Leonardo Fioravanti (doctor)

Leonardo Fioravanti (doctor)

Leonardo Fioravanti (1517–1588) was a noted doctor, surgeon and alchemist active in Italy in the 16th century.^[1]

Biography

Born in Bologna on October 5, 1517, to Gabriele and Margarite Fioravanti, Leonardo was baptised at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Saint Peter. His family had ties to the celebrated architects Aristotele Fioravanti, Bartolomeo^{[clarification needed]} et Aristote^{[clarification needed]}. He received his first degree in medicine at Naples, and his second on March 27, 1568, at Bologna. He was elevated into the nobility by the king of Spain.

He lived for a time in Rome and in Venice, and also in other important Italian cities. In Palermo, he performed the first recorded splenectomy on Italian soil.

Historians "have long portrayed Leonardo Fioravanti as the epitome of the cunning and dishonest charlatan."^[2][3] Although "he was by no means the first or the only one to take to the road."^[3]

Fioravanti died in Bologna in 1588.

Works

De' capricci medicinali, 1670

• Capricci medicinali (Venice, 1561)
• Secreti medicinali (Venice, 1561)
• Dello specchio di scientia universale (Venice, 1564)
• Del regimento della peste (Venice, 1565)
• Del compendio de i secreti rationali (Venice, 1566)
• La cirurgia (Venice, 1570). Translated into English in 1580 by John Hester as A Short Discours upon Chirurgerie^[4]
• Della fisica (Venice, 1582)
• Il tesoro della vita humana (Venice, 1582)

Further reading

• Camporesi, Piero (1997). Camminare il mondo. Vita e avventure di Leonardo Fioravanti medico del Cinquecento (in Italian). it:Garzanti Libri. ISBN 978-8811680789.
• Eamon, William (2003). "Pharmaceutical Self-Fashioning or How to Get Rich and Famous in the Renaissance Medical Marketplace". Pharmacy in History. 45 (3): 123–29. JSTOR 41112170. PMID 15025072.
• Eamon, William (2010). The Professor of Secrets: Mystery, Medicine and Alchemy in Renaissance Italy. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society. ISBN 978-1426206504.

References

1. Origins and development of Bologna's Dermatological School
2. Elmer, Peter (2004-03-09). The Healing Arts: Health, Disease and Society in Europe 1500-1800. Manchester University Press. p. 38. ISBN 978-0-7190-6734-1.
3. Gentilcore, David (2006-09-21). Medical Charlatanism in Early Modern Italy. OUP Oxford. p. 267. ISBN 978-0-19-924535-2.
4. A Short Discourse on Surgery by Leonardo Fioravanti, translated into English by John Hester in 1580.