| 2023 Winners Catherine Rider and Sarah Toulalan Share their Experiences of the Grant and the Upcoming VivaMente Conference. |
We’re very excited to have been awarded this year’s VivaMente Grant to hold a conference on Fertility, Medicine and the Body: Theory and Practice across the Premodern World.
Both of us work on the history of fertility and reproduction (Catherine on the Middle Ages and Sarah on early modern England) and for some time we’ve been talking about the amount of interesting work that is being done in the field. |
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This work spans a wide range of periods and regions, including ancient Greece, the medieval Arabic-speaking world, and medieval and early modern Europe.
We began to think that the next step was to bring specialists in these different cultures together, to explore long-term continuity and change, especially since all of these cultures had medical ideas about reproduction that were rooted in ancient Greek humoral medicine. We also wondered how ideas about fertility in these cultures compared with those of other premodern societies, for example in China and India.
The VivaMente Grant has given us the opportunity to start exploring the history of fertility comparatively. It has allowed us to invite speakers who work on different periods and places, including one who will talk about how the history of premodern fertility speaks to contemporary issues. The CSMBR’s reputation is also helping us to attract other scholars from many different countries and career stages to be part of this work – including many we haven’t met yet!
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Our community grows as new members join the CSMBR: welcome! |
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| Early 17th-century Physicians & the 'Peregrinatio Academica' |
The Case of Johann Schreck Terrentius (1576-1630) |
Webinar: 14 March 2023 - 5 pm (CET) |
In this lecture, Noël Golvers explores Johann Schreck Terentius’ medical profile in the context of the European "peregrinatio academica" which was part of the holistic education in the tradition of Ramon Lull (1232-1316) and Petrus Ramus (1515-1572) but had also a strong mathematical component. |
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| Hospital Architecture in Portugal at the Dawn of Modernity |
Solutions, Practices, and Models |
Joana Maria Balsa Carvalho de Pinho |
Webinar: 5 April 2023 - 5 Pm (CEST) |
This lecture sheds light on the institutional transformations that led to changes in the typology of Portuguese hospital architecture. These changes led to the construction of new, larger hospitals, which allowed the renovation of hospital architecture and the application of new architectural models. |
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| Deep Time and Vernacular Science in Medieval and Renaissance Italy |
Webinar: 20 April 2023 - 5 pm (CEST) |
Recent scholarship has emphasized the centrality of the history of the Earth to premodern and early modern Europeans. Drawing upon several chapters of my recent book: On the Edge of Eternity. The Antiquity of the Earth in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, this talk focuses on the diffusion of notions of an ancient Earth in vernacular culture and literature. |
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| Fertility, Medicine, and the Body |
Theory and Practice across the Premodern World |
Hybrid Event: 22-23 May 2023 |
This Vivamente Conference addresses a broad spectrum of issues to do with fertility (and infertility), with a particular focus on the transmission of ideas between Europe, the Islamicate world, and beyond. To this end, it will bring together scholars working on different regions and cultures. Proposals for 20-minute papers focusing on any aspects of fertility (broadly defined) and on any part of the world before c.1800 are welcome. |
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| Intensity and the Grades of Nature |
Heat, Colour and Sound in the Ordering of the Pre-Modern Cosmos 1200-1600 |
Hybrid Event: 11-14 July 2023 |
Only 2 places left in presence |
This summer school will explore how heat, colour, and sound have been used, conceptualised and graded in the pre-modern cosmos shaping both disciplines of knowledge and everyday life. |
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Five Santorio Fellowships, worth €500 each, will be offered throughout as a gratuity to join the 2023 CSMBR Summer School by means of an application process. |
Santorio Global Fellowship |
The scheme offers PhD students the possibility to study at one of the CSMBR funding institutions for a period between two and four months. |
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Poisoning and Suspicious Deaths in the Classical World |
How was poisoning defined and structured? Which elements of the crime had to be proven, and through which type of reasoning and argumentation? These and other questions are analysed in this fascinating talk. |
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Melancholy and Fever in the Early Modern Period |
In this lecture, Dr Jil Muller explores the role that Montaigne and Descartes associated with the mesentery, the influence of Montaigne and Platter on Descartes and whether Descartes’ position on the matter changed over time. |
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Measuring the Intensity of Diseases |
Since antiquity, the need to assess the intensity of diseases was taken seriously in medical practice. In this lecture, Fabrizio Bigotti explores how diseases have been conceptualised, visualised and then measured with the advent of early modern precision instruments. |
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| Roger Bacon and the Incorruptible Human, 1220-1292 |
Meagan Allen Santorio Award 2022 |
| | The Medical World of Margaret Cavendish |
Justin Begley & Benjamin Goldberg |
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| Santorio Santori and the Emergence of Quantified Medicine, 1614-1790 |
Jonathan Barry & Fabrizio Bigotti |
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FORMA FLUENS: Histories of the Microcosm |
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| Surgical Thread in Early Modern Europe |
Would you be comfortable with your doctor’s uncertainty about whether to suture your wound with silk thread or metallic wire? This article focuses on the figure of Johann Rhode (1587-1659), a Danish philologist and physician who resolved the quarrel over the meaning of acia. But what was acia? The answer requires travel back in time. |
| The Ages of Man in the Kitab al-Malaki |
During the tenth century, Islamic medicine experienced a new flourishing: not only did the works translated from Greek into Arabic spread outside the center of Baġdād, but authors of Arabic language also began composing original works, mostly aiming to systematize and organize the inherited knowledge. |
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© Arbor: Knowledge That Grows
CSMBR Newsletter Cover image: Illuminated Initial from
Diebold Schilling's 'Spiezer Chronik', 1480, Ms Mss.h.h.I.16, f. 1r Burgerbibliothek, Bern |
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Centre for the Study of Medicine and the Body in the Renaissance (CSMBR)
Domvs Comeliana, Via Pietro Maffi 48 56126 Pisa, Italy
info@csmbr.fondazionecomel.org |
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