| VivaMente: the Garden of Ideas |
Deadline: 28 February 2026 |
We are pleased to announce the opening of the 2026 edition of VivaMente: The Garden of Ideas. The scheme supports outstanding proposals in intellectual history and the history of ideas, broadly construed, encouraging innovative events across philosophy, science, medicine and technology. Multidisciplinary approaches are welcome. The events will be hosted in Pisa for up to two days. |
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| Santorio Residential Fellow |
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The Diagnosis of Changing Diseases in 17th-Century Medicine |
David Miguel Soares Mesquita |
Webinar: 4 December 2025 - 5 pm (CET) |
In the early seventeenth century, the Portuguese physician Estêvão Rodrigues de Castro (1559–1637) addressed not just individual diseases but their transformation. His Quae ex quibus (Florence, 1627) introduced a new diagnostic grammar centred on metaptosis (disease replacement), epigenesis (pathological propagation), and metastasis (humoral migration). Anticipating later authors such as Giorgio Baglivi, Castro urged physicians to attend not only to stable symptoms but to the uncertain dynamics of disease itself, thereby redefining medical certainty.
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Writing Civil & Natural Histories on the Island of Ambon
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Genre and Narrative in the Work of Georg Eberhard Rumphius |
Webinar: 16 December 2026 - 5 pm (CET) |
In the seventeenth-century Indonesian archipelago, Dutch naturalist Georg Eberhard Rumphius engaged deeply with Muslim scholar Imam Ridjali, author of the Hikayat tanah hitu. This lecture by Daniel Margócsy examines Rumphius’ translation of Ridjali’s text and his portrayal of Ambonese society, revealing shared concerns about reform, morality, and divine order. Drawing on Rumphius’ Herbarium amboinense, it shows how early modern natural history and medicinal practice emerged from cross-cultural theological exchange within the Dutch colonial world.
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The Transformation of Infectious Disease Histories
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Three Decades of Paleogenetics and Historians' Responses |
Webinar: 13 January 2026 - 5 pm (CET) |
Since 1994, when molecular fragments of ancient pathogens were first recovered from human remains, pathogen paleogenetics has revolutionised our understanding of disease history. By reconstructing genomes of past viral and bacterial infections, researchers now trace evolutionary strains and global circulation patterns. In this lecture, Monica H. Green explores how these findings reveal intricate Afro-Eurasian and transoceanic connections, inviting us to reinterpret written sources through the lens of genomic evidence and long-distance epidemiological exchange.
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| STUDIOLO: Digital Humanities Lab
Winter School Series: Humanities for the Future |
NEW DATES: 25-27 February 2026 |
This new, interdisciplinary format allows participants to get a feel for the potential of the digital revolution by acquiring basic coding skills, knowledge of 3D modelling, key concepts in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLM). Participants will interact with leading academics who have or are currently working as PIs in important digital humanities projects. The programme is designed to offer a comprehensive skillset at the end of which participants will have the tools to shape their own projects. Emphasising the acquisition of practical skills, the Winter School requires no prior knowledge of coding or other skills.
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VivaMente: The Garden of Ideas |
Under this scheme € 5,000 plus the free usage of the Domus Comeliana (worth an additional €2,500 per day) will be awarded to the best proposals for a max. 2-day event to be held in Pisa. |
Santorio Award for Excellence in Research |
The award is designed to support scholarly excellence in intellectual history and to promote the best PhD theses in the history of medicine and science, with a focus on Europe or the Mediterranean, throughout the period 500-1800. It is open to PhD students and early career scholars of all nationalities within six years from their viva. |
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'Bergsucht' and Miner’s Chest |
Health and Illness in Mining Communities |
Centred on early mining settlements, this article examines the illnesses associated with subterranean labour, the technical vocabulary miners coined to identify them, and the measures devised to address risk. It shows how practical expertise and collective arrangements operated together to manage health in these communities. |
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A Medical-Historical Satire from 1688 |
Through the lens of the 1688 pamphlet Curious Enquiries, this article traces the afterlife of Kenelm Digby’s sympathetic powder. By exploring the so-called “wounded-dog theory", it reveals how parody became a means to question the authority of medical speculation and the credibility of experimental science in Restoration England. |
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Reshaping Vesalius' Legacy |
The "Fabrica's" & the "Epitome's" Afterlife |
The re-editions of Vesalius’ Fabrica and Epitome in 1604, 1617, and 1642 reveal not only how his work was preserved, but also how it was reshaped in the century after its publication. This article analyses these later editions to uncover how his legacy was developed and revived by subsequent generations of physicians. |
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In this article, Mona Sawy examines the place of honey in Coptic medicine, its therapeutic uses, the vocabulary through which healers described its properties, and the links it maintained with ritual practice, magical procedures and the practical routines of everyday healing within early Egyptian monastic and medical traditions. |
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| The Science of Compound Medicaments |
In this lecture Anna Gili explores the Arabic and Latin traditions of compound medicaments through al-Maǧūsī’s "Kitāb al-Malakī" and its Latin translation in Constantine the African’s "Practica Pantegni". At its centre lies Book 10 of the Practica Pantegni, read as a distinctive synthesis at the crossroads of Arabic and Latin medicine. |
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Drawing on previously unexploited materials from the Vitali Archive at the State Archives of Parma, Serena Mambriani examines the transformation of astrology’s status: from an integral part of early-modern medicine and natural philosophy to its marginalisation as superstition. |
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| Medical Views on Sexual Pleasure in the Renaissance |
What did Renaissance physicians think about sexual pleasure? And how did they approach the female body? In this talk, Bernardo Mota focuses on two Portuguese physicians, Rodrigo de Castro and Estêvão Rodrigues de Castro, who offer distinct perspectives on the topic based on the revision of Hippocrates’ "On Generation". |
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PSMEMM: Latest Publications |
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Medicine and the Body in Early Modern Europe |
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Automata, Cyborgs and Mutants |
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Galen's Remedies in the Early Modern Period |
Fabrizio Bigotti John Wilkins |
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| Join a scholarly community that continues to grow across time and disciplines!
Membership provides access to an extensive range of grants, exclusive discounts, priority registration for events, and other benefits designed to support serious research in the history of medicine, science, philosophy and technology.
Members may pursue fellowships and research stays, develop projects at the Domus Comeliana, and engage directly with a community committed to rigorous scholarship, humanistic values and the long-term continuity of historical inquiry. Beyond these practical advantages, you will become part of a truly international environment devoted to the study of premodern medicine in its intellectual, cultural, and Mediterranean contexts. |
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© Arbor: Knowledge That Grows CSMBR Newsletter Cover image: Cypress from Dioscorides, "De Materia Medica" 12th Century, MS Arabe 4947, f. 13v Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. |
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consider supporting our activities with a donation. |
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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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