Physiology of the Soul: Mind, Body and Matter in the Galenic Tradition of Late Renaissance (1550-1630) (Age of Descartes) (The Age of Descartes, 3) 9782503581613, 2503581617

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The Age of  Descartes Descartes et son temps 3 Centro Dipartimentale di Studi su Descartes e il Seicento ‘ Ettore Lojacono’ Università del Salento

SERIES EDITOR Giulia Belgioioso (Università del Salento) EDITORIAL BOARD Igor Agostini (Università del Salento) Roger Ariew (Tampa University, Florida) Jean-Robert Armogathe (EPHE, Paris) Carlo Borghero (Università di Roma, La Sapienza) Vincent Carraud (Université Paris-Sorbonne) Alan Gabbey (Barnard College) Daniel Garber (Princeton University) Tullio Gregory (Accademia dei Lincei) Jean-Luc Marion (Académie française)

THE AGE OF DESCARTES DESCARTES ET SON TEMPS

FABRIZIO BIGOTTI

PHYSIOLOGY OF THE SOUL Mind, Body, and Matter in the Galenic Tradition of  the Late Renaissance (1550–1630)

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© 2019, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium.

All rights reserved. No part of  this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of  the publisher.

D/2019/0095/101 ISBN 978-2-503-58161-3 E-ISBN 978-2-503-58166-8 DOI 10.1484/M.DESCARTES-EB.5.116076 E-ISSN 2566-0276 Printed in the EU on acid-free paper.

CONTENTS

CONTENTS

List of  Abbreviations 9 List of  Figures 11 List of  Plates 15 Acknowledgements 21 Introduction 23 PART ONE

PREMISES CHAPTER ONE

Body and Anatomy in the Galenic Tradition

33

The Reflourishing of  Anatomical Studies 35 Questions of  Method 40 Soul and Anatomy 45 Materia sentiens 48 Generation and Essence 53 Galenic Anthropology 56 Alexandrianism and Galenism 61 CHAPTER TWO

The Soul, a Physical Question

65

The Seat of  the Rational Soul The Brain: Form and Function

66 68

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CONTENTS

Sensus communis 74 The Relation between the Whole and Its Parts 78 Vexatae quaestiones 84 Innate Heat 88 A Late-Renaissance Polemic: Cesare Cremonini and Pompeo Caimo 91 Medicine for the Soul and Treatment for the Passions 96

PART TWO

DEVELOPMENTS CHAPTER THREE

From Galen to Huarte: The Quod animi mores and the ‘Theory of  Ingenium’

107

Themes and Arguments in the Quod animi mores 108 Constitution, Typology, and Physiognomy 111 Analogy and Consecution: An Advanced Model 115 Juan Huarte’s Examen de ingenios (1575) 119 Natura facit habilem 121 Intuition and Genius 125 Principles of  Eugenics 128 From mens to ingenium 129 CHAPTER FOUR

The Matter of  the Spirit

137

Antonio Persio’s Trattato dell’ingegno dell’huomo (1576) From Galenism to Naturalism: Agostino Doni’s De natura hominis libri duo (1581) Naturalism and Medicine in Bernardino Telesio’s Quod animal universum (1590) The ‘Two Souls’ in Telesio’s Philosophy Spiritus ingenium est: From Physiology to Ethics Eustachio Rudio’s Liber de anima (1611) Heat and Life The Vegetable – Animal Continuum Essence, Quality, and Degree

139

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144 149 156 160 169 175 179 183

CONTENTS

PART THREE

REACTIONS AND CONSEQUENCES CHAPTER FIVE

Passion and Pathology: The Response of  Aristotelianism 189 The Individual, Nature, and Character in Francesco Piccolomini’s Universa philosophia de moribus (1583) 190 Causal Consecution 196 Natural Inclination and Pathology 198 Cesare Cremonini’s Quaestio: utrum animi mores sequantur corporis temperamentum 201 Lectures i–iii 203 Lectures iv–v 206 Lectures vi–vii 207 Forms of  Causality: The Model of  Intrinsic Finality 209 Giovanni Battista Persona’s Commentary on the Quod animi mores (1602) 211 The Ambiguous Relation between Mind and Brain 214 ‘Removing the Animal’ 221 CHAPTER SIX

Beyond Tradition: Santorio and Descartes

225

The Concept of  Equilibrium Transformed: Santorio 226 From Degree to Quantity 233 Differences and Analogies: Santorio, Galileo, and Alexandrian Science 238 Substance and Quality in the Methodus vitandorum errorum omnium (1603) 239 Situs, Figura, Numerus 243 The Body and the Machine 248 Sources and Problems in Descartes’ Medicine 251 Experiment or Observation? Descartes on the Movement of  the Heart and the Arteries 254 Unsettling Similarities 257 Descartes and Naturalism: A Project in Common 260 Vestiges of  Animality 263

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CONTENTS

FINAL REMARKS

The Role of  Tradition in Medical Thought 269 Plates 289 Bibliography 313 Manuscripts 313 Ancient Print and Facsimile Editions   (Up to the 18th Century) 313 Secondary Literature 321 Index of Concepts and Terms 349 Index of Names and Titles 359

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LIST OF  ABBREVIATIONS

LIST OF  ABBREVIATIONS

Alexander of Aphrodisias An = De anima Aristotle An = De anima An. Pr. = Analytica priora An. Post. = Analytica posteriora Cat. = Categoriae EE = Ethica Eudemia EN = Ethica Nichomachea GA = De generatione animalium GC = De generatione et corruptione ISVMR = De iuventute et senectute, De vita et morte, De respiratione MPh = Metaphysica PA = De partibus animalium SV = De somno et vigilia Galen AA = De anatomicis administrationibus AM = Ars medica ASC = An in arteriis sanguis contineatur CMSG = De compositione medicamentorum secundum genera CP = De causis pulsuum EH = De elementis ex Hippocrate EM = Exhortatio ad medicinam FF = De foetuum formatione HAC = In Hippocratis Aphorismorum libros commentaria HEC = In Hippocratis Epidemiarum libros commentaria LA = De locis affectis LP = De libris propriis

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LIST OF  ABBREVIATIONS

MM = De methodo medendi OCNC = De optima corporis nostri constitutione PHP = De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis QAM = Quod animi mores corporis temperamenta sequantur SFN = ‘Fragmentum’ de subsantia faculta (=PP) tum naturalium (De propriis placitis) SMTF = De simplicium medicamentorum temperamentis ac facultatibus T = De temperamentis TPCR = De tremore, palpitatione, convulsione et rigore liber UP = De usu partium corporis humani UR = De usu respirationis Hippocrates AL = De alimento CN = De carnibus DH = De decenti habitu FL = De flatibus VM = De vetere medicina Plato Ph. = Phaedrus RsP = Respublica Sym. = Symposium Tm. = Timaeus



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LIST OF  FIGURES

LIST OF  FIGURES

Fig. 1. Galen, Omnia quae extant opera (Giunti, Venice 1541). Public vivisection of  a pig. Galen shows how the respiratory and phonatory mechanisms are controlled by the brain through the nerve system (= De praenotione ad Epigenem, K IX 5, 627 ff.). Rome, Bi­blio­ teca Nazionale Centrale ‘Vittorio Emanuele II’. Fig. 2.  Andreas Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica (Basel 1543). Frontispiece. Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana. Fig. 3. Matteo Realdo Colombo, De re anatomica (Venice 1559). Frontispiece. Padua, Biblioteca Antica ‘Vincenzo Pinali’. Fig. 4.  Andreas Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica (Basel 1550). Book I, Chapter 9, watercolour engraving. Fermo, Biblioteca ‘Ro­ molo Spezioli’. Figs. 5–6.  Gaspard Bahuin, Theatrum anatomicum (Frankfurt 1605). Upper cross-section of the cerebral ventricles. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. Fig. 7. Lodovico Dolce, Somma di tutta la filosofia d’Aristotele (Ve­nice 1565). Layout of  the external and internal senses. Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense. Fig. 8. Nicholas De Nancel, De immortalitate animae, velitatio adversus Galenum (Paris 1587). Frontispiece. Paris, Bibliothèque Saint-­Geneviève. Fig. 9.  Marcello Capra, De sede animae et mentis (Palermo 1589). Frontispiece. Rome, Biblioteca Alessandrina. Fig. 10.  Cesare Cremonini, Apologia dictorum Aristotelis de calido innato (Venice 1626). Frontispiece. Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale ‘Vittorio Emanuele II’.

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LIST OF  FIGURES

Fig. 11.  Pompeo Caimo, De calido innato libri tres (Venice 1626). Frontispiece. Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale ‘Vittorio Emanuele II’. Fig. 12.  Luigi Luisini, De compescendis animi affectibus (Basel 1562). Frontispiece. Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale ‘Vittorio Emanuele II’. Fig. 13. Scipione Chiaramonti, De atra bile quoad mores attinet (Paris 1641). Frontispiece. Perugia, Biblioteca Comunale Augusta. Fig. 14. Oddo degli Oddi, Expositio in librum Artis medicinalis Galeni (Venice 1574). Table of  the temperaments. London, Wellcome Library. Fig. 15. Giovanni Battista Della Porta, De humana physiognomonia (Vico Equense 1586). Scheme of  the ‘physiognomic syllogism’. Padua, Biblioteca Antica ‘Vincenzo Pinali’. Fig. 16.  Juan Huarte, Essame de gl’ingegni (Venice 1586). Frontispiece. Rovigno, Muzej Grada Rovinja. Fig. 17. Antonio Persio, Trattato dell’ingegno dell’huomo (Venice 1576). Frontispiece. Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale ‘Vittorio Emanuele II’. Fig. 18.  Agostino Doni, De natura hominis libri duo (Basel 1581). Frontispiece. Fermo, Biblioteca ‘Romolo Spezioli’. Fig. 19.  Bernardino Telesio, Varii de naturalibus rebus libelli (Venice 1590). Frontispiece. Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale ‘Vittorio Emanuele II’. Fig. 20. Berengario da Carpi, Isagogae Breves (Bologna 1523). Example of  ligature of  the aorta. Paris, Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire de Médecine. Fig. 21.  Bernardino Telesio, De rerum natura iuxta propria principia (Naples 1586). Frontispiece. Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale ‘Vittorio Emanuele II’. Fig. 22.  Gerhard Dorn, Homo alembicus, MS Pal 666, containing the Italian version of Gherard Dorn’s Aurora thesaurusque philosophorum Teophrasti Paracelsi (Basel 1577). Florence, Biblioteca Nazio­nale. Fig. 23.  Eustachio Rudio, Liber de anima (Padua 1611) Frontispiece. Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale ‘Vittorio Emanuele II’. Fig. 24. Francesco Piccolomini, Universa philosophia de moribus (Venice 1583). Frontispiece. Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale ‘Vittorio Emanuele II’.

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LIST OF  FIGURES

Fig. 25.  Giovanni Battista Persona, In Galeni librum cui titulus est Quod animi mores (Bergamo 1602). Frontispiece. Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale ‘Vittorio Emanuele II’. Figs. 26–29. Santorio Santori, ‘Pulsilogium’, ‘Thermometer’, ‘Hygrometer’, and ‘Steelyard Chair’, from Commentaria in Primam Fen Primi Libri Canonis Avincennae (Venice 1625). London, Wellcome Library. Fig. 30.  Santorio Santori, Methodus vitandorum errorum omnium qui in arte medica contingunt libri XV (Venice 1603). Frontispiece. London, Wellcome Library. Figs. 31–32.  René Descartes, Anatomica quaedam ex manuscripto Cartesii (MS  LH IV, 1, 04B, fol.  5r  = AT XL, 566). Diagram illustrating the formation of  the heart: a) vena cava, bcd) mole cordis, e) pectus. Hannover, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek.

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LIST OF  PLATES

LIST OF  PLATES

Plate 1. Pseudo-Galen, Anatomia (fifteenth cent.). Wellcome Li­ brary, London. The male human body, frontal view: Nomenclature of  the outer structures of  the body, pointing out on the side the mental faculties corresponding to the two frontal cerebral ventricles (sensus communis, cellula imaginativa). Plate 2. Pseudo-Galen, Anatomia (fifteenth cent.). Wellcome Library, London. The male human body, rear view: Nomenclature of  the outer structures of  the body, pointing out on the side the mental faculties corresponding to the two posterior cerebral ventricles (cellula aestimativa, cellula memorativa). Plate 3. Pseudo-Galen, Anatomia (fifteenth cent.). Wellcome Library, London. The male human body, frontal view: Artistic rendering of  the muscles. Plate 4. Pseudo-Galen, Anatomia (fifteenth cent.). Wellcome Library, London. The male human body, rear view: Artistic rendering of  the nerves. Plate 5. Pseudo-Galen, Anatomia (fifteenth cent.). Wellcome Library, London. The male human body, frontal view: Skeletal bones. Plate 6. Pseudo-Galen, Anatomia (fifteenth cent.). Wellcome Library, London. The male human body, rear view: Skeletal bones. Plate 7.  Johannes Ketham, Fasciculus Medicinae (c. 1490). Padua, University of  Padua. The scene illustrates a late-medieval anatomy lesson: the ‘lector’, from his vantage point on the high–back chair, is reading a passage from Galen’s De iuvamentis membrorum, while the ‘ostensor’, on the right holding a baculum, shows the ‘sector’ the part that needs to be incised. Plate 8.  Andreas Vesalius, Tabulae anatomicae sex (Venice 1538). London, Wellcome Library. Foreground: Illustration describing the

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LIST OF  PLATES

liver (five-lobed, like that of  dogs) and the ramifications of  the portal vein according to the Galenic anatomy. Right margin: Illustration of  the male and female urogenital apparatuses. Plate 9.  Andreas Vesalius, Tabulae anatomicae sex (Venice 1538). London, Wellcome Library. Foreground: Description of  the venous system according to Galen. Plate 10.  Andreas Vesalius, Tabulae anatomicae sex (Venice 1538). London, Wellcome Library. Foreground: Description of  the arterial system and of  the ascending and descending path of  the aorta according to Galen. Top: Corresponding to the encephalon, ramification of  the vessels known as rete mirabile (present in ungulates and some mammals but not in humans). Plate 11.  Diagram of  Galenic physiology (Illustration from Singer 1989, p. 100). Top to bottom: The brain, with the two carotid arteries feeding into the brain and forming the rete mirabile at the base of  the head, where blood is transformed into animal spirit (spiritus animalis); the heart, source of  the arteries and seat of  innate heat (calidus innatus) and the vital spirit (spiritus vitalis); the pervious atrioventricular septum, enabling intraventricular bloodflow; fivelobed liver, source of  the veins and seat of  the natural spirit (spiritus naturalis). Plate 12.  Leonardo da Vinci, MS Clark 12597r. Leonardo’s drawing has been used to highlight the disposition of  the ‘main organs’ of  the body according to the description provided by Galen in the Ars Medica. Plate 13.  Girolamo Fabrici da Aquapendente, Tabulae Pictae (late sixteenth to early seventeenth century). Venice, Biblioteca Nazio­ nale Marciana: De anatomia ossium (Rari 111.01). Top: Frontal view of  a child’s cranium, without the mandible. Bottom right: Base of  the cranium, cross-sectioned removing the frontal, ethmoid, and sphenoid bones. Bottom left: Interior surface of  the cranium. Centre: Hyoid bone, vomer, cheekbone, and jaws (the present and following descriptions of  Acquapendente’s tabulae are based on Panattoni 2011). Plate 14.  Girolamo Fabrici da Aquapendente, Tabulae Pictae (late sixteenth to early seventeenth century). Venice, Biblioteca Na­zio­nale Marciana: Anatomia musculorum totius corporis (Rari 116.02). Buccinator, masseter, and temporal muscles, and forward-folded frontalis muscle. Suprahyoid, infrahyoid, and sternocleidomastoid muscles. Also illustrated are the epicranial aponeurosis and the upper parts of  the trapezius muscle (based on Panattoni 2011).

