of his colleagues in medicine, had left the city.
Another of the physicians of Pope Nicholas V was Laurentius Roverella of Ferrara, of whom his contemporaries speak in the highest praise for his erudition, his ability to teach and the piety and charity of his life. He was for a time professor at the University of Ferrara, but afterwards was called to Padua, where his lectures attracted a great deal of attention. He was recalled to Ferrara by the D’Estes in order to secure his prestige for his native city and it was from here that he was summoned to Rome to become the chamberlain and physician of Pope Nicholas V. After the death of Nicholas V he went to Paris, lectured there for a time and was crowned with the doctorate. After this he returned to Ferrara and was frequently sent as ambassador to diverse European princes by the Duke of Ferrara. He was also sent as ambassador for the Popes into France and Hungary. He died at the Monastery of Monte Oliveto in the arms of his brother, who was the Prior of the monastery, but his body was brought for burial to the Church of St. George in Ferrara. Roverella finds a significant place in all the histories of the time.
Calixtus III (1455-58).—The physician of Pope Calixtus III and Pius II was Joannes Serninus. He was a native of Siena, practised for a time in his native city, was offered the position with a good salary of public physician to Città di Castella, then went to Ancona in a similar position with such success, according to tradition, that his cures were considered almost miracles. From here he was summoned by Pope Calixtus III, and after his death was retained as his physician by Pope Pius II, himself one of the Piccolomini family of Siena. After his death his body was transferred to Siena because the city considered that the remains of so great a son should rest in her soil. It is significant that this physician of wide experience in public health matters, whose successful career in helping various Italian towns to make conditions more healthy for their citizens gave him a wide reputation, should be the chosen physician of Pope Calixtus III, to whom is attributed a famous Bull, that has never been found however, against Halley’s comet on its appearance in 1456. The selection of such a man as Serninus as Papal Physician makes it extremely improbable that the Pope should have issued any such document as is attributed to him. Its issue has been accepted only with the thought that in the middle of the fifteenth century the Pope and his court were buried in ignorance of science and above all of medicine and the cause of disease. 51
Another of the physicians of Pope Nicholas V and Calixtus III was Simon Tebaldi, who came of a distinguished family, one of whom was a Cardinal. He is called by the historians of the time an illustrious philosopher and physician of the period.
Paul II (1464-71).—Christopher of Verona is mentioned by Platina in his life of Paul II as the physician of that Pope, but nothing more is known of him. Jacobus Gottifredus, another of Paul’s physicians, is better known. He taught medicine for a time at Rome, which was his native city, and devoted himself particularly to the practice of his profession. According to tradition he became the most sought after physician of the city and made a large fortune. He had many archaeological interests, collected curiosities of all kinds and generally used the fortune which he made in medicine for cultural purposes.
Another of the physicians of Pope Paul II was Joannes Burgius, who was also a bishop. He is highly praised by his contemporaries, and Mandosius describes a huge manuscript volume by him preserved in one of the libraries in Rome, bearing the title Secreta Verissima ad Varios Curandos Morbos—The Truest Secrets for Curing Various Diseases.
The fourth of the physicians of Paul II of whom there is record was Sanctes Floccus, whose activities as writer and physician are summed up in the inscription on his tombstone.
“Flocca Domus, nomen mihi Sanctes, Patria Firmum,
Scriptor eram, et medicus Paule Secunde tuus.”
The fifth of the physicians of Paul II was Sebastianus Veteranus, who was also the archiater or chief physician of the city of Rome according to the list given in the appendix of the statutes of the Roman College, called Nomenclatura Medicorum. He is mentioned by his contemporaries as “well versed in the serious disciplines of philosophy and medicine and as constantly a diligent, fruitful cultivator of them, devoting his life to his studies.”
Sixtus IV (1471-84).—One of the physicians of Pope Sixtus IV was Onofrio de Onofriis. Oldoinus declares him “a celebrated physician greatly esteemed for the success which he had in the treatment of patients and the very large practice which he consequently enjoyed.” He had been a professor of philosophy and of medicine—the two nearly always went together in these days, unfortunately they do not so often any more—at the University of Perugia, where he achieved great success. It was from here that he was summoned to be the physician of Pope Sixtus. He wrote a series of books on medicine and some of his lectures were published, though these are not now extant.
Another of the physicians of Pope Sixtus IV, to whom he dedicated his important work on food, was John Philip de Lignamine, who had been professor of medicine at Perugia, where his lectures attracted a large following. His book, which appeared at Rome after his office of Papal Physician secured him the leisure for its completion, is “On Every Kind of Food and Drink Useful and Harmful For Man with a Consideration of Their Prime Qualities” (De Unoquoque Cibo, et Potu Utili Homini, et Novivo, Eorumque Primis Qualitatibus). 52
One of the important medical scientists of the end of the fifteenth century was Benedict of Nursia, whose book De Conservatione Sanitatis is really an important contribution to medical botany. He is placed in the list of Papal Physicians by Mandosius, whose authority is usually unquestioned. Giacobilli is his authority. Marini in his comments on Mandosius’ work declares that Benedict was not a Papal Physician but the ducal physician at Milan, and tells the story of his exile from his native country Nursia. He was so distinguished for his medical learning that he became almost at once one of the most prominent of the physicians in Milan. There is no doubt, however, that Benedict dedicated his book, which is now looked upon as basic in the history of medical botany, to Sixtus IV, and the suggestion that he was a Papal Physician seems to have come from the fact that though remaining in the service of the Duke of Milan he was summoned in consultation to see this Pope during an illness.
Innocent VIII (1484-92).—Petrus Leonius, one of the physicians of Innocent VIII, finds a place among Paul Jovius’ “Eulogies of Learned Men” and is the author of a commentary on medicine and mathematics and a treatise, De Urinis. He had been a professor of medicine at several of the important Italian universities and was very well known throughout Italy. He was summoned to treat Lorenzo de Medici and the early death of that illustrious Florentine gave occasion for a good deal of opprobrium for his physician, though the most careful investigation has shown that there was no reason for criticism of him. The fact that Petrus Leonius had been called as the consultant in Lorenzo’s case shows how thoroughly he was appreciated. One of his biographers suggests of him that he was “a learned rather than a lucky physician.” Physicians will probably appreciate that distinction, better than others.
Alexander VI (1492-1503).—The first of the Papal Physicians of Pope Alexander VI (Alexander de Espinosa) was like that Pontiff himself of a family of Castilian origin though long enough in Italy to have become thoroughly Italianized and even to have received the Roman citizenship. He is mentioned in terms of praise by Baldus Baldi in his work on “The Oriental Opobalsam.” Mandosius speaks of him as “a man of great erudition endowed with high intelligence and with a great zeal for promoting the health of humanity.”
Gaspar Torella, also a Spaniard, was another of the physicians of Pope Alexander VI, and wrote a series of books on the venereal diseases which attracted so much attention in Italy about this time, and which are supposed to have been imported from America, though there is no doubt now of their existence in Europe and in Asia long before. He also wrote a book on “Portents, Prodigies and Prophecies” and another “On Diet or the Preservation of Health” in the form of a dialogue on eating and drinking which became rather popular. Torella was made a bishop under Pope Julius II and his volume on diet is dedicated to that Pope.
Another of the Papal Physicians of the end of the fifteenth century was Petrus Pintor, a Spaniard from Valencia, who was “the beloved friend and physician” of Pope Alexander VI. He wrote a “Compilation of the Opinions of All the Doctors on the Prevention and Cure of the Pestilence” (under the word pestilence was included at that time any form of epidemic) which was published at Rome in 1499 and was very well known by his contemporaries.
