On Pestilence: A Renaissance Treatise on Plague

From 1575 to 1578 much of northern Italy was struck by the plague. In Venice alone over 50,000 people died. In 1576 Girolamo Mercuriale, the most famous professor of medicine in Italy during the second half of the 16th century, was called to Venice by its leaders to diagnose the spreading disease. At the Ducal Palace, Mercuriale argued that it was not the plague and demanded that the city lift its quarantine. The Doge acceded to his demands and many citizens treated him as a hero. After Mercuriale and his assistants began to travel around the city treating patients, the rate of deaths increased. Public opinion swung against Mercuriale, who then left for nearby Padua where he taught. The quarantine was reimposed. This treatise is based on lectures he gave at the University of Padua in 1577. In these lectures, using his deep knowledge of history and ancient medical writings, he defended a revised position that contended the disease in Venice developed into plague. The treatise reveals Renaissance theories about the nature of epidemic disease and the techniques prescribed to prevent and cure bubonic plague. Mercuriale sustained that contagion worked mostly through the air, which, when transformed by vapors and hidden forces, attacked the heart and its vital powers. Influenced by Renaissance ideals, Mercuriale sought to reconcile his own experiences with his knowledge of the ancient world. Using his humanistic investigations into the past, Mercuriale categorized epidemics from the ancient world and Middle Ages based on their deadliness and diffusion. Similarly he mined the past for cures and advice for governments to maintain public health. Mercuriale’s treatise provides insight into the relationship between physicians and political power during epidemics, the functions of medical knowledge in early modern society, and historical conceptions of disease.