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LIST OF  PLATES

Plate 15.  Girolamo Fabrici da Aquapendente, Tabulae Pictae (late sixteenth to early seventeenth century). Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana: Anatomia capitis, cerebri, nervorum (Rari 112.01). Top: Basal view of  the occipital, temporal, and frontal lobes surrounding the cerebellum, with the tonsils and the vermis, from whose lower end the dorsal surface of  the bulbus extends. The encephalon appears enveloped by the dura mater. Bottom: Three-quarter, right-side back view with the dura mater enveloping the encephalon; clearly outlined are the open superior sagittal sinus and, in the back, the open transverse and sigmoid sinuses. In view is the middle meningeal artery (based on Panattoni 2011). Plate 16.  Girolamo Fabrici da Aquapendente, Tabulae Pictae (late sixteenth to early seventeenth century). Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana: Anatomia capitis, cerebri, nervorum (Rari 112.02). Top: Cerebral hemisphere, viewed from the top after the dural meningeal envelope has been cut open. Bottom: Dural encephalic sac on the cranial base (based on Panattoni 2011). Plate 17.  Girolamo Fabrici da Aquapendente, Tabulae Pictae (late sixteenth to early seventeenth century). Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana: Anatomia capitis, cerebri, nervorum (Rari 112.04). Top: Cerebral hemisphere, the meninges partly removed. Bottom: Portion of  the dissected cerebral hemisphere. In view are the white matter and the cortex (based on Panattoni 2011). Plate 18.  Girolamo Fabrici da Aquapendente, Tabulae Pictae (late sixteenth to early seventeenth century). Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana: Anatomia capitis, cerebri, nervorum (Rari 112.05). Top: Horizontal cross-section of  the cerebral hemispheres; the corpus callosum has been sectioned and folded over the cerebellum. In evidence are the fornix cerebri, thalami, and lateral ventricles with their choroid plexuses. Bottom: Brainstem and temporal lobes of  the cerebral hemispheres. In view are basilar artery and the branches making up the cerebral arterial circle, whose discovery is attributed to the English anatomist Thomas Willis (1621–75), but which appears to have already been described by Gabriele Falloppia (1523–62), Girolamo Fabrici’ teacher (based on Panattoni 2011). Plate 19.  Girolamo Fabrici da Aquapendente, Tabulae Pictae (late sixteenth to early seventeenth century). Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana: Anatomia capitis, cerebri, nervorum (Rari 112.06). Top: Basal view of  the encephalon, showing the vertebral arteries merging into the basilar artery and the cranial nerves. Bottom: Lower side of  the cerebellum, with the cerebral peduncles and the brainstem folded over to show the fourth ventricle (based on Panattoni 2011).

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LIST OF  PLATES

Plate 20.  Girolamo Fabrici da Aquapendente, Tabulae Pictae (late sixteenth to early seventeenth century). Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana: Anatomia capitis, cerebri, nervorum (Rari 112.08). Top: Cerebral hemispheres, corpus callosum, and the fornix, sectioned and folded back to show the telencephalon, thalami, and lateral ventricles, with their choroid plexuses. Bottom: Telencephalon, thalami, third ventricle, and the quadrigeminal plate, isolated after removal of  the corpus callosum (based on Panattoni 2011). Plate 21.  Girolamo Fabrici da Aquapendente, Tabulae Pictae (late sixteenth to early seventeenth century). Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana Anatomia capitis, cerebri, nervorum (Rari 112.10). Top: Lateral surface of  the encephalon on part of  the cranial base, with partial removal of  the meninges. In view are the cranial nerves. Also accurately reproduced in detail is the lateral sulcus, attributed a few decades later to the Dutch anatomist Franciscus Sylvius (1614–72). Bottom: Inferior surface of  the cerebellum, with the brainstem folded forward to show the floor of  the fourth ventricle and the cross-sectioned surface of  the cerebellar peduncles (based on Panattoni 2011). Plate 22.  Girolamo Fabrici da Aquapendente, Tabulae Pictae (late sixteenth to early seventeenth century). Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana: Anatomia capitis, cerebri, nervorum (Rari 112.13). Bone marrow and brain, partly sectioned to show the ventricular cavities (based on Panattoni 2011).

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[T]hat ‘whatever is free of  destruction is necessarily also ungenerated’ requires some qualification in order to be accepted readily. […] We can in fact conceive of  something that, even though it was generated, will not be destroyed – like Sparta, perhaps. […] Although all of  its individual buildings are perishable by nature, it is possible for the whole totality not to be destroyed, as it is restored little by little. Galen, De demonstratione after Philoponus, De aeternitate mundi 600,17–601,11 Rabe

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book is the outcome of  a long-running endeavor originating from my doctoral research on Renaissance Galenism which subsequently has been reworked, deepened, and expanded at the Warburg Institute of  London, thanks to a postdoctoral fellowship by ‘La Sapienza’ University of  Rome, and then to a Frances A. Yates fellowship granted by the Warburg Institute. Some of  the theses set out here were discussed at the international colloquium Early Modern Medicine of  the Mind, held at the Warburg Institute in May 2014, as well as at the seminars devoted to the project Genius before Romanticism: Ingenuity in Early Modern Art and Science held in Cambridge, UK, in May 2015 and 2016. Specific aspects relating to post-Vesalian anatomy were addressed at the international conference Vesalius and the Language of  Anatomy, held at Duke University (USA) in September 2016, while the final part of  this work is the outcome of  my research as a Wellcome Trust Fellow at the Centre for Medical History of  the University of  Exeter. This applies in particular to the part devoted to Santorio, which lays the groundwork for a work on quantification in medicine which I hope to bring out as soon as possible, and of  which this investigation ideally constitutes the initial chapter. To Giorgio Stabile and Guido Giglioni and to the friendly and fruitful exchanges I have had with them I owe many insights that I hope to have aptly developed and worked into this text. I am particularly grateful to Giulia Belgioioso and Jean-Robert Armogathe, for the interest they have taken in this work since its inception as a doctoral investigation, as well as for reward21

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ing it with an English translation and the prestigious publication in The Age of  Descartes series. A  word of  thanks goes to Vivian Nutton for offering valuable suggestions and additions. I also wish to express my gratitude to Maurizio Rippa Bonati, who has always followed my interests in the history of  medicine as both a friend and a mentor, and to Giuseppe Ongaro, Francesco Piovan, and Giulia Rigoni Savioli of  the University of  Padua for their intellectual and human generosity as well as for their precious help in finding sources needed to bring this book to completion. Among those who read the proofs of  this book and gave valuable suggestions I am especially thankful to Ian Maclean, Charlotte Nicholls, Justin Begley, Mihnea Dobre, Fenneke Sysling, Koen Vermeir and John Wilkins. I am also grateful to Filippo Valente and Luana Salvarani, who carefully and devotedly translated, and wherever necessary aptly revised, the original Italian manuscript. A special thanks goes to Jonathan Barry, Director of  Centre for Medical History of  the University of  Exeter, for his friendship, expertise and academic support throughout the lengthy process of  revision of  the English translation and final version of  this book.

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INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

This work owes its overall design to the conviction that the history of  a tradition should be read as a process where, by means of  sedimentation and separation, a core of  ideas reveals its inner problems and limits. It follows that in reconstructing a tradition we ought to proceed not by capturing it in a neat formula, or fixing its chronology in advance, but by laying out its different strands of  development. It is indeed through an intellectual and plural metabolism that ancient problems take on new forms and that, especially at the end of   the Renaissance, the theoretical edifices of   modern science emerge, not only on the ruins of  previous constructions but also using largely the same building blocks: the same ideas, problems, and terms. In this sense, the search for categories such as ‘old’ and ‘new’ or ‘past’ and ‘present’ represents a need that is extraneous to the course that is being charted here, for that search constitutes a different process of   analysis, through which the present sets out to find and justify itself. In outlining the intellectual tradition of   Galenism – however much we narro­w our focus to a limited phase – we will be paying particular attention to the development of  problems meant as horizons of  possibility that become history. The broad guideline I have followed consists in viewing the duration of   a tradition not as a function of   some recurrent theme or frame of   mind that takes root, but rather as the result of   sharing and rediscovering the intellectual urgency which comes with tradere and traditio, that is the handing down of   ideas and the ways of   reframing of   problems, which inevitably make it pos23

INTRODUCTION

sible to drill deeper into, and hence move beyond, a question as originally outlined. In the history of   European medicine, the dynamic of   this process is clearly apparent. Even when Galenism ceased to command obedience as the accepted scientific standard, approximately in the second half  of   the seventeenth century, it carried on as ‘reusable material’ in a series of   ideas – like those of   the temperaments, humors, faculties, spirits, corpuscles, and seeds – that continued to inform the language of  medicine as a cultural background. The main thesis of   this book is that, in addition to marking a turning point in European medicine (with the newfound role of   hands-on experimentation), the sixteenth-century rediscovery of   Galen’s texts contributed to the long crisis of   the Scholastic system, bringing out all its naturalistic and materialist components which lasted well through the eighteenth century. Specifically, under analysis here are the implications and developments that grew out of   the study of   texts like Galen’s Quod animi mores and De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis, which in the conceptual space of   the anima forma corporis prompted an effort to fundamentally reshape the doctrines of   Aristotelian physics: from the theory of  the elements to perception, from the structure of   the body to the nature of   man, even making forays into the mental faculties, and, through that channel, into the theory of  knowledge. This process – at once cultural and scientific, with an accompanying stream of   publications – is here organized into three layers of  analysis corresponding to the sections of  this book. The first part focuses on the theoretical problems relating to the tradition, vocabulary, and main conceptual nodes of  Aristotelianism and Galenism. The second part is devoted to the developments of   that tradition, discussing both its physical and psychological side. In the third and final part we bring into view all the currents of  opposition and development originating from authors of  the Second Scholasticism and the early modern period, with a focus on Santorio Santori and René Descartes. The texts singled out for analysis – a vast but not exhaustive assortment – have been specifically selected for the purpose of   exploring the reactions sparked by Galenic psychology from 24

INTRODUCTION

the late sixteenth to the early seventeenth century. The terminology which underpin that analysis derives, as is known, from Aristotle’s De anima, and the reader is assumed to be already familiar with that lexicon. Other topics will be taken up – such as medical experimentation and the cross-fertilization between Galenism and other doctrines, especially the alchemic ones – but these discussions will be only tangential. The foregoing selection of  topics and sources is not, however, casual: it finds its unifying theme in the range of  possible intersections among mind, body, and matter; and in fact it is precisely through these intersections that we can explain how the legacy of   Galenism changes over time and why the medico-philosophical turn of   the late sixteenth century is sharper than might otherwise appear. The central arguments featuring this process of   transformation can be condensed into six main themes. The Corporeality of  the Body. The theme of  ‘the corporeality of  the body’ was unknown to medieval scholasticism, not because it was absent as a topic but because it would sometimes become an object of specious arguments. With the rediscovery of  Galen’s anatomical works, however, the theme remerged in its full breadth. Anatomy was reconstituted as a form of   knowledge in its own right, that is, as an a posteriori procedure and, with important advancements, it was extended to the human sphere. In this process, the classical image of  the body came to be progressively fragmented: once conceived as a single entity harmo­ niously made up of  limbs, the body yielded to the crude and unsettling facticity of   parts. And accordingly fashioned into the likeness of   the body was the soul, which found itself  broken up into multiple faculties or resolved into the dynamic of   its material elements. Anthropological Continuity between Humans and Animals. The resumption of   vivisection brought to light the continuity between humans and non-human animals, a continuity that was now reinforced and was to lead to new developments. On the vivisection table there was no longer a human analogue to be found but a human replacement. The criterion of   compatibility in comparative anatomy thus came to be translated into one 25

INTRODUCTION

of   replaceability, at once moral and psychological. This change deeply affected the general way of  conceiving both the passions of   the soul – transforming them from mental states into inescapable instincts – and the prospect of  an otherworldly destiny for humans. The very perception of   Galen’s cultural legacy was correspondingly transformed, and the natural theologian who in the De usu partium celebrated the wisdom of   nature and its creative intelligence gave way, in the Quod animi mores, to the staunch asserter of  the materiality of  the soul. Inversion of   the Causal Relation. With the breakup of   the soul into its multiple faculties and the consequent mapping of  these faculties onto specific anatomical places, the properties of   the body came to be extended to matter and universalized into an all-pervading spirit of   conservation (ingenium). And so it was that authors like Bernardino Telesio and Agostino Doni devoted their thought to the dynamics of   heat (ingenium calidi), which in medicine had always been considered the principle governing the formation of  the embryo. But when an intrinsic instinct is ascribed to matter, the upshot must be to significantly invert the Aristotelian ‘essential bond’ between form and function: this bond was now turned on its head, and the form and the end were to find themselves being ‘encased’ in the material and efficient cause. At the same time, a refashioned model of   generation emerged, such that the conditional ad quem process turned into an a quo process – automatic and, in a sense, mechanical. The Gradability of   Substance. Parallel to this process is the reduction of   the Aristotelian essence, understood as a logicalontological category, in a graduable material substance. The main premises for such a reduction lied in medical sensualism and especially in Galen’s theory of   degrees of   drugs and were both reflected in the assumption that substances are perceivable insofar as they are subject to the intensification and remission of   their qualities (intensio et remissio formarum). As a result, each form acts on the substratum according to a degree of  intensity (gradus) and within a certain range (latitudo) that allows the physician to track the time within which bodily alterations occur and, with Santorio, to measure them precisely with the 26

INTRODUCTION

aid of   newly invented instruments. But the gradability of   the substance is far from constituting simply a chapter in the history of  measurement, for it found its place at the core of  the various medical-philosophical enterprises of  Galenists, seeking to break away from the rigidity of  the Aristotelian essentialism, toward a more dynamic concept of  temperament. ‘Mens’ and ‘Ingenium’. What follows from the premises just outlined is a reduction of  the psychical functions to corporeal ones and a transformation of   the role attributed to the mind (anima rationalis, mens). Through the analytical lens offered by mental disease and the passions (Luigi Luisini, Juan Huarte, Bernardino Telesio, and Eustachio Rudio), the mind was reduced by opposition to ingenium, setting the premise for the shift from the universalism of   classical metaphysics, predicated on the need to arrive at an understanding of   essence (νοεῖν), to an analysis of  the individual’s psychical faculties (genius or lumen naturale). The Individual and the Subject. The remaking of   the mind into ingenium is not, however, the final chapter in the path that is charted here. For in the wake of  that development came the late Scholastic reaction in addressing the whole question of   mind, body, and matter. This debate acted as the main factor leading to a new understanding of   the subject (res cogitans). Whereas in a conception of   the subject as genius it is the individual who is endowed with cognitive faculties that are innate because they are hereditary, in late Scholastic Aristotelianism it is the mind that acts spontaneously and creates representations corresponding to the objects that are given in sensation. As much as this may be an ancient approach, it became radicalized, especially by comparison with the question of  the passions and of  mental illness: even if  Galen did not directly address this latter question, this was precisely the jumping-off  point for the sixteenth-century debate on the relation between man and animal. This is not, however, a simple contraposition. In remaking itself  again into mens, ingenium would give rise to a considerable polarization in the philosophy of   late Scholasticism, carrying along with it both its bodily seat, the brain, and its peculiarity, the individual: from Francesco Piccolomini onwards, the emotions came to be 27