Julius II (1503-13).—One of the Papal Physicians of Pope Julius II was Horatio Lancillotti, of whom it is declared that his whole delight was in books. “Constantly he was occupied with the thought of helping his patients and he practised medicine with liberality and good will, kindly caring for the infirmities of the poor and of friends so that he rendered himself worthy of every praise.” He is spoken of as a man of sublime intellect who gave himself to medicine with his whole heart, but whose prudence, wisdom and conduct gave him a reputation even beyond that which he enjoyed as a physician. His son was made a Cardinal by Gregory XIII and other sons of his reached distinction.
Another of the physicians of Pope Julius II was Scipio Lancillotti, the brother of Horatio just mentioned. It is related of him that once when the Pope was severely ailing and on the fourth day of his illness was overcome by so deep a coma that for some hours he was considered dead, Scipio Lancillotti administered some medicine, and not only brought the Pontiff back to consciousness, but freed him from danger of death and restored him sufficiently to take up his work again.
Another of the physicians of Julius II was Joannes Bodier, whose tomb in the Church of Saint Sebastian on the Via Appia outside the Porta Capena is well known. He was a scholarly ecclesiastic who because of his intellectual and religious distinction was made the Abbot of the Monastery of San Sebastiano by the Pope.
One hears much of Jewish physicians in attendance on the Popes, but the records do not bear out the generally received opinion that there were many of them. Occasionally there is mention of one and usually he is some distinguished medical scientist well known in his time whose services were asked also for the Pope. Evidently even the Christian intolerance toward the Jews at this time was not sufficient to prevent such relations on the part of the Popes. Indeed the tradition of the frequency of Jewish physicians to Popes is probably due to the reaction produced by the surprise of finding that there were any Jewish physicians in attendance at the Papal Court. One of those who attended Pope Julius II was Samuel Sarfadi or Sarfati, a Spanish Rabbi who was looked upon as a leader of his people in Rome. It was he who as their representative greeted Pope Julius during the procession when the Pontiff took possession of the city and in accordance with the ancient usage presented him with a copy of the Old Testament. Julius’ reply was in the formula of the Roman Ordo commending the Law but condemning the religious practice that did not go beyond the Old Testament, which had reached completion in the New. The Pope and the rabbi continued on terms of intimate friendship and as Papal Physician he was able to protect his people and secure them in the rights that were more freely granted them at Rome than elsewhere in Europe.
Pius III.—One of the Papal Physicians of Pius III was Antonius Petrutius, Doctor of Philosophy and of Medicine, of whom Mandosius in his Lives of the Papal Physicians says that “he was the most excellent physician of his time.”
Leo X (1513-21).—One of the physicians of Pope Leo X who served also in the conclave after his death was Dioscorides da Velletri, to whom we owe a series of monographs on medicine that are of special interest. He wrote on diet, De Ordine Cibandi; on diagnosis, De Cognitione Naturae Aegritudinis (literally on the recognition of the nature of disease), and on stone in the kidney, De Lapide Renum.
Another of the physicians of Pope Leo X was Bartholomeo of Pisa. He is mentioned by Carolus Cartharius in the Athenaeo Romano as a physician of great skill. He was professor in the Roman Archigymnasium and is the author of an Epitome of the Theory and Practice of Medicine issued at Florence early in the sixteenth century. This epitome is said to have been of special service because it contained in brief a great deal of information gathered from books and illustrated by Bartholomeo’s own experience.
Still another of the physicians of Pope Leo X was Bernardinus Speronius, a Paduan by birth and a professor of high esteem in the University of Padua. Angelus Portenarius in his work Della Felicità di Padova says of him that he was a physician of such great skill and reputation that Pope Leo selected him for his physician while he was lecturing at Padua, and Bernardinus felt himself highly honored by the selection and accepted the post.
The fourth of the physicians of Pope Leo X was Jerome Sessa, Doctor of Philosophy and Medicine, who was afterwards the particular friend and physician of Pope Paul IV. He is the author of a treatise on medical matters, De Re Medica, and was singularly respected for his kindness to the poor, and for the self-sacrifice with which he gave himself to the more difficult duties of his profession.
The fifth physician of Pope Leo X was Clementius Clementinus, noted in distinction from many of his colleagues as a Doctor of Arts and Medicine instead of the usual combination with philosophy. Van der Linden declares that “he was second to none in the opinion of Rome and the whole of Italy in his knowledge of medicine though he was at the same time a very celebrated astronomer.” He had been professor of philosophy and mathematics at Padua. He is the author of a work on The Precepts of Medicine published by Jacob Mazzocchium at Rome, 1512. He also wrote a work on astronomy, and a monograph on fevers.
Adrian VI (1522-23), the distinguished Belgian scholar elected to the Papacy to succeed Leo X, had the honor of having dedicated to him a monograph, De Pestilentia, written by the well-known Bartholomeo Montagnana, who is one of the great Renaissance physicians of Italy. The almost equally famous John Battista Elisio dedicated to him his work De Praesagiis Sapientum, On the Prognosis of the Wise. Some of Adrian’s physicians were among the most widely known members of the medical profession at this time. To one of them, Giovanni Antracino, John De Vigo dedicated his treatise De Morbo Gallico in words of the highest praise. Latin dedications lend themselves to flattery, but with even all due discount for this, Vigo’s expressions show how much Antracino must have been appreciated at the time. He praises him for “his singular wisdom, marvellous perspicacity, rightness of judgment and serious purpose,” and recalls that in many consultations where they had been present together Antracino had excelled not only in medical theory, but in medical practice.
Another of the physicians of Pope Adrian VI was Francesco Fusconi, whose name is sometimes wrongly given as Frasconi. Amato Lusitano calls him “a most famous physician,” and Marsilio Cagnati in his work De Aeris Romani Salubritate notes that Francesco was the first to recognize that starving a fever and especially the malarial fevers of the neighborhood of Rome, though it had been the custom for a long time for physicians to advise it, did much more harm than good. He insisted that the ailing should be more richly nourished and that above all they should be fed on chopped meats which would make it easier for them to ingest such quantities as would be good for them. Cagnati says that many Roman physicians followed this teaching and saved much suffering and many lives. Fusconi is the physician whom Benvenuto Cellini praises for having saved his life. The famous sculptor was taken with a very severe fever and the “first physicians” of Rome were called to see him, among them Master Francesco (Fusconi) Da Norcia, who was a very old man, but of great reputation. The fever increased to such a degree that the professors held the disease for desperate, but not Norcia. He took charge of the case and by the most careful treatment succeeded in freeing Benvenuto from an illness which did not seem as though it could possibly come to an end without fatal issue.
Clement VII (1523-34), who was of the Medici family, had a number of physicians and on one occasion when ill no less than eight were in attendance on him. This gave occasion to the satiric poet Berni to declare in verse that when the Pope after his recovery went to make his thanksgiving to Our Lady he might indeed have felt that it was a miraculous event to have been saved from the hands of eight physicians all at once. At least three of these physicians of Pope Clement are famous in the history of medicine; that is to say, they wrote books frequently referred to by their medical colleagues. One of these, Andrea Cibo, or Andreas Cibbo, was also physician to Pope Paul III and will be mentioned under his name. Cibo had been a professor at the University of Perugia before being made Papal Physician. One of his contemporaries refers to him as “the secure health of the sick.” Another of Clement’s physicians was Andrea Turini, who had been a professor at Pisa. He seems afterwards to have been royal physician to Louis XII, King of France. There are two books of his, De Embrochia and De Curatione Pleuritidis published at Lyons in 1537, in which Andrea gives himself the titles of physician and counsellor of the Pope and the King. Andrea was something of a wit and is quoted in the Facetiae of Domenichi. After a visit to Pisa he declared that “Pisa was a maritime city without fish, having a handsome Cathedral without a sacristy, a leaning tower which did not fall, a well without any buckets, and a university without professors.”
