Matter Prepared, Form Received
Matter Prepared,
Form Received
Pharmacological Theory
in 14th-Century Italy
Marilena Panarelli
14 April 2026 – 5 PM (CET)
How do medicines produce their effects? Late medieval physicians addressed this question by combining medical theory with concepts drawn from natural philosophy, metaphysics, and logic. Central to their explanations was the relationship between complexio—the quality resulting from the reciprocal interaction of the four elemental qualities—and forma specifica, a form not reducible to material qualities but responsible for the characteristic properties belonging to a species.
In the works of two Italian physicians, the Florentine Taddeo Alderotti (c. 1215–1295) and his pupil Dino del Garbo (c. 1270–1327), this relationship becomes a key framework for explaining how remedies act on the body. Alderotti describes complexio as the particular disposition of the body that results from the balance of qualities such as heat, cold, moisture, and dryness. This disposition prepares bodily matter to receive the forma specifica.
The forma specifica is understood as a substantial principle associated with celestial influence that accounts for the distinctive powers of natural substances. Within this framework, the action of medicaments cannot be explained solely through perceptible qualities, but also through the hidden operations connected with their forma specifica.
A related perspective appears in the writings of Dino del Garbo. In works such as the Dilucidatorium and the Expositio super canones generales de virtutibus medicinarum simplicium secundi Canonis Avicenne, Dino elaborates the distinctions introduced by Alderotti and applies them to the explanation of pharmacological action.
This lecture shows how this conceptual framework allowed medieval physicians to connect philosophical doctrines of form and matter with practical questions concerning the action and efficacy of medicines
About the Speaker ...
Marilena Panarelli is Associate Professor of Medieval Philosophy at the University of Palermo.
She is the Principal Investigator of the ERC Starting Grant ReMedY, which investigates late medieval pharmacology and its metaphysical and epistemological foundations. She was awarded a Humboldt Fellowship at the Albertus Magnus Institute (Bonn) and held postdoctoral positions in Cologne, Cluj-Napoca, and Lecce. She earned her PhD summa cum laude in cotutelle between the Universities of Salento and Cologne. Her research focuses on the intersections of metaphysics, natural philosophy, and medicine in the Latin Middle Ages, with particular attention to Albert the Great, Henry of Herford, the Dominican botanical tradition and the Medical School of Bologna. She published a critical edition of Catena aurea entium VII and several studies on the Pseudo-Aristotelian De Plantis and Albert the Great’s De vegetabilibus.