INTRODUCTION

‘mentalized’, and their disquieting state as bodily instincts neutralized in the ‘representation’ of  the subject. The totality of  these themes manifested itself  through the appropriation and re-use of  the concepts of  Galenic medicine, both in terms of   direct continuity and in terms of   criticism and transformation, a phenomenon in several respects similar to the one which in fifteenth-century mechanics was set in motion by the writings of   Archimedes and Hero of   Alexandria, and whose beginnings can emblematically be traced back to the publication of  Galen’s opera omnia, an undertaking begun in Greek by the heirs of  Aldo Manuzio (Venice 1525) and then carried on in Latin with the Giunti edition (Venice 1541). The cultural environment that was most favourable to the reception and uptake of  Galenic doctrines was undoubtedly the Italian one. Indeed, Italian physicians were, and defined themselves as, Galenists in a sense that goes beyond the purely technical one of  belonging to a school or doctrine. A direct knowledge of   Galen’s texts, the rebirth of   clinics, and anatomical practice worked together to favour a control on tradition that made it possible for physicians to criticize, and revise, some of   the traditional assumptions, while leaving intact the universal methodological and philosophical exigencies that lay at their basis. It was at the University of   Padua in particular that the birth of   modern medicine, along with the transformation of   Aristotelian philosophy into a methodological-scientific legacy, made the conditions ripe to devote a hitherto unknown kind of  attention to the body, which in some cases culminated in an authentic ‘physiology of   the soul’. The fundamental stages of   this physiology overlapped, and in many cases coincided, with the so-called Italian naturalism, which is itself  largely the offspring of   Renaissance medicine: on the one hand there were the anatomical texts of   Vesalius and the Anatomical School of   Padua (Matteo Realdo Colombo, Gabriele Falloppia, Girolamo Fabrici d’Acquapendente, Giulio Casserio); on the other were the works of  Juan Huarte – whose Examen, not incidentally, found its greatest reception in Italy – Agostino Doni, Bernardino Telesio, Giovanni Argenterio, and Eustachio Rudio. And yet the phenomenon was wide-ranging and complex, involving different authors at different places and times. In this sense, it 28

INTRODUCTION

is fair to say that the depth and potency of   the impact which Galen exerted on the philosophical and scientific culture of  the early modern period can only be compared to that felt in Europe between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries through the rediscovery of  Aristotle. A final consideration is therefore owed to the role that Galen played as a towering yet still muted figure in the broader cultural landscape; he gained recognition not only as a medical auctoritas but also, and more importantly, as the main reference point in modern philosophy, both natural and otherwise. Significant testimony is given to his philosophical relevance by Francis Bacon (1561–1626), who in the Temporis partus masculus (1602) places his criticism of   Galen immediately after that one he devotes to Plato and Aristotle – evidence that Galen was reckoned among the highest auctoritates of   antiquity. By the same token, emerging in toned-down form here will be the view that Mirko Drazen Grmek put forward when he argued that the development of   the main themes in modern medicine was driven not by Galen but by Hippocrates. In fact, as concerns the ‘standard’ medical practice in Europe up to the mid of   the seventeenth century, the Corpus Hippocraticum did not have as much currency as the Galenic corpus, and the former continued to be read through the conceptual lens the latter provided for it since antiquity. At once effective and emblematic in this regard is the example of  Bernardino Telesio’s Quod animal universum: although the thesis that heat is a material substance capable of  perceiving is a direct legacy of  Hippocrates’ De carnibus, Telesio discusses, analyses, and develops his ideas entirely within the frame of  the anti-Galenic polemic, out of  which there grew the basic elements of   Telesian natural thought. Even so, the Galenic revival that took place in the Renaissance has drawn little interest, if  any, in the most recent scholarship. Indeed, while Platonism and Aristotelianism have always been essential landmarks for ancient and modern thought, it is only in vain that one might attempt to find a chapter on Galenism in any history of   philosophy. Yet even this trend has begun to reverse course, especially since the 1960s, owing in particular to the work of   Charles Singer, Owsei Temkin, and Walter Pagel, and then later on to Vivian Nutton, Paola Manuli, Mario Vegetti, Luis García Ballester, Peter N. Singer, Antoine Pietrobelli, Ivan 29

INTRODUCTION

Garofalo, Hiro Hirai and others.* This newfound interest in Galenism seems to be a consequence of   two distinct yet com­ ple­men­tary dynamics. An important role has certainly been played by the renewed appreciation of   the body and of  medi­ cine in the overall edifice of   knowledge, two elements that had previously been marginalized or even denied by many historians of   science (who, in keeping with the Galilean tenet, ‘removed the animal’ so as to concentrate on the machine); but the phenomenon has also been helped along by a process of  gradually moving beyond the prejudice according to which late Hellenistic philosophy, and Galenic philosophy in particular, amount to an eclectic and substantially unoriginal synthesis of  different philosophical orientations. As much as it may not be considered an exhaustive discussion, this book does seek to underscore the significance that a history of  tradition can have for a deeper understanding of  early modern philosophy. It does so by offering an attempt to analyse the series of   interactions between medicine, philosophy, and the theory of   matter in the late Renaissance. My hope is that the challenge involved in such an undertaking, by virtue of   its complexity and wide-ranging embrace, can in part justify the inevitable shortcomings of   this work, making it possible to at least highlight how vital the Galenic tradition was at the threshold of  the modern age, and how it has contributed to remaking an important part of  the European cultural landscape. Institute for the History of Medicine Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg June 2019

*  I am happy to acknowledge two important volumes that came out earlier this year, regrettably too late for me to make any use of them in this book, which was already in its final proofs. The volumes in question are Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Galen, edited by Petros Bouras-Vallianatos and Barbara Zipser, with chapters by Vivian Nutton and Maria Pia Donato revolving around the early modern period, and Bernardino Telesio and the Natural Sciences in the Renaissance, edited by Pietro Daniel Omodeo. While both volumes offer valuable insights on topics that I discuss in this book, they mostly engage with them from a different perspective or focus upon aspects I deal with as part of a larger philosophical analysis.

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PART ONE

PREMISES

CHAPTER ONE – BODY AND ANATOMY IN THE GALENIC TRADITION

CHAPTER ONE

BODY AND ANATOMY IN THE GALENIC TRADITION

The controversies that, over the course of   the sixteenth century, put the authority of   Galen in competition with that of   Aristotle were extraordinarily lively and shaped in important ways almost every aspect of   natural philosophy. As  was the case with Aristotle, Galen attracted renewed interest in the Renaissance, and the effort was not confined to faithfully reconstructing the original body of   knowledge but proceeded to an analytical assessment of   it, intent on singling out those parts of   his legacy that were best suited to the new needs of   medicine. Although the elements of   analysis and criticism grew to maturity within genres corresponding to the classical forms of   the Scholastic tradition –  those of   the quaestio and commentarius  – the continuity with the past was now mediated by a desire to emulate the ancients (aemulatio) that makes the Renaissance physician into an active investigator bent on uncovering the secrets of   the body and the soul alike. Recreating the experiences of   the ancients now meant taking on the burden of   proof, bringing back the original sense of   autopsy as answering a  need to verify an authoritative statement, all the while reasserting the value of  anatomical inquiry. As much as the idea may initially have been merely to follow the dictates of   tradition, it was through this need for verification that the practice of   validating the authority (confirmatio) took shape and experimentation made its entry into the medicine of   the late sixteenth century, at the same time appropriating another typical expression of   the Renaissance homo faber, the 33

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hands-on practice.1 The need to validate the ancient sources through hands-on practice on the dissection table combines the classic ‘vision–knowledge’ couplet with the intervention of  a hand that, in different but coessential ways, is that of   the physician and the artist, the former bringing to light that which the latter depicts.2 So it was that the body ceased to be a story and became an image, and it was through this new form of   vision that anatomy, previously the object of   a private and unrepeatable experience, gained a universality and an intelligibility hitherto simply unknown.3 1  A crisp summary statement of   the relation among tradition, emulation, and experimentation can be found in the work of   a  Galenist like Santorio Santori (1561–1636). In  outlining the themes and issues of   the debate on the method that had governed the practice of   dissection of   the latter half  of   the sixteenth century, he reiterated the need for validation as way to emulate authority (Santorio 1603:  fols 64rD–64vB): ‘Exordiamur itaque a nonnullis erratis ad situm pertinentibus […] causaque huius tam communis erroris fuit sapientissimus Galenus, quoniam eius auctoritas talis est, ut non solum in totius Europae tractus, verum in id quod Meridiano, et Septentrione finitur diffusa cultu observantiaque merito existimetur; hic vir igitur, cum ei non licuerit secare humana corpora, videns in brutis quibusdam animantibus pyloron esse in fundo ventriculi, credidit […] pyloron in hominibus quoque, a fundo ventriculi exordiri; quae opinio est falsa, et fuit multorum errorum origo: falsa est, quia reluctatur experientiae, quoniam in humanis cadaveribus oculis cognoscitur, pyloron ab imo ventriculo non prodire, deinde reluctatur Vesalio, Columbo, et caeteris omnibus praclarissimis anatomicis, qui quotidie humana corpora secant […]. Quinimo est ipsiusmet Galeni praeceptum […] quod omnia sint examinanda ratione, et experientia, et libertinos vocat illos medicos, qui sunt addicti auctoribus: et  […] vocat tyrannicam illorum doctrinam, qui semper sunt addicti praeceptoribus, […] quare et nos, Galenum aemulantes despiciemus auctoritates philosophorum, si sensibus reluctabuntur, quoniam sicuti, ut dicit Aristoteles […] est signum imbecillitatis intellectus dimittire sensum, et quaerere rationem, sicut dicimus longe maioris imbecillitatis intellectus esse, dimittere sensum propter auctoritatem alicuius summi philosophi; a sensibus enim cognitio nostra dependet […].’ Italics added. 2 The co-implication between vision and knowledge is  clearly a  legacy of  Greek thought, and its most complete statement can be found in Aristotle’s De anima no less than in the Metaphysics. A  masterly analysis is  offered in Stabile 2007: 9–29, which also stresses its import for the modern debate. 3   It must be pointed out here that the concept of  vision espoused in Renaissance anatomical iconography was novel not only in the sense that, in contrast to the classic model, it was fundamentally mediated through the technology of  printing – and, before that, through the craftsmanship of  the artist illustrating the anatomical preparations – but also in the sense that this ‘seeing’ makes up for something that is  intrinsically absent from Greek anatomy, and from Galenic anatomy in particular, namely, the rendering of the body. The problem is mentioned and discussed by Charles Singer in the introduction to his edition

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The Reflourishing of  Anatomical Studies At the origin of   this rediscovery there are Greek texts, and in particular Galen’s anatomical treatises. In the field of  anatomy, as well as in much of   medicine and natural philosophy, Galen still stood as an essential reference point and master. Despite the criticisms addressed to him by Andreas Vesalius and his successors, Galenism held strong at European universities as a form of  auctoritas, because at its fountainhead a theorist of  methodical observation and analysis was recognised.4 And yet, this is a new image of  Galen, different from the dogmatic one typical of   the medieval era, and it came about especially through the rediscovery of  some key texts. All through the fifteenth century, the standing model of  Galenic physiology remained that of   the De iuvamentis membrorum, an epitome of    the massive seventeen-book treatise De  usu partium corporis humani, where Galen considers every part as a  component of   the totality of   the body, essentially adapting the basic tenets of   Aristotelian anatomy, and in fact emphasizing its finalistic character. With the editions published by  Manuzio (Venice 1525), Giunti (Venice 1541), and Froben (Basel 1542), making available a  series of   hithof  Galen’s On Anatomical Procedures, Galen 1999a: xxi–xxii: ‘Between Galen’s death and the issue of   the first (Cratander) printing of   the Greek text in 1538 there was no dissection in the Greek-speaking East, and therefore no one could have understood it. To the scribes who wrote the manuscript it was certainly quite unintelligible. The publication of  Gunther’s Latin translation in 1531 and the revival of   dissection in Italy and France in the sixteenth century gave it, at least, some real meaning. […] There is no evidence that Galen or any other of  the ancients appreciated the value of  graphic methods in anatomy. He never indicates that he used figures in our sense of  the word and he seldom employed even diagrams. […] In their absence the three-dimensional impression created by viewing and handling the dissected parts is the only way in which the relations of   organs, tissues, and vessels to one another can be memorized or even grasped.’ From this standpoint, Renaissance anatomy superseded that of   the Hellenistic period, on the one hand, securing a new lease on life for the practice of  dissection, and, on the other, making it possible to have greater access to the knowledge of  the structures of  the body. On the use of  anatomical illustration as a  more effective mnemonic device than mere verbal reporting, see Coiter 1572: 88. 4 For the Renaissance assessment of    Galen’s anatomy, see Coiter 1572, Introductio, Caput 6: ‘Si quis itaque artem anatomicam recte addiscere cupit, primo legat libros Galeni de usu partium [et] de anatomicis administrationibus, deinde Vesalii fabricam humani corporis.’

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erto abridged or largely unknown works, the Galenism that entered the stage in the Renaissance was one that seemed to have moved away from Aristotelianism. Contributing to the emergence of   this new vision was in large part the rediscovery of   the anatomical treatises, among which was the Anatomicae Administrationes, a work that – despite its undeniably technical quality – would exert a remarkable and lasting influence on early modern science.5 In the Administrationes, the body appears ‘dismembered’ into parts laid out with an interest not so much in their use or function (usus, actio) as in their position (positio) and order (ordo).6 The synthetic method of   compositio is  displaced by 5  Worthy of    comment here, however much in summary, is  the material history of  these texts. The De usu partium corporis humani (in seventeen books) and the Anatomicae administrationes (in fifteen books, the first nine of   which written in Greek, the rest surviving in Arabic) were handed down through a  complex string of   events that made them virtually unaccessible until the Renaissance. As Roger French has shown, French 1979, the progressive decline of  anatomical practice was such that these two works found themselves reduced to compendia; the first one survived in Theophilus Protospatharius’s Epitome, the second one through the fragments of  Oribasius. So, as much as the De usu partium was already known as early as the mid-fourteenth century through its translation by Niccolò da Reggio, there was no knowledge of   it in humanistic culture until the early sixteenth century, when in fact the De iuvamentis membrorum was still in circulation in a couple of   editions (Pavia 1515–16, Venice 1528). The Administrationes were instead completely unknown in the middle ages. In the late fifteenth century the Greek books were translated into Latin by the Greek humanist Demetrius Chalcocondyles, and this translation was published only in 1529 through the involvement of   Berengario da Carpi. The initial spark for the Galenic revival in anatomy was thus owed to the Greek edition by the heirs of   Aldo Manuzio (Venice 1525) and to the Latin one by Johann Winter von Andernach (Paris 1531). 6 Still essential on the difference between the theoretical approaches in the Administrationes and the De usu partium is the work done by Max Simon (Galen 1906: vol. II, xvii–xviii), clearly pointing out the absence of  physiological speculation in the On anatomical procedures, where, for instance, Galen never speaks of  psychic pneuma. Indeed, while in physiology it is on the function of   the organ that hinges the distinction between its essence and its accidental factors (e.g. its position, form, colour, and the like, on which see Galen, PHP, K  V, 203,2–14; MM, K X, 69,4–70,8; UP, K III, 2,5–7), what is  fundamental in anatomical practice is an exact understanding of  the organ’s location (θέσις) and of  the order (τάξις, διάθεσις) to be followed in dissecting the muscles and tissues (see Galen, AA, K II, 406,15; 423,5–424,5; 436,3–10; 437,16–438, 2; 467,14–468,19; 481,18–19; on the importance of  studying exact positions in the animal cadaver, see esp. AA, K II, 673,19–674,2). The geometrical arrangement of  the bodily parts as due to their outer limit or ‘circumscription’ (περιγραφὴ)