Ludovico Augeni, another of the physicians of Pope Clement VII, taught for a while at Perugia and is said to have written a book on the use of wines in health and disease, but he is famous principally as the father of Orazio Augeni, professor at the Sapienza at Rome, who dedicated to his father his commentary on the nine books of Rhazes. A nephew of his, Sabastiano, issued a volume, De Catarrho, which he dedicated to Paul IV.
One of the most famous of the Papal Physicians, though he is known much more for his work in history and literature than in medicine, is Paulus Jovius, another of the physicians to Clement VII. His “Histories of Illustrious Men” and his “Eulogies of Men Distinguished in Letters and in War,” as well as his other writings, are well-known sources of historical material. He is besides the author of a series of volumes on natural history that are not so widely known, but deserve a place in the history of science. They include a book on Roman fishes and another on marine fishes and shellfish as well as descriptions of Lake Como, of England, Scotland and Ireland and the Orkney Islands that have a niche of their own in natural history. He had been the intimate friend of Pope Leo X, Pope Adrian VI made him a canon of the Cathedral of Como and he was one of the close associates and a domestic prelate of Clement VII, who assigned him apartments in the Vatican. Jovius made a magnificent collection of memorials of the illustrious men whose lives he wrote, and we owe to him the preservation of many historical materials that would otherwise almost inevitably have been lost.
Still another of the physicians of Clement VII was Matteo Corti, of whom Aller declares that “he was as great in speech as with the scalpel, read the Greek authors and taught his colleagues to prefer them to the Arabs and recalled Galen into the schools.” He was summoned from Venice to be physician to Pope Clement because of “the great reputation for knowledge of disease and skill in the treatment of patients that he had gained.” He is noted for having modified the habits of the Romans by advising them to take less food in the middle of the day and to take a better meal at night. This putting back of the principal meal gradually spread in the cities of the world until the present custom of evening dinner became established. He wrote a series of books, but his constant insistence was on the avoidance of disease by careful attention to diet and mode of living rather than by the cure of it. He made it his special boast that many of those who followed his directions were either not ill for years or else were afflicted with but minor ailments. After the death of Pope Clement he was professor of medicine in Bologna and then the physician of Cosimo de Medici in Florence and at the end of his life held a professor’s chair in medicine at Pisa. Ghilinus in his work The Theatre of Literary Men (Teatro d’Uomini Letterati) talks of Matteo Corti (in Latin, Matthaeus Curtius), as “a very celebrated doctor of medicine who as a professor was the peer of all and the superior of most of his colleagues and who revived with benefit to his students and their patients the true manner of treating illness according to Hippocrates and Galen.” He was looked upon as one of the distinguished physicians of his time. He wrote concerning the manner of dining and supping, (De Prandio et Coena), a commentary on Mondino’s anatomy and a book On Venesection and another On Dosage.
Paul III (1534-49).—One of the distinguished consultant physicians of the mid-sixteenth century was Antonio Musa Brasavola (sometimes written Brasovola), whose years run with the century. His studies were made with the famous Leonicenus at Ferrara. He became the physician in ordinary and personal friend of Hercules II, Duke of Este, and accompanied him to France when the Duke espoused the daughter of Louis XII. He was at various times the physician to four Popes and was called in consultation to Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France. He devoted himself particularly to medical botany and pharmacology and was one of the first to hold a professorship in these subjects. He was well known for his life-saving practice of tracheotomy and he restored paracentesis thoracis as a standard remedy. He introduced the use of radix chinae, a kind of smilax related to sarsaparilla, and put lignum guiaci into the pharmacology of the day. He wrote a series of monographs on botanical subjects which have given him an enduring place in the history of that time. A distinguished group of men were near the Popes in Rome at this time with whom Brasavola was in close relations. They included Eustachius the great anatomist, Columbus, discoverer of the circulation in the lungs, Caesalpinus and Fallopius, who was a professor at the University of Bologna, that city being at this time in the Papal States.
One of the great Renaissance physicians and surgeons well known in our histories of medicine for an important contribution to the treatment of gunshot wounds, is Alfonso Ferri, a Neapolitan, who, after some years of professorship in surgery in Naples, became the physician of Pope Paul III. His book, which is founded on his “experience at home and at war,” went through a number of editions at Rome, at Antwerp and Frankfurt and other places, and he was evidently widely read and considered an important authority. He invented some instruments for the removal of bullets and has many practical hints with regard to the treatment of gunshot wounds. He was the professor of surgery at the Sapienza, Rome, and has written a volume on the carunculae, or hard multiplex tumors, which arise at the vesical neck.
Silvius Zeffiri, another of the physicians of Pope Paul III, is the author of a volume on “Putrefaction or The Best Method of Protracting Life,” which was published at Rome in 1536. Zeffiri seems to have anticipated the modern popular notion of the putrefactive conditions in the human system as one of the most important factors in shortening life, and he discusses various means of preventing them.
Ferri’s Instruments:—20 a, hollow probe or canula with screw; b, canula with rounded end alone; c, screw; 21, 22, Alphonsinum or grasping instrument for the removal of foreign bodies; 23, curved needle.
Another of the physicians of Pope Paul III was Andreas Cibbo, Doctor of Arts and Medicine, of whom Caesar Crispoltus in his work on distinguished Perugians called Perugia Augusta (Book III, P. 335) tells that having lectured for many years on medicine at the University of Perugia and practised his profession with great reputation, Andreas was called to Rome by Clement VII as Papal Physician, and also occupied that post under Pope Paul III. He accompanied Pope Paul on a journey to Nice on the occasion when the Emperor Charles V and King Francis I of France met, and he was chosen by special honor to assist at the banquet given these sovereigns.
Maggi’s Bullet Extractors and Needles:—10, 11, 12, shot borer (canula with screw); 11, screw alone; 12, canula alone; 13, protective tube for the introduction of boring instrument; 14, 15, lance needles; 16, 17, fistula scalpels.
Another of the physicians of Pope Paul III was Jacobus Bonacossus, of whom Mandosius says that “he was famous for his wide knowledge not only in science, but on all culture subjects, as well as for his magnanimity, his affability of manners and his careful attention in his professional work to the poor as well as to the rich.” He came of a distinguished family of Ferrara and is given an important place in the list of “Illustrious Men of the City of Ferrara” published by Augustin Superbo.
Another of the physicians of Pope Paul III was Joannes Franciscus Emanuelis, also called Manovelli. He is mentioned in the volume of Statutes of the College of Physicians of Florence and was looked upon by his contemporaries, according to Baldo Baldi, as a very learned man whose knowledge was only surpassed by his cultivation of the social virtues. He was a professor at Florence when he was summoned to Rome to become Papal Physician.
Maggi’s Instruments for Gunshot Wounds:—
6 a, b, c, separable bullet forceps;
7, bullet spatula;
8, 9, anserine bullet forceps, separable and with a screw-crushing arrangement.
A very distinguished man who also occupied the post of physician to Pope Paul III was Thomas Cadimustus, a Belgian, who, after securing the doctorate in medicine and philosophy with distinction at Louvain, came to Rome and soon secured a place among the teachers there and attained a reputation for great learning and successful care of his patients. He became Secretary Apostolic as well as physician to the Pope, and evidently enjoyed the close friendship of the Pontiff.
