| Santorio Residential Fellowship 2027 |
Applications for the 2027 Santorio Residential Fellowship will open on 22 June 2026. Organised jointly by the CSMBR and the Science and Research Centre Koper (ZRS), and hosted in Koper-Capodistria, Santorio's birthplace, the scheme offers a fully funded one-month residency for scholars working on archival research or projects connected to the Veneto, Istria, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean.
The Fellowship provides accommodation at Palazzo Tiepolo-Gravisi, access to the facilities of ZRS Koper, and a contribution toward travel and living expenses. Fellows also participate in the intellectual life of both institutions through lectures, seminars, and collaborative activities. |
|
|
|
| Koret Center for Jewish Civilization - Tel Aviv University |
|
| | |
|
| Orbs of Blood in 14th-century Persia |
The «Tānksūqnāmah» and Its Theory of the Rotational Motion of Blood |
28 May 2026 - 5 pm (CEST) |
“Blood makes rounds.” So states the Tānksūqnāmah, a remarkable 14th-century Persian compendium on the medicine of Cathay produced under Mongol rule in Iran. Drawing on several traditions (Chinese cosmology, Graeco-Arabic medicine, pulse lore, and astrological models of bodily motion), the text describes a rotational movement of blood between the liver, the heart, and the lungs. While the Tānksūqnāmah is not a precursor of Harvey, it reflects a distinctive attempt to reinterpret heterogeneous medical traditions within the intellectual and cultural contact zones of the Mongol-era Persia.
|
|
|
|
|
Yiddish Medicine in Times of Epidemics | Faith, Secrets, and Cures in Early Modern Europe |
11 June 2026 - 5 pm (CEST) |
When epidemics struck early modern Europe, Jewish communities responded with remedies and practices that ranged from herbal medicine to prayer and protective amulets. Drawing on Yiddish books and pamphlets from central and Western Europe, this lecture explores how epidemic disease was understood within a world where bodily illness, spiritual danger, and communal life remained deeply interconnected. Particular attention will be devoted to the circulation of medical and mystical traditions across Jewish, Christian, and Islamic cultures, and to how Jewish physicians and rabbis addressed disease at times of epidemic crisis.
|
|
|
|
|
The Physiology of Oneiric Experience in Greek, Arabic, and Latin Traditions |
23 June 2026 - 5 pm (CEST) |
Why do dreams have colours? Medieval physicians and philosophers approached this question through humoral theory, linking the appearance of coloured oneiric images to the predominance of specific bodily temperaments. This lecture traces the development of these ideas from Galenic doxography and Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine to al-Ġazālī, Albert the Great, and Boethius of Dacia. Particular attention will be devoted to the transmission and reinterpretation of theories connecting colour and imagination across medical and philosophical traditions from the Islamicate world to 13th-century Latin thought.
|
|
|
|
|
Staying Fresh in Early Byzantium |
Scented-Care Products in Aetius of Amida's «Libri Medicinales» |
Maciej Kokoszko & Zofia Rzeźnicka |
7 July 2026 - 5 pm (CEST) |
Scented cleansers, powdered deodorants, and aromatic compounds occupied an important place in the culture of bodily care and luxury in the early Byzantine world. Focusing on selected recipes preserved in Book VIII of Aetius of Amida’s Libri medicinales, this lecture explores the ingredients, preparation techniques, and practical uses of Byzantine cosmetics in the 6th century. Through substances such as myrrh, the lecture will examine questions of gender, status, trade, adulteration, and access to costly aromatics, showing how medical compilations can illuminate everyday life and social hierarchy in the Byzantine Empire.
|
|
|
|
| Life Forms in Premodern Philosophy |
Six Lectures on Aristotle's «De Anima» |
As the first event in the ELEMENTS Series, this lecture series offers a close reading of Aristotle’s De anima, examining the different levels of life through perception, desire, intellect, and motion. Each session follows the argument of the text and its internal distinctions, with attention to the conceptual vocabulary through which Aristotle defines living beings. The format is text-based and cumulative, with each session building directly on the previous one. It is intended for scholars and advanced students in ancient philosophy, as well as those interested in the analysis of life in Aristotelian thought.
|
|
|
|
|
Deafness in the Premodern Mediterranean |
Davide Astori & Nicola Reggiani |
This VivaMente Conference examines how deafness and the deaf person were defined, classified, and experienced across the premodern Mediterranean. Drawing on Greek, Latin, and Arabic sources, it reconstructs the conceptual vocabulary through which hearing, speech, and their loss were analysed, and situates deafness within broader accounts of perception, soul, and bodily function. Particular attention is given to the relation between hearing and speech, to the place of sensory impairment in theories of the soul, and to the criteria by which loss, privation, and incapacity were distinguished. This academic initiative aligns with a broader scholarly trend aimed at enhancing the historical, cultural, and communicative aspects of Deaf communities.