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the analytic one of  resolutio, and in a dry and direct way Galen advances the method of   training the hand in dissecting those parts of  the animal that will then have to be put to visual analysis. He especially makes the case for the need to proceed to dissection with one’s own hand (manu propria), for only in this way will the doctor be able to master his work and come to an awareness of   notions that would otherwise be overlooked.7 The  methodological divergence from the framework set up in had in any event already been underscored in UP, K III, 1,1–2,4, and it is well to reiterate that – as we will see shortly – these two types of   analysis are conceived by Galen as different strategies of   the same approach, both proceeding from the essentialist premises of  Aristotelian anatomy. 7 In the On Anatomical Procedures, Galen does not confine himself  to illustrating how the surgeon ought to go about setting the anatomical table – a task typically assigned to assistants – but invites him to personally inspect the preliminary phases of   dissection; see Galen, AA, K II, 232,18–234,3. Contrary to what is generally thought to be the case, then, Galen was wont to personally practice surgery as well as anatomy, and unless the aspects involved were fully marginal, he would reserve for himself  the task of   preparing the instruments himself. An  effective summary of   the character and specificity of   Galenic anatomy and surgery is  the one offered by Ivan Garofalo, Galen 2002: vol. I, 49–51: ‘Galen practiced surgery himself, and yet he left no works on surgery. His writings do, however, contain surgical instructions that Oribasius collected in books 43–48, along with extracts from Heliodorus, Antyllus, and others. He was especially expert in bone surgery, and in commenting the surgical writings in the Corpus Hippocraticum, he would thus drill the cranium, but he would also practice surgery in all other branches of   this field. Apart from the simplest operations of  extracting extraneous bodies and emptying out abscesses, Galen mentions operations on eyelid cysts (hydatides) and on the frenulum of  tongue, well described by Antyllus. He boasts that only two of  the gladiators he treated in Pergamon died. He also mentions the operation on the larynx. He  successfully operated on the slave of   Marullus the mimographer, removing his sternum. He did goitre surgery on inflamed glands (choirades). He  mentions hernia operations, for which surgeons would use a  poultice he prepared himself. He also treated kolpoi and fistulas. He could thus assess the work of   surgeons as an expert. Galen faulted surgeons for ignoring nerves, the direction of   the grain of   the frontal muscle, and indeed Antyllus describes precisely the practice criticized by Galen  […]. Galen recounts some surgical operations that failed owing to an ignorance of   anatomy, as well others that proved successful thanks to his anatomical expertise. Each time he apologises for these digressions that are not in reality digressions. We thus read of   the case of  Marullus, previously already reported in the De placitis and that of  the sophist Pausanias of   Athens, whose name Galen does not even mention, such was the fame of   the case, but who is mentioned by name in the De locis affectis. Anatomy can be useful to the doctor who in dissections should look for the premises of   his physiological syllogisms. To this end, from the anatomical material on many animals, Galen selects the parts that can be useful for his De usu partium.’ My translation.

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Fig. 1. Galen, Omnia quae extant opera (Giunti, Venice 1541). Public vivisection of  a  pig. Galen shows how the respiratory and phonatory mechanisms are controlled by the brain through the nerve system (= De praenotione ad Epigenem, K IX 5, 627 ff.). Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale ‘Vittorio Emanuele II’.

the De usu partium is  quite considerable, and it can also be appreciated in the Renaissance frontispieces, where a  depiction of   Galen hunched over the dissection table in the process of   vivisecting an animal (1541, Fig. 1) predates by two years the famous depiction of  Andreas Vesalius (1543, Fig. 2) and by almost twenty that of   Matteo Realdo Colombo (1559, Fig.  3), even if  in these last two the animal is replaced by a human body, and the role of  the protagonists, especially Vesalius, is confined to that of  showing rather than interacting with the body. When, in the preface to the De humani corporis fabrica (Basel 1543), Vesalius urges that the expertise of   the physician and that of   the surgeon be integrated in order for medicine to resume its progress, he is  thinking precisely of   Galenic medicine and the divide, at once theoretical and temporal, by which the two are separated. An avid reader of  Galen, Vesalius appreciated his vis polemica and intellectual prowess, and at a  very young age tackled his Administrationes, later editing the Latin translation for the Giunti edition in 1541.8 It is  thus possible 8   Relevant to the continuity between Vesalius and Galen are the accounts of  Gabriele Falloppia and Gerolamo Cardano, the latter taken up in the following endnote. Falloppia asserted the possibility of  correcting authority, including that of   Vesalius, by subjecting it to the test of   anatomical practice; as Vesalius corrected Galen’s errors, so Falloppia would correct in turn those of   Vesalius, see Falloppia 1561r: cc.  3v–4r: ‘Quoniam uti Vesalius non in scholis quidem vivae vocis auditor, sed in musaeo (quia librorum omnium qui ab ipso scripti sunt heluo eximius fuerit) Galeni discipulus factus non ipsius auctoritate deterritus est, quin plurima arti adderet, quae a preceptore eius praetermissa erant, ita et ego in illius schola (qui eius scripta diligenter legerim) versatus alacrius in hoc pariter artem iuvare tentavi.’

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Fig. 2. Andreas Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica (Basel 1543). Frontispiece. Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana.

to understand how, since the making of   the Tabulae anatomicae sex (Brussels 1538), he came to be regarded as Galen’s historical alter ego – he who, by putting Galen’s method to the test, would correct and surpass his own teacher. 39

PART ONE – PREMISES

Fig. 3. Matteo Realdo Colombo, De re anatomica (Venice 1559). Frontispiece. Padua, Biblioteca Antica ‘Vincenzo Pinali’.

Questions of  Method It was especially in the resolutio that Vesalius followed Galen’s lesson, progressively disrobing the body working from the outside in, sometimes to extreme lengths. Significantly absent from 40

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the Fabrica is  indeed the figure as a  whole – though it would appear in the Epitome published the same year  – replaced by parts, sometimes pieces proper, despite the text’s constantly repeated recommendation to keep an eye on the body’s general architecture. Precisely this architecture, then, becomes something to be held in memory, a known image that does not need to be shown. The consequences of   this method did not escape the notice of   contemporaries who, along with Gerolamo Cardano (1501– 76) for example, took exception to the unilaterality of   a procedure that worked against the classic order of  dissection, an order that still set the model for anatomical illustrations going back to the De iuvamentis membrorum, like those of  the Pseudo-Galen’s Anatomia (Plates 1–6) and Johannes de Ketham’s Fasciculum Medicinae (Plate 7).9 It  fell to Girolamo Fabrici da Acquapendente (1533–1619) to resolve the tension implicit in these two conceptions of  anatomy, gathering and compiling examples tracing back to both the De usu and the Administrationes. In a happy synthesis of   Aristotelianism and Galenism, Acquapendente outlined the method and reference works the anatomist was to adhere to, breaking down the study of   the human body on the basis of   three sequential and consequent criteria of   analysis: the description (historia), function (actio), and utility (utilitas) of   each mem9  In the Anatomia Mundini cum expositione Cardani, posthumously published in the tenth volume of   his Opera omnia (1663), Cardano accuses Vesalius of  being literally ‘a blind man’ (caecus) as a result of  following the Galenic resolutio down to its last detail while neglecting its synthesis: ‘atque hunc ordinem ferme sequutus est Vessalius: verum praeposuit sectionem musculorum, venarum et arteriarum sectioni sequutus Galeni auctoritatem 1 Anatomicarum aggressionibus, cap[ite] 2 atque ita caecus caecum duxit’ (Cardano 1660, Proemium, fol. 132). Cardano underscores how, in embracing the ‘resolutive’ vision informing Galen’s Anatomical Procedures, Vesalius loses sight of  the compositive one, illustrating organs, tissues, bones, and muscles in isolation rather than by dissection from the whole, as instead Mondino De’ Liuzzi and Berengario da  Carpi  do. In  this regard, a  useful source on the different epistemological and depictive trends in the De usu and the Administrationes is Laurenza 2003: 82–92, 101–13. The idea of   animate skeletons and of   the epistemological shift that seems to have so impressed a certain strand of  modern-day criticism (especially Carlino 1994: 40, speaking of  an ‘iconographic turn’ in Vesalius’s Fabrica) must have been received with relative indifference by many of  the Renaissance physicians and philosophers, who in Vesalius not unreasonably saw a Galen by another name.

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Table 1. Acquapendente’s Criteria of  Anatomical Dissection and their Textual References.

ber (Tab. 1).10 However, the last of   these – utilitas, which takes in precedents and is the most universal concept on which basis 10   It is relevant what Acquapendente writes in this regard, see Aquapen­ dente 1600, De voce siue de laryngis dissecti historia, Praefatio, cc.  1r–2r, unnumbered: ‘Diu igitur multamque in hac cogitatione defixus, quam potis­ simum in hoc negotio methodum sequi oporteret; tandem illam statui esse optimam convenientissimamque; ut uniuscuiusque organi primo prosequa­ mur dissectionem seu historiam; deinde actionem; postremo utilitates: ut ita notitiam organorum totam, hisce tribus veluti membris comprehensam exhi­ beamus […]. Quod enim ad primam partem attinet, quam Dissectionem, seu Historiam esse volumus; est ea apud Aristotelem in decem libris de historia animalium: apud Galenum in novem de administrationibus anatomicis: item de dissectione nervorum, venarum, arteriarum, vulvae: praeterea de vocalium instrumentorum dissectione. […]  Secundum vero, quae organi tractat actio­ nem; in Aristotele quidem nobis exhibet libri tres de anima, et quinque de gen­ eratione animalium; in Galeno autem tres de facultatibus animalibus; septem de placitis Hippocratis et Platonis: item duo de motu musculorum. Erat hac et in aliis libris, quia iniuria temporum interciderunt; ut de visione, de voce, de motu thoracis et pulmonis, de respiratione. Tertia porro, quae organi utilitates cum

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to explain the living being – is the one that least lends itself  to anatomical representation. It can be represented by showing the entire figure, but it will then be necessary to go into detail and lay out the parts which the knife has incised and separated from their original unity. For this reason, anatomical illustration would continue to insist on analytical description, following a line that would remain unchanged in the iconographical endeavours of   the pupils and epigones of   the De humani corporis fabrica, but not without changes in perspective taking place, some of  which were significant. Whereas, in opposition to ancient anatomy, Vesalius underscored the primacy of   human anatomy, through the image of   a  human skull holding that of   a dog in the clasp of   its teeth (Fig. 4), his successors were to resurrect the theme of  human-animal continuity, an unsettling permutation that was to make the animal at once an analogue to man and a replacement for him.11

totius, tum etiam partium persequitur; in Aristotele respondent libri quattuor de partibus animalium: in Galeno magnum illud opus de usu partium decem et septem libris comprehensum; item de usu pulsuum, et de usu respirationis.’ On  the meaning of   the terms historia, actio, and utilitas, see Siraisi 2004(a): 65–66, pointing out that ‘the Aristotelianism embraced by Fabrici [da Acqua­ pen­dente] was modified in quite a number of  ways. One of  these consisted in its being influenced by Galen, as can be appreciated from the list of  books that provided the model for the work’s tripartite division in historia, actio, and utilitas on the basis of  the structure and function of  animals. By historia he meant the dissection and consequent description of   the parts of   the body. Actio referred to the way in which the part functioned through the powers of   the sensible or vegetative soul or through the various faculties or virtues. Utilitas was the endresult of  function (i.e speaking, hearing, or seeing)’. 11  When the human body is  portrayed, it is  already a  cadaver, an inert complex of   parts, while its functions need to be studied in vivo on the animal and then carried over by analogy to man. As noted by Luciano Bonuzzi, this transposition in methodological approaches has been the source of   ambiguous and previously unseen semantic drifts, see Bonuzzi 1987–88: 11: ‘Essentially, in the mid-sixteenth century, while the humoral model was still valid and unfalsified, the development of  anatomy opened new perspectives in the study of   man. By this time the body had already regained the plasticity so cherished by the ancients, while in the timelessness of  an anthropological kind of  knowledge all aimed at transcendence, the age of   biology made its entry, as can be appreciated from Vesalius’s movement of  figures in the round, as well as from the embryological research pointing to the fatality of   becoming, and from the methodological artifice of   comparative anatomy, which does not turn to the animal as to a mere substitute for man but uses it to bring out mutable analogies and bold comparisons’. My translation.

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Fig. 4. Andreas Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica (Basel 1550). Book I, Chapter 9, watercolour engraving. Fermo, Biblioteca ‘Romolo Spezioli’.

In its historical trajectory, anatomy followed through on this ambiguity, and just as Gabriele Falloppia (1523–62), in his Observationes anatomicae (Venice 1561), planned a  comparative atlas of   man and monkey for a  better understanding of   Galen’s dogmas – a project that he did not live long enough to fulfil  – so Fabrici da Acquapendente developed this theme even further through a series of  tabulae pictae that also included references to the anatomy of   birds and fishes. It would be misleading to look at these attempts as instructional simplifications based on analogy; there also develops a specific theoretical awareness pertinent to physiology as a whole, and hence to the soul, whose parts are now destined to follow those of  the body, for through their effects they are reduced to the faculties of   the single organs. And so it is  that the body ceases to be a  closed book and comes open, making itself  public, secular, accessible like the work by which it is represented. It is up to the physician to decipher its meaning, leafing through its layers page by page, moving from the whole to the part and vice versa, so as to recreate the unity that dissection has broken up, in such a way that, as Giulio Casserio (1552–1616) explains it, man sees and knows himself: 44

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Let us turn one by one the innermost pages and the most concealed ones of   this human code. […] Here the parts, even the smallest ones, are arranged with incredible variety and each has its natural temperament, ingenious composition, apt quantity, suitable form, regular order, mutual correspondence, and friendly concordance in one given system, such that when one part suffers the other immediately follows, as if  the entire organism were ailing. […]  [A]natomy excellently bears witness to that famous motto, ‘know thyself’ (γνῶθι σεαυτὸν), and with the frailty of   mankind laid before our very eyes we will be persuaded to doff  our helmets and dismiss our pomp […].12

The analytical procedure that by dissection brings the part of  the body into light is but an aspect of  the more general logical method followed by Casserio to illustrate the presuppositions of  scientific analysis. Indeed, as Galen had taught, it is from anatomical demonstration that the premises are to be drawn for the scientific arguments that enable the physician to steer clear of  the empty talk of  philosophers.13

Soul and Anatomy The crucial role that Galen allotted to anatomy and his significant identification of  ‘proof’ and ‘autopsy’ ushered in the Renais12 Casserio 1610, Praefatio, second of    the unnumbered pages: ‘Interiores, et abstrusiores magis codicis huius humani paginas si volvere libet, et revolvere; [quis amabo Trax ille, quis fungus et stipes ille, qui non movetur, et admirationis ictu non percutitur?] Hic mira varietate partes, et particulae, harumque naturalis temperies, compositio artificiosa, quantitas debita, forma decens, ordo concinnus, nexus mutuus, et tam amica in unum quoddam systema conspiratio, ut una patiente condoleat illico altera, immo totum veluti lugeat. [Atque omnino nulla est in corpore portiuncula, cui non sua delegata sunt munia perpetua, ususque multiplex. Ex qua omnium administratione, hominem μικρόκοσμον, mundique compendium appellitavere. Nemo ergo nisi ἄθεος quispiam tam praestantis creaturae opificem non agnoscit, suscipit, veneratur. Alter iam nonne rivulus sese diffundit, dum] illud γνῶθι σεαυτὸν egregie inculcat Anatome[?] Suadens fragilitate humani generis ob oculos posita, cristas et fastum exuere, eamque corporis nostri curam suscipere, qua sanam mentem in corpore sano retineamus.’ 13  Galen, PHP, K V, 220,2–18. On the role and structure of  demonstration in Galen, see Moraux 2000: vol. 2, tome 2, 275–84.