Some Instruments of Maggi:—
1, surgical hook;
2, double hook for the extraction of bullets;
3, concave toothed forceps;
4, straight-toothed forceps;
5, crow-beak forceps.
Another of the physicians of Pope Paul III was Tiberius Palella, famous for his knowledge of medicine and with a special reputation for information with regard to plants. He is known for his many friendships with men of learning and left behind him the reputation, according to Mandosius, of being “a physician of the highest integrity interested above all in the health of the poor as well as the rich, without envy for others and a constant diligent seeker of the right.”
Another of the physicians of Pope Paul III who as the great friend of the Jesuits might possibly be expected by those who misunderstand that Order to be opposed to Science, but proves to have been a great patron and friend of a whole series of the most prominent scientists of the time, was Joannes Aquilinus, or John of Aquila, a noted Neapolitan physician, who, after acquiring a great reputation in Naples, was called to the Professorship of Medicine at Pisa when that University was at the climax of its development. There he achieved so great a reputation that his contemporaries referred to him as a “second AEsculapius.” Lacuna, who published a famous edition of Galen in 1548 which went through a series of editions, dedicated one portion of the edition to Aquilinus out of deference to his “love for good literature.”
Another of the physicians to Pope Paul III was Franciscus Frigimelica, who, after having acquired extraordinary fame as a teacher, having been made professor at the University of Padua at the early age of twenty-eight, received offers from many of the Italian princes to become their physician. De Renzi in his Storia della Medicina in Italia says that he refused them all, but yielded to the solicitation of Pope Paul III, and seems to have been tempted by the atmosphere of intense medical science that had been created at Rome at this time. Frigimelica is famous for his study of baths and his treatise on the making of artificial baths with metallic salts. De Balneis Metallicis Artificio Parandis is an early classic in balneology. He also wrote a volume “On Various Medical Questions,” a Pathologia Parva, and a number of his consultations were published.
Julius III (1550-55).—A very important Papal Physician is Maggi, who had been the professor of anatomy and surgery at Bologna, the uncle and teacher of the celebrated anatomist Aranzi. He became physician to Pope Julius III about 1550. His book on gunshot wounds is dedicated to Prince Giovanni Battista De Monte, nephew of Pope Julius and General-in-Chief of the Papal Army. Gurlt, in his great History of Surgery, declares that Maggi was the first who showed very clearly that shot wounds neither caused burning nor poisoning. To demonstrate this he made a series of carefully planned, most ingenious experiments and observations which were repeated hundreds of years afterwards, but only to confirm his conclusions. His method of handling gunshot wounds was very simple, and he laid the greatest weight on treatment directed to permitting the free exit of pus. He was the inventor of a series of instruments, the pictures of which we have and some of which are here reproduced. They show his ingenuity and anticipate a good many ideas that are supposed to be much more modern than his time. Gurlt has devoted more than eight pages of rather small type to a summarization of Maggi’s work so that there is no doubt about its great importance in the history of surgery.
Another of the physicians of Pope Julius III was Hippolytus Salvianus, a doctor of medicine and of philosophy, of whom one of his contemporaries said that it was doubtful in which of these sciences he was the more learned and whether Hippolytus deserved more praise for his science or his faith or his diligence in caring for the sick. He wrote a volume in folio on fishes, illustrated by copper plate engravings (Rome, 1555), a volume On Crises as a commentary on Galen (Rome, 1558), and a book on aquatic animals (Venice, 1600). He has the distinction also of having ventured successfully in literature and he published poems and comedies which went through a number of editions. One of his sons became a popular Roman physician, the other a poet.
One of the great Italian anatomists, a pioneer in the development of the biological sciences, was John Baptist Cananus, who was one of the medical attendants of Pope Julius III. His well-known work “Illustrated Dissections of the Muscles of the Human Body,” Musculorum Humani Corporis, Picturata Dissectio, Ferrara, 1572, in quarto, is one of the precious bibliographic treasures in medicine. He was the first to discover valves in veins, finding them in the azygos, and he made a series of original observations on the sense organs which gave a great stimulus to the development of the minute anatomy of these structures at this time.
Another of the physicians of Pope Julius III was Augustin Ricchi, one of the scholarly medical writers of the sixteenth century, whose erudite translations enriched the medicine of that time and of subsequent generations. Van der Linden notes that he translated a number of the books of Galen, adding annotations. They were published in Venice shortly after the middle of the sixteenth century. He had a wide acquaintance and friendship with the most learned men of his time.
Paul IV (1555-59).—One of the physicians to Pope Paul IV, of whom it is noted that he was also an intimate friend whom the Pontiff loved very dearly, was Jerome Cessa, doctor of medicine and philosophy, who wrote a work on medicine and a treatise on religion, and who is said to have refused the dignity of cardinal which was offered him because he felt that others worthier might be chosen.
One of the distinguished physicians of this time was Professor Altamare of Naples, of whom De Renzi in his Storia della Medicina in Italia tells that when he was compelled to fly from his native country by political disturbance, he was given a refuge by Pope Paul IV, under whose “wise and benevolent protection” he was able to continue his medical work for a time and through whose patronage he was restored to his professorship at Naples. As a mark of gratitude Altamare dedicated to Pope Paul IV his book De Medendis Humani Corporis Malts, Ars Medica.
Pius IV (1559-65).—Alidosius, in his work on “The Foreign Doctors Who Have Been Professors of Theology, Philosophy, Medicine and The Liberal Arts in Bologna” (Li Dottori Forestieri, che in Bologna hanno Letto Teologia, Filosofia, Medicina ed Arti Liberali), mentions John Andrew Bianchi, a doctor of medicine and the liberal arts, famous for his learning, who taught in the University of Bologna from 1525 to 1561 with great success and then was summoned to Rome to be the physician to Pope Pius IV to the satisfaction of everyone, for it was felt that he had achieved the highest place in his profession of medicine.
Simon Pasqua, a physician to Pope Pius IV, was the author of a book On The Gout and of a description of his Embassy to Great Britain from Genoa in the time of Queen Mary and Philip, but this, unfortunately, was only in manuscript and seems to have been lost.
Pompeius Barba, or dalla Barba, was another of the physicians of Pope Pius IV. He wrote a volume on “The Immortality of the Soul according to the Peripatetic Philosophers” which was published at Florence in 1553. Two years later he wrote a commentary on some of the writings of Pico della Mirandola and nearly twenty-five years later there appeared at Venice a dialogue of his “On Arms and Letters.” He left in manuscript a book On Baths as well as some poems.
Still another of the physicians of Pope Pius IV was Franciscus Gymnasius, described by a contemporary (Caesar Mezamici in his Notizie Istoriche) as “so distinguished in the profession of medicine that while he was professor in Bologna many of the princes of Italy called him in consultation when they were seriously ill and constantly with a happy issue.” Pius IV called him to Rome, honored him with one of the principal chairs in the Papal University of the Sapienza, providing a special stipend for him, and made him his personal physician. Gymnasius added to his fame and obtained universal esteem in the Curia. His tomb is in the Church of the Minerva at Rome.