|
|
|
|
The Comèl Grant offers financial support to young scholars (Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD candidates pre-defence) participating in CSMBR events, including both online and in-person opportunities. |
Santorio Residential Fellowship |
The fellowships are designed to support research on the collections of the Edward Worth Library, Dublin, and to promote the study of early modern medicine, the history of science, and the history of the book, while remaining open to other relevant fields. They are open to scholars of all nationalities. |
|
| |
|
FORMA FLUENS: New Articles |
|
|
|
Saved from the Weaker Sex |
Sexual Transformation and Vernacular Galenism in Early Modern Spain |
Examining early modern Spain, this article considers how vernacular Galenic medicine interpreted sexual transformation within a framework of physiological change. Through non-academic texts, Mónica M. Vázquez shows how medical ideas shaped debates on sex and the body.
|
|
|
Mobility in Early Modern European Medicine |
Pere d’Olesa through Three Spanish 'Peregrini' |
Professional advancement has often depended on movement across cities and universities. Through the case of the Catalan physician Pere d’Olesa (c. 1460-1531) and other Iberian practitioners, this article shows how geographical mobility enabled physicians to build careers and circulate learning within European institutional networks. |
|
|
|
Naming Cancer (13th-14th Centuries) |
'Lupus' and Nosological Ambiguities |
In medieval medicine, cancer and lupus did not designate stable diseases but shifting diagnostic labels. By tracing how physicians used these terms in practice and in medical texts, this contribution shows how naming emerged from clinical observation, therapeutic reasoning, and inherited authorities. |
|
| From the Laboratory to the Patient's Bedside |
Iatrochemistry between Sylvius and De Graaf |
This article examines how Franciscus Sylvius and his pupil Reinier de Graaf transformed iatrochemistry from a speculative framework into a clinical practice grounded in observation and experimentation. By analysing their work at the University of Leiden, Alessio Dore shows how chemical theories of bodily processes were tested at the patient’s bedside. |
|
|
|
|
Pliny the Elder and Renaissance Gynaecology |
In this talk, Gabriel Silva considers the works by Ludovico Bonaccioli’s, "Enneas muliebris", and Rodrigo de Castro Lusitano’s, "De uniuersa mulierum medicina", who drew from Pliny as their main source, particularly with regard to cases and stories of mirabilia and to whom Pliny was ultimately a source of wonders. |
|
|
|
|
Problemata Literature in the 16th Century |
The tradition of the "Problemata" attributed to Aristotle was very influential in Europe, especially in medicine. As António Luís’s "Problematum libri quinque" (1539) shows, it legitimised an approach that attempted explanations while leaving open to discussion the issue of causation.
|
|
|
|
|
Editing and Translating Philoponus in the Renaissance |
How did John Philoponus’s critique of Aristotelian natural philosophy reach Renaissance Europe? In this lecture, Tommaso De Robertis traces the recovery of Philoponus’s philosophy, from the rediscovery of Greek manuscripts by Italian humanists and Byzantine émigrés to its later circulation through print and Latin translation. |
|
|
|
|
Diagrams of the Ventricles of the Brain |
In this lecture, Shahrzad Irannejad discusses the very few, yet thought-provoking, visual representations of the brain and its ventricles in the medieval Islamicate tradition. While some illustrations appear in the Avicennan tradition, others feature in influential encyclopaedias of medicine, such as al-Rāzī’s. |
|
|
|
Palgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine (PSMEMM) |
|
|
|
|
Pliny the Elder from the Roman Empire to the Renaissance |
Gabriel A. F. Silva, Paolo Garofalo, Giorgio Ferri |
|
| | Galen's Remedies in the Early Modern Period |
Fabrizio Bigotti John Wilkins |
|
|
|
|
Ignite the Flame of Intellectual Curiosity: Join the CSMBR! 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, members become part of a truly international environment devoted to the study of premodern medicine in its intellectual, cultural, and Mediterranean contexts. |
| |
|
© Arbor: Knowledge That Grows CSMBR Newsletter Cover image: Vessels of the Trachea and Pulmonary Vessels from Daniel Le Clerc and Jean-Jacques Manget
"Bibliotheca Anatomica" (1699), Vol I, Tab. LI, p. 981 Wellcome Library, London. |
|
|
|
consider supporting our activities with a donation. |
|
|
|
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 |
|
|
|
|
.jpg)