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sance debate between physicians and philosophers,14 a  debate whose fullest develop­ment came in Italy, and nowhere more so than in Padua, where some peculiar cultural circumstances favoured the rebirth of  anatomical practice, and with it a certain vision of   natural philosophy. As the details of   this debate will be taken up in the next chapter, here we will be focusing on the overall picture, which in the first place presupposes a common cultural background. In effect, physicians (medici) are always also philosophers (philosophi), and Aristotle’s naturalist writings stand as an essential reference point for both.15 So much is  that the case that the differences lie mainly in their interpretation, with physicians playing up the logical and empirical character of   Aristotle’s work, while downplaying the metaphysical. But the 14  The identification between ‘proof’ and ‘anatomy’ regularly crops up in the texts that Galen devotes to the dissective method and to scientific theory. The main sources are the De placitis (cited at note 13 above) and the De foetuum formatione, which at the very outset (Galen, FF, K IV, 652,1–5) underscores that physicians differ from philosophers by virtue of   their ability to provide anatomical demonstrations. The  most significant passage in that regard is autobiographical and is  found in the De libris propriis. Here, in reconstructing the genesis of   the De usu partium and the reasons for writing it, Galen (LP, K XIX, 20,14–22,2) recalls public demonstrations whose correctness he would verify by comparing the lesson presented in the anatomical texts with animal dissection. This aspect of   Galenic thought has been well understood and brought to light by scholars starting from Owsei Temkin (1973: 54). Paola Manuli has underscored in particular how the correspondence between anatomy and demonstration turns on a radicalization of   the tools of   Aristotelian logic; see Manuli and Vegetti 1977: 171: ‘Like any other theory on the hegemonikon, the encephalocentric thesis needs to be defended with arguments of   an entirely different order from those which rely on the use of   metaphors; “scientific rigour” is  guaranteed only by dissection, and only on the results reported by the anatome can physiology then be completely reframed. The outcome: an anatomo-physiology that is  structurally different from the Aristotelian one in its principles and methodology. The  means: an extremization of   Aristotelian tools, of   teleology, and of   the theory of   the demonstrative syllogism.’ My translation. On the difference between science and probability in Galen, and generally on the concept of  probability, see the recent and extensive discussion by Chiaradonna 2014: 61–77. 15  Temkin 1973: 97–98: ‘The rise of   Galenism in medicine went together with the widely enlarged knowledge of   Aristotelian metaphysics and natural science, and physicians were among the early sponsors of   the new Aristotle. After all, Galenic basic medical science, i.e., his doctrines of   nature and of   the elements, qualities, and tissues, together with his doctrine of   research, presupposed the validity of   the Aristotelian approach to nature and knowledge.’ On the same topic see also Schmitt 2009: 1–15.

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polemic was perhaps most intense in matters of   substance: it was on the issues of  the rapport between the whole and its parts, generation, the doctrine of  the elements, and the essence of  the soul that Aristotelianism and Galenism engaged each other at the end of   the century, and in the process of   reconfiguring a  theoretical constant, i.e. the notion of   the soul, two distinct visions of   man went into competition. Aristotle’s De  anima now had to share the stage with Galen’s De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis. Like the good fortunes of  the Administrationes, those of  the De placitis are essentially tied to its rediscovery in the Renaissance.16 The work, in nine books, sets about the task of   defining the relation between the parts of  the body and the functions of   the soul in light of   a  theory whose premises Galen claims to be consistent with the doctrines of   Hippocrates and Plato. As  the underlying criterion for the entire work, the anatomical method makes its entry into the edifice of   scientific knowledge as a  standard of   verification that allows a  physician to invalidate hypothesis not grounded on empirical evidence; this applies especially to those of   Aristotelian and Stoic philosophers. By engaging with these latter conceptions, Galen develops a  physiology of   independent interaction among the three ‘main organs’ of   the body (κυριότητα) – the liver, the heart, and the brain  – and their respective faculties. These organs appear axiologically arranged from the bottom up; they map onto Plato’s tripartition of  the soul into an appetitive, a spirited, and a rational part, each corresponding to an activity and to an organizing principle of  the living being. Corresponding to this anatomy of   the soul – which contrasts sharply with the Aristotelian conception of   the organism, according to which functions are distinguished in posse yet not in  esse  – is  a  physiology that includes and naturalizes the passions of   the soul as a conscious and specifically human expression, tying part of  human behaviour to a natural instinct. Expounded and confuted in Books II and III of   the De placitis, for example, is the thesis of   the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus 16 Indeed, the editions before Manuzio’s lacked at least six of    the nine books making up the Administrationes, see Nutton 2008: 357–74.

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(279–206  BC), who equated the passions with the judgments of  the rational soul,17 thus making them a distinctive trait of  the human being. In opposition to the Stoic intellectualism, Galen instead reclaimed the dimension of   the natural and the prerational, on the one hand reinstating the centrality of   sensation as an intermediate faculty between the cognitive and the organic, and on the other reasserting the animal model as an analogue to the human model, in both an anatomical-functional sense and a psychological one. The human-animal continuum answers needs specific to comparative anatomy, making it possible not only to establish functional correlations between organs in different shapes and positions but also to locate the governing principle of   the soul (ἡγεμονικόν) in the brain. This contiguity between the parts of   the soul and the parts of   the body – which in the De placitis is essentially developed from the standpoint of  the faculties and the passions – finds its premises in the Galenic theory of  the elements, where the cognitive functions and the individual’s moral qualities are seen to  emerge from matter.

Materia sentiens The theory of  elements – taken up in the Hippocratic De natura hominis and then developed in particular in the De elementis ex Hippocrate – is read by Galen in light of   the analytical criterion previously adopted for anatomical inquiry; the properties of   ‘not-homogeneous parts’ (organs) are thus reduced to those of   ‘homogeneous parts’ (blood, humors, spirits) so as to finally trace back to the simple elements18 (Tab. 2). In this geometric reduction of   the complex to the simple – and geometric it is because even in the theory of   the elements the task is still to define the role and meaning of   form (εἶδος) in any material alteration – Galen proceeds in a  cause-to-effect progression   In particular, Galen, PHP, K V, 365,7–366,5.   In an inverse but complementary way the procedure is  illustrated in the De elementis ex Hippocrate, in the Quod animi mores and again in the De methodo medendi, see Galen, EH, K I, 492,1–493,16; QAM, K IV, 773,6– 774,17; MM, K X, 125. 17 18

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Table 2. Galen’s Scheme of  Causal Consecution.

(consecutio in Latin) to codify the Hippocratic series consisting of  elements, qualities, humors, and temperaments so as to restore the order of  natural genesis. In this attempt there comes up a  problem of   great consequence with which all the leading naturalists of  the Renaissance would grapple: the problem of   the rapport between matter and sensation. Its import lies primarily in the fact that Galen’s consecutio is  intended to keep a  distance from both atomistic reductionism and, significantly, the teleological approach characteristic of  Aristotelian physics: If  it is the case that when we grant sensation to the atoms their separation is  found by both logical and empirical inquiry to be painless, then if  they should also take on the further condition of   lacking sensation, will they be able to feel pain? Feeling pain, as was also said earlier, necessarily has these two combined requirements, alteration and sensation, and the atoms have neither of   them. […] What remains, then, is  that the sentient body must be formed either from elements that have sensation and are also affected or from elements that are affected but are not sentient. […]  Through the method of   division the views are found to be four in all: first, that (things are formed) from (elements that are) both insentient and unaffected, second, from sentient but unaffected; common to both of  these was ‘from (elements that are) unaffected’; and after proving that impossible we rejected both views. Two remained, one

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that constructed the perceiving body ‘from (elements that are) affected’. […] You will find, if  you think about it, that both are possible. If   you wish to scrutinize the actual parts (of   a body) and contemplate them with the aid of   reason, (you will find that) all the parts of   sentient bodies are both sentient and subject to affection, as we said a  little earlier about flesh; but if  you contemplate the first elements, (you will recognize that) if  these bodies as substrate were without sensation but able to act on each other and be acted upon in many ways, it could happen that in the course of   many partial alterations the sentient body would at some time come into being. […]  Shapes produce shapes and smaller magnitudes produce large ones, but shapes do not produce magnitudes or magnitudes shapes, and for that reason it cannot be allowed that something different in kind is generated from elements that do not change their qualities; but it can be allowed from elements that do change them. For it is possible that in course of  many intervening changes what was formerly black may in turn become white and what was formerly white may in turn become black and what is now insentient may in turn become sentient.19 19 Galen, EH, K I, 424–28; 430: ‘καὶ μὴν εἰ καὶ τὴν αἴσθησιν ἡμῶν συγχωρησάντων ταῖς ἀτόμοις ὁ χωρισμὸς ἀνώδυνος εὑρίσκεται καὶ λόγῳ καὶ πείρᾳ σκοπουμένοις, εἴπου γέ τοι πρὸς τούτῳ καὶ τὸ μηδ’ αἰσθάνεσθαι λάβοιεν, ὀδυνᾶσθαι δυνήσονται; τὸ μὲν γὰρ ὀδυνᾶσθαι, καθότι καὶ πρόσθεν εἴρηται, δυοῖν τούτοιν ἐξ ἀνάγκης δεῖται συνιόντων ἀλλήλοις, ἀλλοιώσεώς θ’ ἅμα καὶ αἰσθήσεως· ἔχουσι δ’ οὐδέτερον αὐτῶν αἱ ἄτομοι. […] λοιπὸν οὖν ἢ ἐξ αἰσθανομένων θ’ ἅμα καὶ πασχόντων ἢ ἐκ πασχόντων μέν, ἀναισθήτων δὲ τὸ αἰσθητικὸν εἶναι [χρὴ] σῶμα. […] τέτταρες μὲν γὰρ αἱ πᾶσαι δόξαι κατὰ τὴν διαίρεσιν εὑρίσκονται, πρώτη μὲν ἡ ἐξ ἀναισθήτων θ’ ἅμα καὶ ἀπαθῶν, δευτέρα δ’ ἡ ἐξ αἰσθητικῶν μέν, ἀπαθῶν δέ· ὧν ἦν κοινὸν ἀμφοῖν τὸ ἐξ ἀπαθῶν· καὶ τοῦτο δείξαντες ἀδύνατον ἀμφοτέρων ἀπεχωρήσαμεν τῶν δοξῶν. λοιπαὶ δ’ ἦσαν δύο, μία μὲν ἡ ἐξ αἰσθητικῶν θ’ ἅμα καὶ πασχόντων τῶν πρώτων στοιχείων συνιστᾶσα τὸ αἰσθανόμενον σῶμα, δευτέρα δ’ ἡ ἐξ οὐκ αἰσθητικῶν μέν, πασχόντων δέ. κοινὸν γὰρ ἦν καὶ ταύταις τὸ ἐκ πασχόντων. […] εὑρήσεις οὖν, εἰ προσέχεις τὸν νοῦν, ἀμφοτέρας ἐχούσας τὸ δυνατόν. εἰ μὲν γὰρ αὐτὰ τὰ μόρια δοκιμάζειν ἐθέλοις καὶ σκοπεῖσθαι τῷ λόγῳ, πάντ’ ἐστὶν αἰσθητικά τε καὶ παθητικὰ τῶν αἰσθητικῶν σωμάτων, ὡς ὀλίγον ἔμπροσθεν ἐπὶ τῆς σαρκὸς ἐλέγομεν· εἰ δὲ τὰ πρῶτα στοιχεῖα σκοποίης, ἐνδέχεται τούτων ἀναισθήτων μὲν ὑποκειμένων, εἰς ἄλληλα δὲ τὸ δρᾶν καὶ πάσχειν ἐχόντων πολυειδῶς ἐν πολλαῖς ταῖς κατὰ μέρος ἀλλοιώσεσι γενέσθαι ποτὲ τὸ αἰσθητικὸν σῶμα. […] ὥστ’ ἐκ μὲν τῶν μὴ μεταβαλλόντων τὰς ποιότητας στοιχείων οὐκ ἐγχωρεῖ γενέσθαι τι τῶν ἑτερογενῶν, ἐκ δὲ τῶν μεταβαλλόντων ἐγχωρεῖ· δύναται γὰρ ἐν πολλαῖς ταῖς μεταξὺ μεταβολαῖς τὸ τέως μέλαν αὖθις γενέσθαι λευκὸν καὶ τὸ τέως λευκὸν αὖθις μέλαν καὶ τὸ νῦν ἀναίσθητον αὖθις αἰσθητικόν’. English translation by De Lacy 1996: 67–71 with small variations.

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Galen thus seems to accept two hypotheses as plausible: either an original sensation proper to elements or a reduction of  sensation to the alteration of  matter. Although he elsewhere addresses this problem by underscoring the need for the animal to be conscious of   the received sensory stimuli,20 in the De elementis he offers another solution, locating the origin of   sensation in the alteration of  matter. This latter thesis seemed at once heterodox and was to become deeply contentious. An eclectic Galenist like Jean Fernel (1497–1558) took issue with these conclusions in his De abditis rerum causis (Paris 1548), pejoratively labelling them as evidence of  materialism.21 The same criticism would later also be endorsed by Francesco Piccolomini (1523–1606) both in his major work Universa philosophia de moribus (Venice 1583) and in a manuscript quaestio titled An Galenus negaverit materiam, where he accuses Galen of   denying the substantiality of   prime matter to ascribe it to the elemental qualities.22 Notably, Picco­ lo­mini highlights how Galen categorizes simple and complex qualities within the same genre, thus minimizing the role of  the form in any natural process of  generation and thus the necessity of  postulating an underlying materia prima.23 As much as the criticisms advanced by Fernel and Piccolomini help us bring into sharper focus some of   the elements of   heterodoxy that Galenism was found to have in the Renaissance on both a physical and a psychological plane, the picture is not   Galen, PHP, K V, 636,3–4.   This criticism was simultaneously also levelled at Alexander of   Aphrodisias, see Fernel 1593: 21 ff. On the De abditis rerum causis and the problem of   the alteratio totius substantiae, see Bianchi 1982: esp. 190–212 and Hirai 2012: 46–75. 22 This quaestio, preserved at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan (coll. A 70 inf. Pinelli collectanea; cc. III, 71, I), consists of   only two folia (1r–2r) and in all likelihood dates back to the second half  of   the sixteenth century. At  the beginning of   fol. 2r (Posita est conclusio a viro magnifico pagina 52 talis) the handwriting seems that of   a student or a copyist (meaning that it is a quaestio dictata), even if  the manuscript then clearly bears Piccolomini’s signature. The text is at several places patchy, but the conclusion, directed against Galen’s theses, is clear. For an overview of  the concept of  matter in Piccolomini and late Renaissance thought in general, see Bianchi 2011 which reconstructs the complex intellectual development of   materia prima in the late-Scholastic thought, from Simone Porzio to Bernardino Telesio. 23  For the development of    this aspect in Galen see Moraux 2000: vol.  2, tome 2, 299–302. 20 21

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yet complete. The  idea that sensation originates directly from matter led Galen to hypothesize a  natural form of   knowledge common to both man and animal. This thesis, too, was formed by developing an insight already found in Hippocratic doctrine positing a  particular ability or innate inclination (ἀδίδακτον) enabling the animal to find its bearing in the environing world, while also determining its cast of   character.24 Considering that this thesis crops up in various texts, we will confine ourselves to pointing out its main appearances. In the De usu partium and the De foetuum formatione, the inclination by virtue of  which new-born animals can know how to use their limbs ‘without training’ (ἀδίδακτον) and before they are fully developed is considered a form of   ‘perception proper to the soul’ (αἴσθησις), and as such it is connected directly to the seminal complexion.25 In the Exortatio ad medicinam animals are also recognized as having a tacit rational knowledge (λόγος ἐνδιάθετος), differing from the human linguistic knowledge in degree but not in quality.26 This form of   knowledge is  further qualified in the De methodo medendi as a logical ability to recognize differences in number, form, and identity relative to a given subject.27 Finally, in the De locis affectis and in the Commentary V to Epidemics VI, the theory of   the natural wisdom of   animals is put to the test by carrying out a caesarean section to extract a goat that proves to be immediately capable of  carrying out actions to get up off  the ground, kicking and recognizing the foods suited to its nutritional needs.28 This whole set of   questions (i.e. locating the faculties of   the soul through their organic substrate, investigating how sensation emerges from matter and the existence of   a  natural and corporeal knowledge) contri­butes to forming an overall picture that is already clearly limned out in the Quod animi mores, where the intellect is construed more as an innate faculty than an acquired disposition. Consequences of   considerable philo Hippocrates, AL, 39,1; DH, 4,3–6.  Galen, UP, K III, 6,12–7,18; K IV, 156,4–157,3; FF, K IV, 692,7–18. 26  Galen, EM, K I, 1,1–5. 27 Galen, MM, K X, 134,9–138,16. 28 Galen, LA, K VIII, 442,16–443,17; HEC, K XVIIb, 234,3; 246,1. 24 25

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sophical import follow from this framework. First among these is the inversion of   the relation between structure and function characterizing Aristotelian essentialism, and hence the naturalization of  the soul, and finally the somatization of  the mind.