A very interesting character at Rome during the later Renaissance was Jerome Cardan, who though not a papal physician by formal appointment, after wandering all over the world in various capacities, lived his last years at Rome, enjoying a pension from the Pope. He is a type of the many-sided, many-minded man of the Renaissance. In 1524 he received his degree of doctor in medicine at Padua, practised for ten years and then became professor of mathematics in Milan, and a few years later taught medicine at Pavia, refused the corresponding professorship at Copenhagen, spent nearly a year with Archbishop Hamilton of St. Andrews, the primate of Scotland, returned to Italy to practise once more, refusing many offers of professorships in foreign universities, taught for some years at Pavia and then at Bologna and spent the last five years of this varied, and at the end rather stormy career, at Rome living on the Papal bounty. He is one of the great geniuses of the time whose “vanity, boastfulness, childish credulity, superstitiousness was bound up with a genius that opened up many new paths in science” (Gurlt). His work meant more for philosophy and, above all, for mathematics than for medicine, but he has an important place in the history of science.
Another genius who spent some years in Rome about the same time, and evidently found it eminently favorable for his work, was Jerome Mercurialis, who was sent by his native city to Rome on a mission to Pope Pius IV, when about 32, and secured opportunities for study in Rome so much to his desires that he spent seven years in medical and philological studies there. After this he was invited to be Trincavella’s successor at Padua and from here was summoned by the Emperor Maximilian II on a consultation to Vienna and richly rewarded for his services. After seven years of medical professorship at Padua he was for some twelve years in a similar capacity at Bologna, which was then a Papal University, and then accepted the call of the Grand Duke Cosimo I to Pisa. The Medici were laboring at this time to make Pisa an important rival in education of Padua and Bologna and were offering alluring salaries and special inducements to the most distinguished teachers in every department. Mercurialis’ books on skin diseases, on women’s diseases, on the diseases of children and on gymnastics, went through many editions and now sell for good prices in auction rooms, for he is considered one of the classics of medicine.
Pius V (1564-72).—One of the physicians and intimate friends of Pope St. Pius V was Placidus Fuscus, who wrote a volume “On the Use and Abuse of Astrology in Medicine.” Fuscus, according to the inscription on his tomb, was “distinguished for his social service, his work at the hospital of the Santo Spirito and among the poor of Rome and especially those in prison.”
Gregory XIII (1572-85).—As might be expected, the physician of Pope Gregory XIII, the Pope to whom we owe the correction of the calendar, was a distinguished medical scientist who had been earlier an intimate friend as well as physician to St. Ignatius Loyola the founder of the Jesuits. His name was Alessandro Trajano Petronio of Castiglione, and he is often mentioned in the medical literature of the time and wrote a book, De Victu Romanorum et de Sanitate Tuenda, “On The Diet of the Romans and the Preservation of Health,” which he dedicated to Pope Gregory XIII. He also wrote a work on “The Water of the Tiber” and a series of dialogues on medicine as well as “Medical Aphorisms” (Venice, 1535.)
Sixtus V (1585-90).—The principal physician of Pope Sixtus V was Andreas Baccius, “who was famous not only as a physician but as a philosopher and a man of erudite and polished intellect.” Pope Sixtus occupied himself with bringing fresh supplies of water into Rome and we have a series of studies of these waters made by his physician. He also wrote on baths and especially on those in the neighborhood of Rome. There is also a book by him on “The Wines of Italy and The Banquets of the Ancients.” He was much more than an amateur as an antiquary and wrote a book on “The Origin of the Old City of Cluana.” There is also a book of his on “Gems and Precious Stones,” a volume on “Poisons and their Antidotes,” as well as a series of shorter writings.
De Renzi in his Storia della Medicina in Italia tells the story of the earlier career of Baccio. As a younger man he became so deeply interested in his scientific studies at Rome that he did not succeed in practising medicine and was in danger even of starving because he had not practical ways. He was rescued by Cardinal Ascanio Colonna, who became his patron and provided him with the opportunity to devote himself to scientific studies without the necessity of thinking about the obligation of gaining his daily bread. Baccio became celebrated for his learning so that according to De Renzi his “profound erudition passed into a proverb in his time.” His great opportunity came, adds De Renzi, when he was made Papal Physician to Pope Sixtus V.
Castor Durantes, a skilled physician and poet, was another of the medical attendants of Pope Sixtus V. In Giacobilli’s catalogue the following works are noted—“Treasure of Health,” “On the Nature of Food,” which ran through many editions, the New Herbarium, and Theatrum Plantarum, Animalium, Piscium, et Petrarum, Venetiis, 1636. His Herbarium was done in verse and besides he wrote a series of poems in Virgilian metre which attracted favorable attention from his contemporaries.
Urban VII (1590-91).—The physician of Pope Urban VII was Demetrius Canevarius, who was in his time, according to contemporary authorities, the leading physician of Genoa when he was called to Rome. He made a magnificent success at Rome, became very wealthy, but was famous for his hospitality, his many friends and the magnificent library which he collected, “filled with all the best books.” We have from him a book on “The Practice of Medicine,” another on the “Diagnosis, Prognosis and Cure of Fevers” and a third on “The Procreation of Man.” Like most of the physicians of his time he was a philosopher as well as a medical scientist and so we have two philosophic monographs from him, one on “The Origin and Destruction of Natural Things,” another on “First Principles.”
Canevari, to use his more familiar Italian name, is famous as one of the great bibliophiles of history. He had a series of the most beautiful bindings made for his books and these have been the precious treasures of collectors ever since. To own a Canevari binding is a much-prized distinction in the world of rare books.
Innocent IX (1591).—Malpighi, one of the Papal Physicians of this Pope, is one of the greatest of medical scientists. His career is sketched earlier in this book. Another of his scarcely less distinguished physicians was Lucas Tozzius, who succeeded Malpighi. It would indeed have been difficult to have filled adequately the room of so great a predecessor, but while Tozzi’s powers of observation and scientific genius were not so penetrating as those of Malpighi, his books probably influenced his own generation of physicians almost more than those of his great scientific predecessor. He wrote a volume on the theory and another on the practice of medicine, wrote commentaries on the aphorisms of Hippocrates and on the medical art of Galen, as well as some volumes on philosophy and even lighter subjects. He was looked upon as one of the most talented men in Italy of his time and his scholarly erudition made him the friend of learned visitors to Italy from every country in Europe.
Clement VIII (1592).—Jerome Provenzalis, “a philosopher of distinction, most expert physician, theologian of great name and yet a practical genius of the highest ability who had scarcely his equal in his generation in Italy” (Mandosius), was the medical attendant of Pope Clement VIII. One of his books, a treatise on the senses (Rome, 1597), attracted wide attention in his time and still has a place in the bibliography of the sensations.
Another of the physicians of Pope Clement VIII was Jerome Rubeus, who wrote books on history as well as medicine. He is well known as the author of a history of Ravenna and its neighborhood and people which contains an account of the Goths, the Lombards and the Italians of the earlier Middle Ages from the materials then at hand. He is best known in medicine for his “Annotations on Cornelius Celsus’ De Re Medica.” He wrote a treatise on Destination and a monograph on The Dietetic Value of Melons. His book on Destination appeared in editions at Venice, at Basel, at Ravenna and probably also at Rome. Rubeus has a place in most of the histories written at this time.
Another of the physicians of Pope Clement VIII was Jerome Cordella. While he is highly praised for his knowledge of philosophy and his skill in medicine he is better known for his intimate friendship with St. Philip Neri, of whom Cardinal Newman, in the nineteenth century, was so proud to proclaim himself the spiritual son. Jerome was of assistance to St. Philip particularly in the magnificent social work which meant so much for the correction of social abuses at this time and, above all, the occupation of youthful minds with higher thoughts.
