A Digital Exploration of 16th-Century Heretical Networks in the Italian Medical Context: Methodological Challenges and Research Perspectives

After the Reformation began in 1517, Protestant ideas soon crossed the Alps and spread out of Italian cities, fascinating (especially, but not exclusively) the humanists and scholars who were part of the late-Renaissance intellectual environment. In particular, between the 1530s and the 1590s a great number of Italian physicians absorbed, promoted, and re-elaborated, often in radical terms, the reformed and heretical discourse. In this article I am presenting some research perspectives and methodological challenges concerning the application of social network research and digital humanities tools to the history of 16th-century religious dissent. In particular, I will discuss and examine the reconstruction, out of a sample of 200 cases, of a network of dissident physicians who faced religious repression and opposed dogmatic confessional boundaries in Italy, and in their European diaspora, as a part of my own ongoing interdisciplinary research

Mapping Heresy in Sixteenth-Century Venice

Drawing on a systematic study of the Savi sopra l’eresia archive in Venice, the most complete collection of historical records pertaining to Italian heretical movements and their repression, this article sketches the geography of heretical circles in Venice between the 1540s and the 1580s. The article puts space back into history and reads the history of religious dissent against the urban structure of sixteenth-century Venice, where streets and squares favored people’s encounters, allowing and fueling the exchange of information and the process of knowledge generation. Shifting the focus from people to places, and emphasizing fluidity and porosity, suggests new ways to pursue a more dynamic and performative conception of religious dissent

Heretical Physicians in sixteenth-century Italy: the Fortunes of Girolamo Massari, Guglielmo Grataroli, and Teofilo Panarelli

Renaissance knowledge was not composed of disparate, specialist disciplines. In particular, medicine and religion were strongly interconnected, and in times of intellectual crisis, the turmoil occurring within one field could affect the other. Considering this, it is worth examining the intersection between the scientific and the religious, choosing Italian physicians as the primary characters of study. This paper considers the religious and scientific paths of three sixteenth-century heretical physicians who spent their lives in the Veneto and/or, during their religious exiles, in Basel. Taking into consideration these case-studies, I will discuss the extent to which \u201coutsider\u201d physicians could contribute to the rise of new conceptions of science and religious discourse

Medici ed eresie nel Cinquecento italiano

La tesi si propone di affrontare il rapporto tra scienza medica ed eterodossia nel Cinquecento italiano, incrociando due filoni di ricerca fino ad oggi rimasti separati: la storia religiosa e quella della medicina umanistica. Proprio mentre la società italiana era attraversata da una profonda crisi religiosa, la medicina conosceva un processo di rinnovamento metodologico ed epistemologico: i medici, sia come protagonisti della riforma del loro sapere, sia come attori nel dissenso religioso italiano, costituiscono quindi un significativo case-study. Partendo dalla constatazione empirica che quella medica fosse una categoria professionale particolarmente coinvolta nel dissenso religioso, infatti, e ricostruendo il profilo professionale dei terapeuti del Cinquecento, la tesi affronta le ragioni di tale permeabilità tra medicina ed eresia. Inoltre, essa riflette sulle specificità dell'azione riformata dei medici, tanto da un punto di vista intellettuale che sociale, e cerca di offrire delle stime quantitative del fenomeno. Le fonti utilizzate sono soprattutto quelle del fondo Savi all'Eresia dell'Archivio di Stato di Venezia, ma è stato effettuato uno spoglio di carte inquisitoriali anche presso altri archivi italiani, in particolare quello modenese

A Digital Exploration of 16th-Century Heretical Networks in the Italian Medical Context

After the Reformation began in 1517, Protestant ideas soon crossed the Alps and spread out of Italian cities, fascinating (especially, but not exclusively) the humanists and scholars who were part of the late-Renaissance intellectual environment. In particular, between the 1530s and the 1590s a great number of Italian physicians absorbed, promoted, and re-elaborated, often in radical terms, the reformed and heretical discourse. In this article I am presenting some research perspectives and methodological challenges concerning the application of social network research and digital humanities tools to the history of 16th-century religious dissent. In particular, I will discuss and examine the reconstruction, out of a sample of 200 cases, of a network of dissident physicians who faced religious repression and opposed dogmatic confessional boundaries in Italy, and in their European diaspora, as a part of my own ongoing interdisciplinary research

Donzellini, Girolamo

Scheda biografica del medico eterodosso vicentino, Girolamo Donzellin

Heresy, medicine and Paracelsianism in sixteenth-century Italy: the case of Girolamo Donzellini (1513-1587).

Many Italian physicians embraced Protestant ideas during the sixteenth Century: this suggests a connection between medical science and religious nonconformity. But why were physicians so exposed to the influence of Protestantism? Can we suppose that their heretical views affected the way in which they conceived medicine? And can we posit a particular link between certain kinds of medical thinking and specific religious doctrines? In order to analyse this relationship, I will focus on a specific character: Girolamo Donzellini. As a physician of great renown, put on trial five times by the Venetian Inquisition and eventually sentenced to death, Donzellini is a good case study. Moreover, his exposure to the works of Paracelsus allows one to put forward some considerations on Italian Paracelsianism, showing that medical attitudes often described as incompatible by historians could actually coexist in the same person, as a result of the complexity of the cultural and religious context

Heresy, Medicine and Paracelsianism in Sixteenth-Century Italy: the Case of Girolamo Donzellini (1513–1587)

Many Italian physicians embraced Protestant ideas during the sixteenth Century: this suggests a connection between medical science and religious nonconformity. But why were physicians so exposed to the influence of Protestantism? Can we suppose that their heretical views affected the way in which they conceived medicine? And can we posit a particular link between certain kinds of medical thinking and specific religious doctrines? In order to analyse this relationship, I will focus on a specific character: Girolamo Donzellini. As a physician of great renown, put on trial five times by the Venetian Inquisition and eventually sentenced to death, Donzellini is a good case study. Moreover, his exposure to the works of Paracelsus allows one to put forward some considerations on Italian Paracelsianism, showing that medical attitudes often described as incompatible by historians could actually coexist in the same person, as a result of the complexity of the cultural and religious context.</jats:p