Generation and Essence The inversion of   essentialism takes place by degrees and develops in continuity with some tenets of   Aristotelian biology. An important example lies in the De usu partium, in part previously discussed. Proceeding from the Aristotelian thesis that the development of   the parts of   the body is aimed at enabling the functions of  the soul, and that man is in possession of  the hand because he is  the most knowledgeable among the animals,29 Galen holds that differences among bodies derive from those in the soul. Indeed, the soul determines not only the structure of  the body but also one’s cast of  character: In observing newborn animals striving to exerte themselves before their parts are perfected, we can clearly appreciate that it is not the bodily parts that lead the soul to be timid, brave, or wise. I have in fact seen a young calf  butting before its horns have sprouted, a colt kicking with hoofs still soft, a shote, quite small, trying to defend itself  with jaws innocent of  tusks, and a newborn puppy attempting to bite with its teeth still tender. For every animal has, untaught, a perception of  the faculties of  its soul and of  the virtues resident in its parts […]. How, then, it is possible to say that animals learn the usefulness of  their parts from the parts themselves, when they obviously know their usefulness even before they have them? Take, if  you like, three eggs – an eagle’s egg, a duck’s egg, and a snake’s egg – and warm them appropriately to have them hatch: you will see the animals come to birth, the first two trying out their wings before knowing to fly, the third one twisting and putting its effort into slithering when it is still tender and weak.30  Aristotle, PA, 687a,7–15.  Galen, UP, K III, 6,2–7,7: ‘ἔνεστι δ’ ἐναργῶς ἰδεῖν, ὅτι μὴ τὰ μόρια τοῦ σώματος ἀναπείθει τὴν ψυχὴν ἢ δειλὴν ἢ ἄλκιμον ἢ σοφὴν γίγνεσθαι, τὰ νεογενῆ ζῷα θεασάμενον ἐνεργεῖν ἐπιχειροῦντα πρὶν τελεωθῆναι τοῖς μορίοις. ἐγὼ γοῦν καὶ βοὸς μόσχον πολλάκις εἶδον κυρίττοντα πρὶν φῦσαι τὰ κέρατα 29 30

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The explanation that Galen offers of   the Aristotelian passage, however, goes beyond its original sense and veers away from it. Indeed, for Aristotle, the essence of  the part lies in its function; the function is like the act of  seeing for the eye, and it does not make sense to say that the soul of  a body pre-exists the development of   its parts, since function is  not a  material component having any specific location but is rather an activity.31 In Aristotelian terms, the generation process tends toward an ‘end’ (τέλος) and is better represented as a process ad quem; the soul is the integrated sum total of   all the functions of   the organism, and so the final result of  the process (ἐντελέχεια), being the form of  the body. In this sense, form (εἶδος) can be seen as an organizational state (ἕξις) which matter takes on by degrees of  increasing complexity, and which therefore cannot pre-exist as a part of  it.32 More generally, the problem of  pre-existence brings into play the notion of  priority – the priority of  actuality over potentiality and of   function over structure – and consequently that of  separation. Here the reading of  Aristotelian biology becomes complex, to be sure, but, as we will see later, it is fair to say that the whole of   natural genesis is subject to an activity by virtue of  which each individual brings their natural end to completion. In contrast with this frame of   thought, Galen’s comment presupposes a different concept of   form, later explicitly stated in the Quod animi mores. Form is, for Galen, the temperament of   homogenous parts that need to ‘pre-exist’ so as to enable καὶ πῶλον ἵππου λακτίζοντα μαλακαῖς ἔτι ταῖς ὁπλαῖς καί τινα κομιδῇ σμικρὸν χοῖρον ἀμύνεσθαι ταῖς γένυσιν ἐπιχειροῦντα γυμναῖς τῶν μεγάλων ὀδόντων καὶ σκύλακα νεογενῆ δάκνειν ὀριγνώμενον ἁπαλοῖς ἔτι τοῖς ὀδοῦσιν. αἴσθησιν γὰρ πᾶν ζῷον ἀδίδακτον ἔχει τῶν τε τῆς ἑαυτοῦ ψυχῆς δυνάμεων καὶ τῶν ἐν τοῖς μορίοις ὑπεροχῶν· ἢ διὰ τί παρὸν ἐν δάκνειν τῷ σμικρῷ χοίρῳ τοῖς μικροῖς ὀδοῦσιν ὁ δὲ τούτους μὲν ἀργοὺς ἔχει πρὸς τὴν μάχην, οἷς δ’ οὐκ ἔχει πω, χρῆσθαι ποθεῖ; […] πῶς οὖν ἐστι δυνατὸν φάναι τὰ ζῷα πρὸς τῶν μορίων διδαχθῆναι τὰς χρήσεις αὐτῶν, ὅταν καὶ πρὶν ἐκεῖνα σχεῖν, φαίνηται γιγνώσκοντα; εἰ γοῦν ἐθέλοις ᾠὰ τρία λαβὼν τὸ μὲν ἀετοῦ τὸ δὲ νήττης τὸ δ’ ὄφεως αὐτὰ θερμήνας συμμέτρως ἐκγλύψαι, τὰ γεννώμενά σοι ζῷα τὰ μὲν τῶν πτερύγων ἀποπειρώμενα θεάσῃ καὶ πρὶν δύνασθαι πέτεσθαι, τὸ δ’ ἰλυσπώμενόν τε καὶ σπεῦδον ἕρπειν, κἂν ἔτι μαλακὸν καὶ ἀδύνατον ᾖ.’ 31  Aristotle, An., 412,18–23. 32  As to the idea of  form as a ‘state of  matter’, see Aristotle, GC, 324b,14–18: ‘Διὸ ἡ ὑγίεια οὐ ποιητικόν, εἰ μὴ κατὰ μεταφοράν· καὶ γὰρ τοῦ μὲν ποιοῦντος ὅταν ὑπάρχῃ, γίνεταί τι τὸ πάσχον, τῶν δ’ ἕξεων παρουσῶν οὐκέτι γίνεται, ἀλλ’ ἔστιν ἤδη· τὰ δ’ εἴδη καὶ τὰ τέλη ἕξεις τινές, ἡ δ’ ὕλη ᾗ ὕλη παθητικόν.’

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a complete development of   the organic parts; indeed, from the temperaments of   matter spring the homogeneous bodies, and from the latter originate the structures, functions, and inclinations of   the animal (Tab.  2). The  process has thus become a process a quo, where matter already possesses from the outset all that is  necessary to the development of   the animal. Galen thus accepts the fundamental plexuses of   Aristotelian biology, but reworking its architecture and upending its equilibriums, with the consequence that important notions like potentiality and actuality are progressively pushed aside, to such an extent that the Galenic teleology no longer admits of   any margin of  error, and the development of  the organism becomes almost the perfect and necessary outcome of   the knowledge inherent in nature.33 Although, as noted, this idea is already at work in the De usu partium, it is primarily in Galen’s later works that its theoretical design is fully fleshed out, and that the reformulation of   the concept of   form brings about a  further, deeper change in the role played by the mind (νοῦς) in the process of   natural generation. For Aristotle, νοῦς is the function through which the passage is  effected from the particular, contained in sensation, to the universal, on which scientific knowledge is based; it is the trait d’union enabling the physical scale to continue into the metaphysical one, at whose apex is  found an activity whose agent, God, is no longer a state of  matter but is activity itself, fully developed and complete (ἐντελέχεια), and so is  thinking of   thought (νόησις νοήσεως). While, qua God, this is the prime cause and end of   the entire cosmos, qua form it serves the same function in relation to every organism, at least insofar as it  is  ‘whole’. Such an activity ensures a primary direction of  natural genesis, subordinating the latter to the plane of  essence so as to make it intelligible: function thus determines the structure of  the organ, and the part is generated in view of   the whole. In order for the directional focus of   the process to remain constant, it is therefore necessary for the activity-form to be separate, acting as 33  On the Galenic radicalization of  Aristotelian teleology, and the criticism addressed to Erasistratus, see the authoritative discussion in Von Staden 1997: esp. 197.

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an immobile engine (τὸ πρῶτον κινοῦν ἀκίνητον). Each living being finds its completion only at the end of   a process whose stages are the outcome of   as many potentialities being actualized over time according to an order that has been designated but is not thereby infallible. In this sense, the Aristotelian notion of  separation (χωρισμὸς) develops out of  an analysis of  the conditions of   generation, and with such generation it maintains a dialectical relation of  integration. Indeed, separation does not prevent the form of  forms (εἶδος εἰδῶν), that is to say the mind, from integrating with the remaining functions of  the organism in the role of  fulfilling the ultimate goal of  the human being.34 It  thus seems clear that, for Aristotle and the philosophi, the soul lies at the centre of   a  speculative endeavour at once physical and metaphysical, and that the investigations undertaken in the De  anima are geared toward defining the limits and possibilities for those fields of   inquiry. It is, however, specifically on the role of   essence and the mind that Galen and his followers follow what appears to be the opposite line of  thinking.

Galenic Anthropology This applies in particular to what we may call a ‘Galenic anthropology’ – or conception of   man, as it were – which rests on a couple of   specific physical and methodological assumptions, such as the concept of  form and the criterion of  scientificity, from which derive important philosophical consequences. As noted, in the De usu partium Galen gives a  materialistic interpretation to the concept of   form, conceiving it as the form of   temperament, namely as a property determined by the alterations of  matter. This interpretation makes it possible to minimize the role of   form as an immaterial agent, to reduce the mind –  or at least an important part of   it – to a  development of   sensation, and to establish an underlying continuity between man and animal. The other assumption which deeply shapes Galenic anthropology, and which we shall come back to, lies in its crite  Aristotle, An., 432a,2.

34

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rion of   scientificity, which consists in requiring a ‘scientifically demonstrable opinion’ (δόξα ἀποδεδειγμένη ἐπιστημονικῶς).35 Whereas in Aristotelianism theses such as the separation of  the mind from the body and the eternity of  the world carried much weight (on the one hand, making it possible to subsume the particular under the universal, and, on the other, ensuring the constancy and intelligibility of   natural phenomena) Galen thinks it impossible to arrive at any positive knowle­dge in regard to either of   these two questions, excluding them from the province of   scientific theory.36 The insistence upon these exclusions constitutes a  theoretical manifesto and an uncrossable limit of   Galenic medicine, and it was clearly appreciated by many Renaissance commentators. The Venetian physician Luigi Lui­ sini (1526–post 1576), for one, remarked: [T]o come back to Galen, I contend that he fully embraced the attitude that befits a  physician. Indeed, since the art of   medicine is  concerned with particulars, which are sensible objects, the physician must for that very reason follow the senses. […] Why should it be surprising that Galen – a man long versed in the dissection of   human bodies, in the midst of   blood, arteries, muscles, panniculi, and other parts of   this sort – should not have been able to discover and see the rational soul, as he might have wished to, and that he should have even asserted that it dies like the vegetable and the sensible soul? Indeed, he made it his core tenet not to lend credence to anything not reducible to experiment, that is, to what falls within the senses. Indeed, experi35  Galen, FF, K IV, 700,2–5; later on, in 695,10 and 702, 2, the scientific demonstrability required by Galen is  described as γραμμικὴ ἀπόδειξις or ‘linear demonstration’. 36  On the impossibility of    attaining any scientific knowledge of   the substance of   the soul, see Galen, UP, K III, 542,2–5; UR, K IV, 472,3; FF, K IV, 700,2–5; HEC, K XVIIb, 247,12–13; PHP, K V, 793,6–8; QAM, K IV, 773. On the same question in relation to the immortality of   the soul and the eternity of   the world, SFN (=  PP), K IV, 762,16–18 and FF, K IV, 702,1–4. Writes Paul Moraux in this regard, Moraux 2000: vol.  2, tome 2, 335: ‘Despite the deep interest Galen took in philosophical questions, he did not see himself  as subscribing to any of   the philosophical schools of   his time. He  resolutely rejected a priori speculation and doctrines not amenable to scientific demonstration, and he accepted only those theories that, as a physician and naturalist, he could examine with certainty and coherently deduce from observed facts.’ My translation.

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ence, as he defines it in chapter 11 of  the De optima secta ad Thrasybulum, consists in observing and remem­bering what has been seen.37

From the adoption of    this methodological principle there emerged an anthropological vision centred on the congenital characteristics of   the individual, where the study of   nature became a discipline in its own right, finding confirmation in the validity of   its own methods. This epistemological break, however, raised concern among the philosophi, who discussed its validity and limits. On the one hand came criticisms of   a logical sort, like those of   Jacopo Zabarella (1533–89), who accused Galen of   making an incorrect use of   induction and arbitrary generalizations based on insufficient and entirely circumstantial and empirical observations;38 on the other hand came criticisms of  a methodological sort, like those of  Cesare Cremonini (1550–1631), who took issue with Galen for concerning himself  exclusively with man without grasping the essential unity governing all natural processes.39 What these remarks by Zabarella and Cremonini throw into relief  is  the diffraction of   the search for essence into a  search 37 Luisini 1562: 10–12: ‘Sed ut ad Galenum redeamus, medice omnino se habuisse illum dicamus: ars enim medica, quoniam circa singularia, quae sensibilia sunt, versatur: iccirco sensum medicus sequitur in actione sua. […] Quid mirum itaque si Galenus in dissectionibus humanorum corporum toties versatus, non inventa aut visa, ut fortasse volebat, rationali anima inter sanguinem, atque arterias, musculos, panniculos, aliasque huiusmodi partes, in eam sententiam devenit, ut ipsam commori cum vegetali ac sensuali affirmarit? Praecipue vero cum profiteretur nihil se unquam credidisse praeterquam quod sub experimentum veniret, quod idem est, ac si dicas id quod sub sensum caderet: experientia namque est observatio et memoria eius quod visum est ut ipse definit in Tractato ad Thrasibulum liber De optima secta cap. 11.’ 38  Zabarella 1597: col. 739c. Zabarella goes so far as to speak of  Galeni pertinancia ac protervitas, complaining of   the numerous cavillos and subterfugia in the arguments developed against Aristotle in regard to the temperamental heat of   the brain (coll. 746E) and the relative functions of   the heart and the brain (see coll. 750A). 39 Cremonini 1626: 7: ‘Ut autem satisfaciam his, quae dixi, mihi recurrendum est ad illud Aristotelis dictum, quod ignoratis communibus, non bene possumus propria speculari, quod non observavit (mihi ignoscat) Galenus: in solo enim homine versatus est, ignorando, qualiter res se habeat simpliciter in natura animantium.’ Zabarella’s and Cremonini’s judgments are also brought into relation in Pagallo 2006: 105–06.