Among Zecchius’ books, who was another of the physicians to Pope Clement VIII, is one on “The Means of Curing Especially Such Fevers as Arise from Putrid Humors.” Another is called “Medical Consultations or The Whole Practice of Medicine Briefly Treated,” a third is on “The Use of Italian Waters,” and then besides there are a series of shorter papers on Hippocrates’ Aphorisms, on Digestion, on Purgation, on The Letting of Blood, on Critical Days and on the Morbus Gallicus.
Caesalpinus the Botanist.—Caesalpinus is mentioned in the text of the previous edition of this work as a professor at the Papal Medical School, the Sapienza, and physician to Pope Clement VIII. In the history of science, however, he should rather be counted among the botanists than the physicians, though there is no doubt that he was the first fully to describe the systemic circulation. Edward Lee Greene, in his Landmarks of Botanical History, which is “A Study of Certain Epochs in the Development of the Science of Botany” (part of volume 54 of the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Washington, 1909), mentions that “The Caesalpinus system of plant arrangement seemed incomparably superior to every one that had preceded it.” Linnaeus in the warmth of zeal for the great Caesalpino had pronounced him “first in the order of time among real systematists.” Caesalpinus is then one of the great founders of modern botany and his work De Plantis is a foundation stone of the science. Gurlt talks of him as the greatest botanist of his century and his work as director of the botanical garden of Pisa did much both for medicine and botany. A little practical work of his was a Manual of the Practice of Medicine, which attracted much attention and is in line with the efforts of Papal Physicians as a rule to make knowledge available for the use of physicians generally.
Still another of the physicians of Pope Clement VIII was Michael Mercatus, an intimate personal friend of the well-known social reformer St. Philip Neri, whose profound influence on the social life of Rome is a matter of history and to whom such men as Newman and Faber and the English Oratorians turned with the loving name of Father in the nineteenth century. Mercatus wrote a series of instructions on the Pest and his medical volume contains also articles on antidotes against poisons, the gout and paralysis. Like many of the physicians of his century he was interested in Oriental problems and wrote a volume on the obelisks of Rome which was published in 1589 and dedicated to Pope Sixtus V. This led to a controversy with Latino Latini during which Mercatus published another volume on the obelisks. Mercatus came of a well-known scholarly family, for his grandfather had been a close friend of Marsilio Ficino and a member of the famous Platonic Academy.
Another of the physicians of Pope Clement VIII, at least he received the honor of the appointment as Papal Physician, though he could not come to Rome to fulfil its duties because of the approach of age, was Nicholas Masinus. He is well known for his work on “The Abuse of Cold Drinks,” which was published in 1587. The custom of gathering snow on the mountains and using it in their wine and other drinks during the summer time, which had been practised by the ancient Romans, was revived at the time of the Renaissance and Masinus was sure that it was productive of harm to the digestive system.
Still another of the physicians of Pope Clement VIII who deserves mention was Jacobus Bonaventura, to whom Athenius of Brussels dedicated his edition of the “Medical Consultations of Jerome Mercurialis,” calling him “a very distinguished man.” He was a particular friend of Mercurialis, who expressed his opinion of him in the highest terms. He made a great many friends among the nobility of Italy and was very dear to the Sovereign Pontiff.
Still another of the physicians of Pope Clement VIII was Julius De Angelis, who came of a well-known academic family with many members distinguished in law and medicine. He was professor at Padua for years and afterwards at the Sapienza in Rome and was chosen by the Pope to give special lessons for the benefit of physicians and medical attendants at the Santo Spirito Hospital in Saxia as it was called. He is mentioned in a number of medical works of the time, and in the book of the Statutes of the College of Physicians of the City of Rome.
Paul V (1605-21).—One of the physicians of Pope Paul V, though at first he had refused the honor because it is said that as an astrologer he had found the stars unfavorable to his acceptance of it, was Pompeius Caimus, from whom we have a number of medical writings. Van der Linden, in De Scriptis Medicis, and others furnish the list of them. He wrote “On Congenital Heat,” on “The Indications of Putrid Fevers,” on “The Recognition and Cure of Melancholia,” on “The Nature of Science and Its Acquisition,” “On Grief,” a “Treatise on Human Longevity and the Climacteric Years,” as well as “Dissertations on the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, Galen and Avicenna,” which had been delivered as lectures at Padua, on “The Nature and Differences of Winds,” and on “The Early Recognition and the Lengthening of Old Age,” besides translating and annotating a number of the works of the old Greek philosophers and physicians in Latin. It may seem strange that a man of such wide erudition and scholarship should still cling to the delusion of astrology, but about this same time Galileo and Kepler were drawing up horoscopes, and in the middle of the eighteenth century Mesmer’s astrological essay was accepted for the degree of Doctor of Medicine at the University of Vienna. Caimus, after refusing the chair of medicine at the University of Pisa, to which a magnificent salary was attached, became the physician to Pope Gregory XV.
Gregory XV (1621-23).—Vincentius Crucius was another of the physicians of Pope Gregory XV. He had been a professor at Bologna and we have from him his lectures at Bologna on “Epilepsy or The Comitial Disease,” published at Venice in 1603. Books of his “On Catarrh,” published at Ravenna, on “The More Frequent Diseases of The Head; Catarrh, Phrenitis, Lethargy and Epilepsy,” published at Rome, 1617, and “The More Frequent Diseases of the Chest; Phthisis, Haemoptysis, Asthma, Peri-pneumonia, and Pluritis,” issued also at Rome, a volume on “The Diseases of The Stomach” and a series of volumes of Consultations on Medicine, were well known to his contemporaries and to succeeding generations. He wrote besides a commentary on Lucretius, another on Hippocrates, a book on Prophylaxis, a volume on Vesuvius and a popular work in Italian, all his other works having been in Latin, meant to be of assistance to ordinary people in avoiding disease and especially the infectious diseases.
Two of the Papal Physicians of Gregory XV are the brothers Giovanni and Bernardino Castellani. John is the better known and was for years the director of the Hospital of Santo Spirito and received the much coveted title of Roman Citizen for his work for Roman citizens there. He succeeded Elpidiano as lecturer on anatomy and surgery at the University of the Sapienza and left a large anatomical work in manuscript with many copper plate engravings, which were never published. The book of his by which he is known is a volume of directions for venesection from the standpoint of the anatomist. It was the custom then for nearly everyone to have himself let blood several times a year and especially in the spring, somewhat as in our time many people take purgatives. The practices are about equally foolish unless there is some special indication for them. In many families the barber-surgeon was called in almost as regularly for this and with quite as little anxiety about it as for the cutting of the hair. Naturally there had been many mishaps in this practice because the barbers were expert enough but ignorant, and venesection was done from blood vessels all over the body because one patient thought his head ought to be relieved, another his foot, another his chest, and the like. Castellani’s book then, called Phylacterium, which I suppose might be translated The Protective, was meant to indicate the anatomical landmarks that should guide the barber-surgeon so as to avoid the danger points. Like so many other of the works of the Papal Physicians it was directed to the correction of popular practices that were the source of injury and suffering to the people. Castellani’s book contained directions for the application of cups, dry and wet, which was also a popular practice confided to the barber-surgeons at this time, and like blood-letting had been subject to many abuses.
Urban VIII (1623-44).—One of the scholarly Papal Physicians was Julius Mancinus of Siena, who secured the much coveted position of physician to the Santo Spirito Hospital in Rome by competition. He obtained a great reputation for his ability to make the prognosis of disease and acquired an extensive practice as a consequence. He accumulated a great fortune from his practice but lived very modestly and used his income partly for the education of ambitious youths of talent who were without the means of securing an education and partly in the collection of works of art. He wrote a book on “The Pictures of Rome.” A number of books were dedicated to him, and Antonio Recchi in his scientific work expresses his gratitude to him for the help afforded in the collection of plants, animals, and minerals from Mexico.
