Skills, Knowledge, and Status: The Career of an Early Modern Italian Surgeon

Abstract

This article analyzes the career of Giovanni Battista Cortesi (1552-1643)-the son of a poor tailor who started his career as barber and steam bath attendant and became university professor at Bologna and Messina-and places it in the context of the profession of surgery in early modern Italy. The article investigates how a surgeon had to establish close relationships with universities, civic authorities, wealthy upper-class patients, hospitals as sites of clinical education and acquisition of manual skills, the printing industry and the book market, and students. Moreover, the article explores the fluidity of professional and cultural boundaries between learned and empirical knowledge from the perspective of a graduate surgeon who was not supposed to be. Finally, the article aims at describing the figure of the "graduate surgeon," typical of the Italian medical landscape.

Flaminio Rota: Fame and Glory of a 16th Century Anatomist without Scientific Publications

“…Not surprisingly, both Rota and Sacchi were the only ones not to publish. Then, "Rota built his career upon his ability as a teacher, both in private and in public, and by exploiting the social prestige he inherited from his family tradition" [19]. Accordingly, Rota had no time and no need to publish his studies.…”

“…The student assistant was also caught in the process of rapid transformation and definition of the medical staff, which started in the second half of the 16th century. The general direction of the transformation was towards increasingly specific roles: the student assistant became more and more specialized in diagnostic and observational tasks, and in taking care of the surgical tasks of first aid [19,37]. In this respect, Rota's students represent the best confirmation of this appreciation.…”

История Артрологии В Зеркале Нумизматики

“…Back in the 16 th century, the Italian scientist of Padua, Gerolamo (Geronimo) Cardano (1501-1576) ( Fig. 107-111) suggested that the arthritis is caused by live creatures, invisible to the human eye due to their small size [17]. In the 19 th century, the syphilitic arthritis was described by the two French researchers, born and educated in Paris, Jean-Alfred Fournier (1832-1914) ( Fig.…”

Flaminio Rota, 16th Century Anatomist at the University of Bologna: A Biography on the Walls

“…Although the chairs of anatomy and surgery were separated at the behest of Aranzio in 1570, there was certainly still a strong affinity between the two disciplines [2][3][4][5]. Lectures in surgery were based on Galen's tripartite work: (1) De tumoribus praeter naturam (Unnatural Tumors); (2) De ulceribus (Ulcers); and (3) De vulneribus (Wounds) [6]. Rota's famous colleagues were Giulio Cesare Aranzio (1530-1589), pupil of the famous Flemish anatomist Andreas Vesalius (Andreas van Wesel; 1514-1564), Gaspare Tagliacozzi (1545-1599), a pioneer in plastic surgery, Girolamo Mercuriale (1530-1606), who renewed the therapy of syphilis, and Giovanni Battista Cortesi (c. 1553-1634), known for his pharmacopeia and anatomical studies on the central nervous system [1].…”

“…From 1578 until his death, Rota was active as a surgeon at the Hospital of Saint Job of the Incurable, one of the first hospitals specialized in venereal diseases. In 1585, he was named "supernumerary surgeon" at the Hospital of Santa Maria della Vita [6,8].…”