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for the multiple faculties of  the body, and the consequent inversion of   the Aristotelian ‘essential bond’ between function and organ: it was now by virtue of   a  common genesis out of   the form of  homogeneous parts that a function was tied to an organ. All subsequent development of   the organism was already contained in its initial form (i.e. its temperament) that designated the direction of   the unfolding process. This change ushered in that analytical reconstruction of  the natural causes of  the organism that, as noted, reinforced the Aristotelian finalism while at the same time turning it on its head. In this upturned finalism, generation and substance find themselves in antithesis: as a psychophysical totality, the substance of  the organism is gone, and with it goes the continuity between the physical and the metaphysical. The vertical unfolding of   divine knowledge, which in the De usu partium assigned to medicine the task of  defining the natural theology,40 was superseded in Galen’s later writings by an analysis aimed at singling out the common material denominator underlying all vital activities. In the final analysis, it was the idea of  a completely naturalistic anthropology that was gaining ground. To  counterbalance this metaphysical loss, Galen especially favoured ethics and natural philosophy as useful vantage points from which to attain certainty, and it was with the intent of   providing these two research areas with a theoretical and programmatic manifesto that he conceived works like the De  placitis Hippocratis et Platonis and the Quod animi mores, and especially the De propriis placitis. The latter, known in the Renaissance only in a mutilated form under the title Fragmentum de substantia naturalium facultatum, was nonetheless sufficient to convey an image of  Galen as sceptical about the essence of   the soul and its otherworldly destiny, and in some cases an image of  him as impious.

40 Devoted to theology is  the entire book XVII of    the De usu partium (UP, K IV,358–66), a true hymn (epode) in praise of   nature’s intelligence and the gods. The  image of   Galen as a  natural theologian was still relevant until the mid-seventeenth century, as we find echos of   it in the work of   Thomas Browne (1605–82), see Browne 1642: 29: ‘sometimes, and in some things there appeares to mee as much divinity in  Galen’s Books  De usu partium, as in Suarez’ Metaphysicks.’

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It is worth highlighting that, even within this Galenic reformulation of   the criterion of   scientificity, there was an element of   continuity with a  certain Aristotelian tradition. As  mentioned, the soul is equated by Aristotle and the philosophi with the integrated totality of  the functions of  the body; there are no ‘parts’ but only ‘limbs’, and what Galen considers to be souls (appetitive, spirited, and rational) are in reality functions of  the organism that progressively lock into one another, the way that geometrical figures lock into complex ones.41 However, as much as the Aristotelians stress the integrated complexity of   their natural system, their νοῦς – that part of   the soul to which the Averroistic tradition attributed divine and immortal prerogatives, and which Aristotle himself  said ‘can exist separately, as the eternal from the perishable’42 – is nevertheless found to be in a relation of   ambiguous reciprocity with its organic substrate, the heart. In this regards, an eclectic Aristotelian like the already mentioned Francesco Piccolomini stressed the closeness of   the link between mens and phantasia, even reminding us that the mind is referred to by way of   its bodily instrument and is  sometimes even identified with  it.43 To  be  sure, what Piccolomini espoused was not an isolated view; indeed, in the history of   Aristotelianism there exists a  constant tendency to

  Aristotle, An., 414b,28–35.   Ibid., 413b,24–26. 43  Piccolomini 1628: 1706: ‘Supera humanae animae portio, ob varia eius officia, variis designantur nominibus, quorum principale est, νοῦς, hoc est mens sive intelligentia, quod nomen satis est commune: nam primo dicitur de superis coelorum mentibus. Secundo de mente hominis. Tertio descendit ad phantasiam  […]; tranfertur autem ad eam nomen mentis triplici ratione. Primo quia phantasia hominis rationi subiicitur, et ratione formari ac dirigi potest […]. Secundo, quia in pueris, et animalibus, expertibus rationi, ea non secus praest, et ducit, ac in homine ducat mens, ut legitur in calce secundi de anima, adeo ut, dicatur mens per analogiam et metaphoram. Tertio quia nedum circa praesentia, verum quoque circa absentia, ut mens, versatur, et varia ad libitum concipit, et format, ac ob id a  veteribus non secernebatur a  mente. Quarto extenditur nomen mentis ad notitiam simplicium, et habitum primorum principiorum, qui menti est aptissimus, et ad reliquos habitus perinde se habet, ac lux ad ea, quae illustrantur. […] Mens hominis contradistincta a phantasia, dicitur ὑπόληψις, hoc est, vis existimandi, cuius in secundo De  anima, 154 tres statuuntur differentiae, scientia, opinio et φρόνησις, hoc est prudentia, adeo, ut mens sit tanquam principium. Cogitatio medium, existimatio finis.’ 41 42

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naturalize the functions of  the soul, a tendency that grew more pronounced with the rediscovery of  Galenism, but whose roots trace back to antiquity with the comments of  Alexander of  Aphrodisias (fl. 200 bce).

Alexandrianism and Galenism The most respected of   Aristotelian commentators, Alexander of   Aphrodisias, gives Aristotle’s De anima an interpretation that in a sense can be described as materialistic. With the single exception of   the active intellect, which in his work is  directly identified with the immobile engine described in Metaphysics  XII, every form is  construed by him as an organic form. Soul  and matter are accordingly found to be in a  direct and necessary relation that reprises the continuity between matter and sensation previously described by Galen.44 Ever since the Middle Ages, both views therefore fell subject to the charge of   educing the soul out of   the potential of   matter (educere animam de potentia materiae), a charge by virtue of  which Thomas Aquinas (1225–74), in his Summa contra gentiles, found there to be a substantial analogy between the two philosophers.45 And indeed Alexander also significantly shares with Galen a  propensity to locate the intellect in an organic seat, for which he even coins a term that cannot be found in any of  the Aristotelian texts, namely ὑλικὸς νοῦς, or ‘material intellect’. These points of  analogy carry a specific meaning, however, and as much as it falls beyond the scope of   this book to assess the historical primacy of   one conception over another, it must be emphasized that throughout the Middle Ages Galen was read and appreciated well ahead of   Aristotle, and hence before Alexander’s 44  Alexander of    Aphrodisias, An., 2,25–8,25. On  this passage see the ad locum commentary in Accattino and Donini 1996: 112–13. 45 Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, II, 63: ‘Praedictae autem opinioni Alexandri de intellectu possibili, propinqua est Galeni medici de anima. Dicit enim animam esse complexionem.  Ad hoc autem dicendum motus est per hoc quod videmus ex diversis complexionibus causari in nobis diversas passiones quae attribuuntur animae: aliquam enim complexionem habentes, ut cholericam, de facili irascuntur; melancholici vero de facili tristantur. Unde et per easdem rationes haec opinio improbari potest per quas improbata est opinio Alexandri, et per aliquas proprias.’

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exegesis of   the latter could be employed to explain outcomes that may be described as materialistic. It is also relevant that the acclaim that Alexander received as a commentator of  Aristotle’s De anima is owed especially to his mid-sixteenth-century revival.46 In this sense, then, the historical rediscovery of  Alexander’s exegesis can be said to have come about precisely in the process of  rediscovering Galen’s exegesis, and the effect was accordingly to reinforce the latter.47 Two Renaissance thinkers whose work can perhaps be pointed out as exemplifying this historiographical thesis are Pie­ tro Pom­po­nazzi (1462–1525) and Simone Porzio (1497–1554). As it can be appreciated from his interpretation of  Aristotle’s De  anima, Pomponazzi steers a  ‘neutral’ course in addressing two central questions of   Aristotelianism, that of   the immortality of   the soul and that of   the eternity of   the world. Indeed, for Pomponazzi the impossibility to offer a positive solution to these philosophical puzzles does not undermine the overall consist46 As Olaf  Pluta observes in a  more recent and specific discussion on the issues that Alexander’s psychology gave rise to between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Pluta 2007: 152: ‘except for a  few quotations included in Averroes’s Commentarium magnum, the Middle Ages did not have direct access to Alexander of   Aphrodisias’s philosophy of   mind.’ Indeed, the Latin translation of   Alexander’s first book of   the De anima, edited by Girolamo Donato, was published in 1495, whereas its translation of   the second book, edited by Angelo Canini, did not come out until 1546. It would thus be inaccurate to speak of   an actual ‘Alexandrianism’ before this period. Still relevant in gaining an overall picture of    Alexandrianism in the Renaissance are Nardi  1950: 19–28; 131–36 (reconstructing the Paduan cultural context during and after the time of   the publication of   Pomponazzi’s De immortalitate animae, later more accurately described in Nardi 1965) and Kristeller 1960. Kristeller 2005, esp. at 126 ff., goes so far as to call into question the idea that in the Renaissance there even existed a  current of   thought called ‘Alexandrianism’, and he resolutely denies that Pomponazzi ever adhered to such a current. 47 It can be appreciated that in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance Alexander was interpreted through Galen from the marked differences that come into focus by comparing the two authors’ accounts of   the mind–body relation. Indeed, it would seem a strained interpretation to ascribe to Alexander the thesis that form results exclusively from the mixis of  the elements. Alexander’s account of   form and mixis looks directly to the succession of   elements, qualities, and parts that Aristotle sets out in the De partibus animalium and the Metereologica, and it differs considerably from Galen’s account in that the action of  form figures, for both Aristotle and Alexander, as a background condition rather than a consequence of   the transformation of   matter (see Donini 1970: 98 ff.).

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ency of the Aristotelian natural philosophy. Such an approach betrays a certain influence exerted by Galen’s De usu partium and his Quod animi mores, not least by reason of  Pomponazzi’s medical interests as represented by the various treatises later published as Tractatus acutissimi, utillimi et mere Peripatetici (Venice 1525).48 Porzio, on the other hand, offers a  different outlook. Especially on themes such as the nature of   the mind and the freedom of  human action: (De humana mente, An homo bonus vel malus volens fiat disputatio, Florence 1551) Porzio’s reading can easily be traced to the influence of  Alexandrianism, for there is  no question which – unlike Pomponazzi  – can be considered ‘neutral’ or remain unaddressed. Thus, in the divergence between Galenism and Alexandrianism with regard to these pivotal themes, we can better clarify the central tenets upon which Galenic psychology established itself  at the end of  the sixteenth century. As will shall see in the next chapter, this divergence came especially into relief  in dealing with fringe themes. Their discussion, coincided with the debate on the rediscovery of  the body, animality, and matter, all of  which Scholastics had ignored: where the boundary between man and animal becomes fuzzy and pliant, it is  the soul that becomes an image of  the body.

48  Pomponazzi 1525, chap. 15, fol.  51r col. B: ‘videtur quod quaestio de immortalitate animae est neutrum problema, sicut etiam de mundi aeternitatem.’ For an assessment of   Pomponazzi’s knowledge of   Galen, especially starting from his 1504 Quaestiones, see Gontier 2009: 107–09.

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CHAPTER TWO

THE SOUL, A PHYSICAL QUESTION

The tendency to identify the soul with a  corporeal substance emerged with greater clarity where the study of   natural philosophy developed hand in hand with medicine and in direct continuity with the practice carried out on the anatomy table. Anatomy stepped into the role of  the so-called ‘via a posteriori’, the logical procedure constituting at once the moment of  ‘proof’ (experimentum) and that of   ‘confirmation’ of   a theory (confirmatio) , as Jacopo Zabarella clearly codified in works such as the De methodis (Opera Logica, Venice 1578) and the De naturalibus rebus libri XXX (Venice 1590), which represents the pinnacle of   the epistemological reflection the School of   Padua built around the concept of  experience in the last two decades of  the sixteenth century.1 With anatomical knowledge establishing itself  as a discipline in its own right within the complex of   the natural disciplines, research on the essence of   the soul also 1  With the exception of William A. Wallace’s studies on Zabarella and Galileo (especially Wallace 1988 and 1992), the relevance of Zabarella’s work for the history of modern thought has not been fully recognized, especially in the English-speaking world. This is mostly due to the fact that many of the arguments Zabarella engages with derive from the criticism of Galenic medi­ cine. The first to understand Zabarella’s place in the history of early modern philosophy was Ernst Cassirer, Cassirer 1952: 164–66, but his enthusiastic claims, followed by Randall 1940 and 1961, did not find a continuation in Neal Gilbert’s work on method, cf. Gilbert 1963: 167–72. Apart from the studies explicitly focused on Zabarella like Poppi 2004 and Mikkeli 1992, probably the best picture of Zabarella’s philosophical and methodological thought has been provided by Wilhelm Risse, see Risse 1983. On the history of Aristotelianism, see Duhem 1913–59, Randall 1961, Olivieri 1983, Crombie 1953 and 1961, and MacLean 2002.

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changed, morphing into a study of   the functions of   the body, itself  the quintessential symbolic place and explanatory model of  ancient physics. This model which, as noted, comes into play at different levels in the debate between medici and philosophi was to be refashioned. And so it was that, through a closer and more minute analysis of   physiological processes, the concept of  the living being went through an overall revision and human anthropology as a whole was accordingly transformed.

The Seat of  the Rational Soul A classic example of  such a transformation is given by the localization of   the functions of   the rational soul (anima rationalis). With the rediscovery of   the role and value of   anatomy, the problem took on new meanings and contours. For an understanding of  its lines of  development, it will be useful to take into account the basic principle and character of  the so-called ‘medical localizationism’, through which the functions of   the body are each identified, separated, and hence ascribed to a specific place in the body. The principle rests on the bond of   suppression between organ and function, insofar as a lesion to an organ thwarts or suppresses its natural function. This bond becomes particularly telling and concerning when it comes to the brain, because the dysfunctions of  this organ immediately become disorders of   the affected individual.2 And so it is that locus, sedes, pars, and membrum – followed by a whole casuistry tied to the species morborum – become attributes that also described the 2  It is worth mentioning that, in the ancient tradition, the brain had never been a  symbolic place of   the body, and that the gradual shift from the cardiocentric tradition to the encephalocentric one picked up speed precisely in the Renaissance. This symbolic status instead belonged to the heart, which in religion and philosophy alike was always considered quintessentially the centre of   psychic and emotive life. As much as this primacy of   the heart had already been challenged by Galen – Galen, PHP, K V, 215 ff., rejecting the arguments that the philosopher Chrysippus advanced on the natural deportment connected with the word egō – it was mainly in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries that its natural-symbolical meaning gradually gave way to the centrality of   the brain. However, as noted in Stevens 1997: 275–78, even in the anatomical representations of   the late Renaissance the brain did not take on any symbolic meaning of  its own, but rather maintained a ‘crude matter-of-factness’.