Two of the Papal Physicians of Pope Urban VIII were the uncle and nephew Sylvester and Thaddeus Collicola. Sylvester taught medicine at the Sapienza and was a very popular teacher mentioned in a number of books of the time. Thaddeus had studied law before taking up medicine, but devoted himself entirely to the second profession and Mandosius speaks of him as “the greatest physician of his time, dear to all the learned men who knew him and to all the good men who were brought in contact with him.” Thaddeus was evidently a friend of the literary men of his time, for he is often mentioned by poets and writers. Several books were dedicated to him by scientific and literary admirers.
Innocent X (1644-55).—One of the copious writers among the Papal Physicians was Baldus Baldi, who was the medical attendant of Innocent X. We have a series of books from him, one On Contagious Diseases, a treatise on Hippocrates’ Suggestions concerning Air, Water and Habitation, a book On Pleurisy, a detailed account of the fatal illness and the autopsy on the body of Cardinal Bevilacqua and academic lectures on poisons as well as a book on the Opobalsamo Orientate.
A distinguished Papal Physician under Pope Innocent X was Paul Zacchias, “a most learned philosopher and physician who had a very versatile genius and whose deep interest in every form of intellectual work, not only such serious studies as philosophy, medicine, theology and jurisprudence, but also the lighter arts of poetry, music, painting and so forth, made him distinguished among his contemporaries.” Zacchias is best known as the author of a book on medico-legal questions which went through a series of editions, was published originally at Rome and afterwards at Lyons in at least two editions there. Zacchias wrote a volume on the keeping of Lent in which he discussed various questions of the relationship of fasting and health, which went through several editions and is often referred to by the moralists. He also wrote a book on Hypochondriasis. Some of his writings that were widely circulated in manuscript are On Sudden and Unexpected Death, On Macules Contracted from the Foetus in Utero, on Rest in the Cure of Disease, on Laughter and Grief, on a Physical Consideration of The Miracles of Holy Scriptures, and other subjects that might be expected to interest a medico-legal expert who was occupied particularly with the psychology of many human problems.
The Papal Physicians were not all Italians, indeed Italian as a national designation was almost unused, men were Neopolitans, Genoese, Venetians, Paduans, Bolognese, Sicilians, Milanese quite as distinctly as now they are French, English, Spanish or whatever else it may be. The Popes usually chose physicians from their own cities but not to the exclusion of others and not a few Papal Physicians were from outside of Italy. Pope Innocent X chose Gabriel Fonseca, a Portuguese, whose father had been a teacher of medicine at Pisa and at Padua, and who himself held chairs in medicine at both of these universities before he was invited to Rome to be a lecturer at the Sapienza and Papal Physician. Van der Linden notes among his writings a work on medical economy, Medici Oeconomia, and a series of lectures on Contagious Fevers, as well as a book on Medical Banquets. Fonseca came to be looked upon as one of the most distinguished teachers of medicine in Italy in his time.
Alexander VII (1655-67).—One of the physicians of Pope Alexander VII was Matthias Naldius, Doctor of Medicine and of Philosophy and a man of great erudition, a scholar in Latin and in Greek, who knew Hebrew, Chaldaic and Arabic. He was sent by the Duke of Etruria on a medical mission of consultation to the Prince of Damascus, who was suffering from what seemed to his attending physicians an incurable disease, and Naldius was able to relieve him. The incident called attention to him all over Italy and he was sent for in consultations to most of the Italian cities. He taught at the medical school of Siena, his birthplace, and wrote a series of volumes on medical subjects. One of these is the rather well-known “Pamphilia or Friendship of the Whole World,” the subtitle of which is “The Conciliation of the Opinions of Disagreeing Philosophers.” This was published at Siena in 1647 in quarto. He issued a small volume of “Rules for the Cure of Contagious Diseases,” Rome, 1656. His great work is the Rei Medicae Prodromi, or introduction to medical science, which has for subtitle “Treatise on the Principal Problems of Physiology.”
A distinguished scientist of the seventeenth century who found Rome a refuge and place of opportunity for his studies at this time when beset with difficulties elsewhere, was Borelli, the first to apply mechanical principles to the explanation of physiological problems in his work De Motu Animalium. Borelli had been a professor of science in Messina, visited Florence for a time in order to be with Galileo shortly before the great astronomer’s death, accepted the call of the Duke of Tuscany to Pisa, where he had as colleagues Redi and Malpighi, with whom he founded the Accademia del Cimento. He left Pisa, not long after, to return to Messina, whence however he had to flee, having fallen under the suspicion of taking part in a conspiracy against the government, and now found a refuge in Rome. He was pensioned by Queen Christina of Sweden, who was then living in the Papal Capital, but after a time he retired to the monastery of San Pantaleone in Rome, where two years later he died. Professor Foster, in his Lectures on the History of Physiology, which were delivered at a number of universities in this country and subsequently published in the Cambridge Biological Series, devotes a whole lecture, some thirty pages, to “Borelli and the Influence of the New Physics.” He does not hesitate to say at the conclusion of the lecture that “when we consider the effect which a perusal of Borelli’s book has upon the reader now, we can easily understand how he was the founder of a great school which flourished long after him. He was so successful in his mechanical solutions of physiological problems that many coming after him readily rushed to the conclusion that all such problems could be solved by the same method. And as is often the case the less qualified alike as regards mechanical as well as physiological knowledge and insight to follow in Borelli’s path were the men of succeeding times the more loudly did they often proclaim the might of Borelli’s method.” It has always been thus and doubtless always will be. The smaller men who come after the great masters are quite sure that they can go farther than the master himself and push his system, as did the Darwinians in our time, to silly exaggerations. When the question of the attitude of the Popes to science is under consideration, however, it is well to recall that Borelli’s revolutionary work was completed under the aegis of the Popes and a religious order in Rome and the account of it was not actually published in its completed form until after Borelli’s death, and then at the expense of ecclesiastics. It is the knowledge of details of this kind that gives us a real insight into the significance of ecclesiastical relations to science.
Innocent XI (1676-89).—The Papal Physician of this Pope was Floridus Salvatorius, to whom the Provost, the Trustees and his Colleagues of the College of Physicians of Rome dedicated, in an Introductory Epistle, a volume of the Statutes of the College of Physicians of the City, in which they praised him very highly. He seems to have been a great favorite with the members of the medical profession in his time at Rome, and other books on medicine were also dedicated to him.
Another of this Pope’s physicians was Lancisi, one of the most important in the list, whose place in the history of medicine is pointed out in the body of this book.
Alexander VIII (1689-91).—The physician to this Pope was Romulus Spezioli, doctor of philosophy and of medicine of the University of Firmo, who acquired a great reputation at Rome as physician and finally was selected as Papal Physician. He became professor at the Sapienza, the Roman University, and was very popular as a teacher. After the death of the Pope he gave up his profession of medicine and, like Linacre a century before, became a priest, but his scientific knowledge was taken advantage of to enable him to give lectures on subjects in the borderland between religion and medicine, what has come to be called in our time pastoral medicine, to the theological students at the Roman University, and his medical experience was used in the causes of canonization in order to pass on miracles.
