A Cure for Lovesickness

This lecture proposes a comparative reflection on lovesickness (aegritudo amoris) in the love discourse of Italian Dolce Stil Novo poetry (i.e. Guido Guinizzelli, Guido Cavalcanti, Cino da Pistoia, Dino Frescobaldi, Lapo Gianni, Gianni Alfani) and contemporary medical and natural-philosophical sources, including Avicenna’s Canon, Arnau de Villanova’s Tractatus de amore qui heroicus nominatur, Alhazen’s Perspectiva (De aspectibus), and John Peckham’s Perspectiva communis.

Particular attention will be drawn to the mobility of treatises and physicians in medieval Europe and the role played in this regard by the Bolognese Studio di Arti e Medicina.

The main similarities and differences between the poetical and medical representations of love will then be discussed in a threefold way, first addressing love as a source of suffering (in the first part), then as a pharmakon (in the second part), and eventually as therapy (in the third part).

Each section will be discussed in light of the common points between Dolce Stil Novo lyric production and the treatises. The lecture’s interdisciplinary perspective aims to contribute to the imagery of love in Dolce Stil Novo poetry while emphasising the importance of physicians’ knowledge beyond a strictly medical milieu.