Innocent XII (1691-1700).—Both of the physicians of Innocent XII, Malpighi and Lucas Tozzi, are very well known. Malpighi deserves in medical history a place beside Harvey as one of the greatest of the contributors to the medical sciences and probably even a niche higher than the Englishman because of the number of original observations that he made. I dealt with him earlier in this volume. Lucas Tozzi is the author of a series of books on The Theory and Practice of Medicine that are classics. One of these was issued at Lyons in 1731, another at Paris in 1737, and a commentary on the Aphorisms of Hippocrates at Naples, 1743. He wrote also a commentary on the Ars Medicinalis Galeni, besides smaller contributions to medical theory and practice. One of his books, with the title De Anima Mundi, The Soul of the World, in which he brings together a large number of the fallacies of philosophic writers before his time regarding the universe and man and their origin and destiny, was widely read. He suggests not only how little there is that we know, but how much there is that we think we know that is not so.
Pope Innocent XII died in 1700, and with the beginning of the eighteenth century we feel that we are in our own times. Whatever of direct opposition there has been supposed to be between the Popes and science has always been traced to the older times. It was nearly always shrouded in the mists of medieval history. It does not seem so important then, to follow out the lives of the Papal Physicians in detail in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. For anyone who wishes really to know, the information is readily available. There is abundant evidence, moreover, of the favorable attitude of the Popes towards the medical sciences and a number of distinguished men are among their physicians. The great Morgagni, who in his time was undoubtedly the greatest of living physicians, was the intimate friend of a number of Popes and was frequently consulted on all scientific as well as medical matters. Both Pope Benedict XIV (1740-58) and his successor Clement XIII (1758-69) insisted, as we have said in the body of this volume, on having the great pathologist consider the Papal Palace always open to him as a place of residence, whenever he visited Rome. Almost needless to say this same favorable attitude has continued during the nineteenth century.
Pius VI (1775-99).—Among the physicians who treated Pius VI during the severe physical trials of a stormy pontificate was Professor Cotugno of Naples, to whom we owe a number of important discoveries in medicine. He was the first to point out the presence of the cerebro-spinal fluid and ably supplemented the investigations of Valsalva on the ear which did so much to clear up many problems in connection with that organ, most of whose anatomy we owe to Italians. He made a careful study of sciatica, De Ischiada Nervosa, Vienna, 1770, which is the classic foundation of our modern knowledge of that affection. He made a series of post-mortem observations on typhoid fever in which he demonstrated very clearly the intestinal lesions of that affection and came very near solving the important problem of the pathological basis of the disease. Like a number of others about the middle of the eighteenth century, in spite of acute observations on intestinal lesions, he could not get away from the theory of fevers being constitutional and so was unable to separate abdominal typhus from dysentery on the one hand, nor true typhus on the other. The constitutional nature of the disease we have come to recognize to some extent again after the pendulum had swung very far in the direction of the declaration of its local character.
Pius VII (1800-23).—One of the physicians of Pope Pius VII was Professor Giambattista Bomba, who was professor of physiology at the Sapienza or Roman University of that time. One of the surgeons in attendance at the Papal Court was Antonio Baccelli, the father of Professor Guido Baccelli, the distinguished Italian scientist and statesman of the modern time.
Another of the physicians of Pius VII was Flajani, to whom we owe the first description of the affection known as Graves’ Disease in English-speaking countries, and often as Basedow’s Disease on the Continent, though the English physician Parry anticipated both of these in 1822. Graves’ description did not come until 1835, Flajani’s had been published in 1802; Basedow did not write the more complete description in which he called attention not only to the goitre and the rapid heart action as his Irish and Italian predecessors had done, but also to the exophthalmos, which is so common an accompaniment, until 1850. Flajani was distinguished for his ability as a clinical observer as his priority in this matter would well suggest.
Gregory XVI (1831-46).—The two of Gregory XVI’s physicians who were best known were Professor Paolo Baroni, the distinguished Professor of Surgery, the University of Bologna, and Pier Luigi Valentini, Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine at the Roman University. At the conclave which followed his death for the election of his successor, Professor Giusseppe Constantini, the Professor of the Institutes of Surgery at the Roman University, was in attendance. [Footnote 53]
Leo XIII (1878-1903) was so situated in his relations to the Italian government that it would have been almost impossible for him to have selected one of the distinguished professors at the University at Rome, which was, after all, a government institution. His physician then was chosen from distant Ancona and proved to be a man of distinct intellectual capacity, who impressed himself upon the science of Rome in certain ways. This was Dr. Joseph Lapponi, whom those of us who had the privilege of meeting remember with special pleasure. He was professor of practical anthropology at the Academy of the Historico-Juridical Conferences of Rome and the author of a book on “Hypnotism and Spiritism; A Critical and Medical Study,” which ran through two or more editions in the original Italian and was translated into several foreign languages. The English edition published by Longmans is well known.
Pius X (1903-14).—Dr. Lapponi continued as the Papal Physician of Leo XIII’s successor until his death. Political conditions in Rome having been modified somewhat Professor Marchiafava of the Roman University, now in the hands of the Italian government, became the consultant Papal Physician, the latest of a long line of distinguished men. Marchiafava has done some excellent work with regard to malaria, working out the life cycle of the malarial parasite and demonstrating that the organisms of pernicious malaria and the tertian and quartan malarial fevers are quite different. In recent years Marchiafava has been particularly interested in the pathology of alcoholism, being a prominent factor in that movement in Europe which during our time has made it very clear that alcohol is never a stimulant but only a narcotic and that in practically all cases where it is used regularly, even though not consumed to excess, it produces definite pathological changes in human tissues.
With this list before him, the reader will have all the material necessary to understand the declaration that there is no series of men whose names are connected together by any bond in the history of medicine, even as members of the faculty of our oldest medical schools, that represent so much achievement and original investigation in medical matters as the Papal Physicians. With these men beside them as advisers and very often as intimate friends, it would have been quite impossible for the Popes to have been deliberate opponents of scientific progress. We all know that by a curious irony of fate physicians are sometimes found ranged against the line of advance in medical science, but this is inevitable with human frailty and the incidents of opposition have not done nearly so much harm as their conservative refusal to listen to enthusiastic discoverers, whose discovery was of no significance, has done of good. No medical society in the world has an unblemished record of constant readiness to accept genuine new discoveries and all of them have sometime or other been in opposition to what proved eventually to be significant scientific progress. There are no striking incidents in the lives of the Papal Physicians in this regard though their admiration for Aristotle, Hippocrates and Galen sometimes kept them over conservative. As a rule, however, they were ready to welcome every new step in medical advance that was made.
We all know how much a man’s physician usually means in influencing him with regard to the attitude that he shall assume towards scientific advances generally and particularly announced progress in the biological sciences. The Popes could scarcely have had better advisers in this matter than the men who were actually chosen as Papal Physicians. They came from every part of Italy and sometimes even from other countries. A library consisting of their works alone would contain an extremely valuable collection of books illustrating nearly every phase of advance in medicine.
Notes
50 Degli Archiatri Pontifici, Roma, Pagliarini, 1784.
51 The whole subject of the supposed Papal Bull against the comet is discussed in my sketch of Regiomontanus the father of modern astronomy, as he is sometimes called, in “Catholic Churchmen in Science,” second series, Phila., Dolphin Press, 1909.
52 Lignamine interested himself in the new art of printing and was the publisher of a well-known series of finely printed incunabula.
63 When the material of the famous Challenger expedition was being assigned for investigation to those who were expected to use it to the best advantage of science, the diatoms were handed over to the study of Francesco Castracane degli Anteminelli. He discovered in the material submitted to him three new genera of diatoms, 225 new species and some thirty varieties. Altogether he had written some 112 papers on the biology of his favorite microscopic plants. Castracane was a Catholic priest living at Rome in high favor with the ecclesiastical authorities and directly encouraged by the Pope in his work.