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abstract substance of  the mind, which was consequently reduced to an organic faculty situated in the brain, in what appears to be a constant specific to anatomical practice, entirely predicated on the dialectic between visible and invisible, external and internal, corporeal and abstract. Beginning with Fernel, and continuing with the work of  the Swiss physician Felix Plater (1536–1614), the sixteenth century saw a growing interest in the brain, its structure, and functions, which, with Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), also translated into theoretical gains and technical innovations.3 The most interesting discoveries in anatomy were probably those of  Vesalius and of   the Bolognese anatomist Costanzo Varolio (1543–75) who, in the De nervis opticis (Padua 1573), introduced the method of  dissecting the brain from the base up and so described some new structures, including the pons (pons Varolii, or bridge of  Varolius), the crura cerebri, and the ileocecal valve, while also significantly reducing the number of   cerebral ventricles from four to two. In point of   fact, the Renaissance interest in anatomy translated into practice the questions that Galen posed in regard to the nature and function of   the rational soul, a process that ultimately led to its being associated with the spiritus animalis enclosed within the cerebral ventricles.4 Indeed, moving forward with what Claude Bernard termed ‘experiments of  destruction’,5 Galen in the seventh book of   the De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis posed the problem of   identifying the animal functions that could be localized in the encephalon, and in particular those functions that depended on the so-called psychic pneuma (πνεῦμα ψυχικὸν). The  experiment consisted in opening the 3  Particularly significant, both for the technique used and for the manual skill required, was the experiment that Leonardo da Vinci (MS  RL 19127r) conducted by injecting liquid wax into the cerebral ventricles of   an ox so as to  extract the internal shape and make it visible, on which O’Malley and Sanders 1983: 147. 4  Walker 1984: 224: ‘[…] the traditional medical theory that animal spirits perform, or are the first instrument of   the soul in performing, such psychic functions as appetite, common sense and imagination, that men have in common with animals, tends to confine the function of   the incorporeal soul to abstract reasoning, that which differentiates men from animals.’ 5  Bernard 1912: 17.

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cranium of   a  live animal so as to perforate the cerebral ventricles one by one, an operation that causes the animal to go unconscious at once (stupor) but to then regain consciousness once the wound is sealed.6 While these results convinced Galen that the brain was the organic substrate of   the soul’s rational operations, he openly acknowledged that experimentation was not sufficient to allow for a more specific localization. The first attempt in this direction is found in the De natura hominis by Nemesius of   Emesa (fourth century ad), who suggested that the main functions of  the soul could be partitioned each to one of   the brain’s four ventricles; 7 Galen had been agnostic about their organic seat, locating it in the animal spirit, in the body’s innate heat, or in the cerebral temperament.

The Brain: Form and Function The actual application of   the medical localizationism was thus held back by an empirical bias as much as by a  technological shortfall owed to a lack of   magnifying tools, making it impossible to accurately define the minutest features of   anatomical structure. This can be observed in the renderings approximating the cerebral circumvolutions illustrated in the tabulae pictae (‘anatomical tables’) by Girolamo Fabrici d’Acquapen­dente, which stood as perhaps the best atlas of  the nervous system for the entire course of   the seventeenth century (Plates 13–22).8   Galen, PHP, K V, 605,14–606,15.   Pagel 1958: 98 ff. As much as Galen cannot be considered the originator of   this theory, many of   his arguments contributed significantly to its subsequent development; see Daremberg 1841: 80–89; Siegel 1973: 117–44; Grmek 1996: 115; Manzoni 2001: 31–38; and, most recently, Rocca 2003: 245–47. 8  Riva 2004: 149. In  a sense, the tabulae pictae illustrated by Fabrici da Acquapendente represent the ‘visible’ side of   sixteenth-century medical and philosophical treatises debating the seat of   the rational soul, as well as on the previously mentioned Galenic experiments. The  interest Acquapendente took in psychology, and in particular in Aristotle’s De anima, has rightly been underscored by Andrew Cunningham, Cunningham 1997: 171 –  highlighting Acquapendente’s role in emulating Aristotle with his project for a  totius animalis fabricae theatrum – as well as by Roger French, French 1999: 86–91, pointing out how anatomical dissection, between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, was more concerned with natural philosophy than with medical practice proper. But it is Acquapendente himself  that we need to refer to for an understanding of  the use and purpose of  the tabulae. The question of  anatomi6 7

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As  much as Acquapendente’s dual approach, at once compositive and resolutive, generally makes possible an excellent cal illustration was felt to be very important in the second half  of  the sixteenth century, and almost all of  Vesalius’s pupils sought to rival their master precisely in this area. The first chapter has already described Gabriele Falloppia’s incomplete attempt to construct a comprehensive atlas of  all animals, to which may be added the likewise incomplete attempt by Matteo Realdo Colombo (1516–59), who died before his writings could be illustrated with tables by Miche­lan­gelo. It would have been regarded as a noteworthy achievement for any anatomist to be the first to adequately illustrate the parts of   the body, and to specify by this means the connection between the faculties, functions, and structures of   the soul. It  is  against this background that Aquapendente’s work is  to be set, especially in view of   his own account of   that work as an attempt to lay out a  totius animalis fabricae theatrum of   coloured tables illustrating animal anatomy (and so also human anatomy) in its totality, as described in the preface to his De visione, voce, auditu (Venice 1600). The original project appears to date back to at least 1591, and his tables are thought to have been preparatory to the later published works such as the De visione, voce, auditu (Venice 1600), the De formato foetu (Venice 1600), the De venarum ostiolis, and the De locutione et eius instrumentis (Padua 1603). The  original tables quite often bear the handwritten label intagliato (‘incised’, ‘engraved’), indicating that they had been prepared on sheets for print engravings. These sheets were prepared in Acquapendente’s household by painters who attended his private lectures and rendered his anatomical preparations. However, the project as a whole never really came to completion. The tables we are most interested in now, appearing in the end matter of   this book, are those relative to brain anatomy, now held at the Biblio­teca Nazionale Marciana in Venice. Particularly noteworthy is the collection of   tables making up the anatomia capitis, cerebri, nervorum, which bespeak a more than passing interest in the brain’s anatomy, and which seem to have their source in a series of   unpublished lost treatises whose existence is known to us only by way of  their titles as mentioned in two documents of  1615 and 1622. The first of  these documents is a will in which Acquapendente bequeathed to his pupil Jean Prevot (1585–1631) some manuscripts that he wanted to have published. Appended to the first codicil is a list of  twenty-three titles, among which are a De capitis facultatibus, earumdemque actionibus, et proprio ac praecipuo actionum organo, at no. 6, and a De communibus instrumentis, ut puta venis, arteriis, et nervis in totum corpus discurrentibus, at no. 11. Also testifying to the existence of   these treatises is  that, just before Acqua­ pen­dente died, some of   them actually did wind up being published. It would be warranted to conjecture that the attention Acquapendente devoted to the brain’s anatomy was well served by these treaties – an untested but telling confirmation of   the fact that Galenic psychology and its quaestiones did not keep within the confines of   the purae litterae but found a coherent development in anatomy: to speak of   faculties, uses, and functions meant to point directly to their seat and cause. The closer was the attention paid to the psychical faculties, the greater became the minuteness of   the anatomical dissection charged with identifying the mind’s material substrate. It is no accident that on 21 August 1622, three years before Acquapendente’s death, there came to light another list of   unpublished manuscripts handed over to Acquapendente’s Benzi heirs by the Paduan successor to the chair in anatomy, Francesco Piaz­zoni (1550–

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description of   the structure of   the encephalon, his tabulae are all focused on the great anatomical discontinuities (nerves, ventricles, cerebellar peduncles), neglecting the peripheral details (notably Plates 16, 18, 20, 22). Indeed, while Renaissance anatomy was making progress, the physiological framework remained firmly anchored to its Galenic underpinnings, and to get a sense of  what in the late sixteenth century was understood to be mainstream doctrine, one needs only to look through the Liber de anima (Padua 1611) by Aquapendente’s colleague and rival Eustachio Rudio from Belluno (1548–1612), which contains an entire chapter on the Galenic description of  the brain. The brain, writes Rudio, has a spongy form needed to more effectively capture the lighter spirits; it further presents a bipartite structure and a dual consistency, feeling soft to the touch in the frontal part – so as to more effectively capture the images of   the senses and to enable such cognitive functions as fantasy and reasoning – and comparatively harder in the rear part, so as to more effectively preside over movement and memory.9 Even the colour of   the brain has a  specific function, favouring a  greater purity of   the animal spirits.10 Rudio goes on to state that: [t]he surface of   the brain is completely smooth, for in this way the brain is  totally and easily lined by the hard and 1624). These manuscripts, accordingly entitled Scritture consegnate dal S.r Dottor Piaz­zoni alli heredi Benzi Nepoti del già s.r. Acquapendente, contained all of   four titles relative to the brain’s anatomy and its functions: De  cerebro, et anatomia capitis; De phantasia; De intellectu; and De memoria; and toward the end of  the list there was also a treatise titled De nervis. Although we do not know whether in these writings Acquapendente subscribed to the classic localization of  the psychical faculties in the cerebral ventricles, some of  the surviving tables seem to support this hypothesis. The  three titles De phantasia, De  intellectu, De memoria may, however, indicate a subdivision into chapters corresponding to which some of   the surviving tables may have been distributed. This is the hypothesis advanced by Antonio Favaro, who argued that the four titles making up the 1622 list were ‘in extenso’ treatises of   the De  capitis facultatibus, previously included in the 1615 will; Giuseppe Ongaro instead holds that we may be looking at a breaking up of   the lectures contained in the manuscripts pertaining to the seventh title (Fasciculi lectionum numero XXV). For the state of  art about Aqua­pen­dente treatises and their articulation into chapters/books, see Ongaro 2004: 160–62. 9  Rudio 1611: 57. 10  Ibid., 59–61.

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soft meninges, and impeccably protected by any shocks due to compression of   the osseous substance. At the base and in the lower part, the brain is  nonetheless characterized by some protuberances or bulges (the so-called ‘cerebellar peduncles’: Plates 15, 18–19, 21) that are concerned in movement and in the external sensations understood as causae sine qua non. Also found in the brain, finally, are cavities and meatuses, whether readily visible or less so, as well as some parts that are porous in structure and substance, similarly to those of   a sponge. Indeed, considering that the frontal part of   the brain is two-sided, also two in number are the ventricles hidden in the interior in which it is encased, which ventricles, originating in the frontal part of   the brain, extend almost to the median region, before bending slightly downward, close to the base of   the brain. These two frontal ventricles merge into a single median cavity called median ventricle, a cavity that is slightly smaller than the frontal ones. The  cerebellum is  protected by the occipital bone, whose substance is  harder and drier than that of   the brain, and from whose extremity there originates the bone marrow, from which the most important nerves branch out to the entire body. Under the cerebellum is contained another ventricle, called posterior ventricle: it is smaller than the anterior ones but larger than the median ventricle, and its initial part is  larger, tapering to a  point at the end. As  we previously said invoking the authority of   Galen and quoting from Book  VII of   his De  placitis, these brain ventricles, and in particular the frontal ones, are termed spongoid, for it is their purpose not only to collect the excretions of   the brain itself  and make it so that they are discharged through the nose and the mouth (as well as through the palate and the so-called pelvis, in such a way as to preserve the brain’s normal activity) but also to receive, exchange, and prime the so-called animal spirits, which, upon undergoing an alteration by the innate faculty of  the brain, are sent out to the eyes and all the other sense organs and, through the median and posterior ventricles, to the instruments responsible for sense perception and movement, so that these organs and instruments may carry out their functions.11 11  Ibid., 65–66: ‘Eius porro figura (quam totius capitis figura consequitur) fuit rotunda tum ad securitatem, quia sic externis iniuriis minus obiicitur;

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Figs. 5–6. Gaspard Bahuin, Theatrum anatomicum (Frankfurt 1605). Upper cross-section of  the cerebral ventricles. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions.

tum ad me­lius esse gratia sensationum, et animalium functionum, quia talis figura spi­rituum, et cerebri substantiae est magis capax. Eius autem superfi­ cies levis omnino est, quia sic a tenui, et dura meninge perfec­tius, ac facilius investi­tur, et ad osseae substantiae pressu et iniuriis exactius tutatur. Habet tamen cerebrum in basi, et posteriori parte quo­sdam processus, seu germina, quae quidem ad motum, ac sensationes omnes externas, tanquam causae sine qui­bus non diriguntur. Postremo in cerebro tum cavitates, tum meatus evi­ dentes, tum minus evidentes, ac compagis, substantiaeque raritates, spongiae cuiusdam instar, repe­riuntur. Nam prior cerebri pars geminata cum sit, ge­mi­ nis quoque ventriculis intro reconditis excavata est. Qui quidem ex his pri­mis ce­rebri partibus initium ducentes, ad medias fere regiones accedunt, et inde paululum reflexi in imam sedem prope cerebri basim detorque­rentur. Hi vero

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Faithful to its own model, Rudio’s description distinguished the cerebral functions on the basis of   the only structures in clear evidence in it, these being the four ventricular cavities, while the make-up of   the body of   the encephalon was found to be uniform and porous. This empirical prejudice would lead to one of  the most important misunderstandings in the history of  neurology,12 and in fact even in the mid-seventeenth century Descartes ignored the function of  the cerebral circumvolutions, looking to the only non-bipartite cerebral structure, i.e. the pineal gland, to identify the physical seat of   what the Scholastics called the sensus communis. In a way, the Cartesian assumption marks a terminus ad quem of  the localizationist tradition and it represents a historically valuable clue that allows us to appreciate with hindsight how the rediscovery of   Galen’s De  placitis, and the investigation of   the seat and functions of   the governing principle of   the soul, in any event grew out of   the tradition of  commentary on Aristotle’s De anima. In particular, through the question of   the rapport between the internal and external senses, the investigation turned to the task of   localizing the socalled sensus communis.

duo ventriculi anteriores in mediam quandam, eamque individuam cavitatem concurrunt, quam medium ventriculum vocant, qui prioribus mi­nor est. Sub cerebello vero, quod occipitis osse tegi­tur, et cerebro durius et siccius est, et a cuius extrema parte spinalis oritur medulla, a qua clariores nervi per totum corpus perferuntur, alius ventriculus quem posteriorem vo­cant, continetur, qui prioribus minor est, sed medio maior: qui initio latius patet, sed coarcatur extremitate sua in mucrone compressa. Hi autem ventri­culi cerebri, et praesertim priores, ut ex Galeni auctorite superius citata, 7 De placi­tis, diximus, non solum ad ipius cerebri excrementa suscipienda, et expurganda per nares, et os, spongoides dicuntur, et per palatum, ac pelvim vocatam diriguntur, pro cerebri nimirum conservatione; verum etiam ad animales spiritus nuncupatos susci­pien­dos, alternandos, ac praeparandos, ut postmodum ab innata cerebri facultate, ac proprietate alterati in oculos, ac alios omnes sensus et per medium ac postremum ventriculum ad sensus et motus instrumenta diffluant, pro ipsorum scilicet functionibus obeundis. De quibus non est dicendi singulatim lo­cus. Plures autem alios meatus sensus nostros effugientes, et rariorem compagem sortitum est cerebrum ad melius actionem animalem eden­dam, quia huius merito spirituosam substan­tiam, et uberiorem susci­pere, et aequaliter, ac uniformiter foelicius attemperare valet.’ 12  See Manzoni 2001: 88–94 and Rocca 2003: 245–247.

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Table 3. Aristotle’s arguments on the seat of  the sensus communis (Toledo 1575: 124rB–vA)

Sensus communis As a faculty of   the soul that coordinates the impressions of   the senses – transforming them into the raw material on which the intellect works to abstract conceptual forms – the sensus communis was considered a bodily organ by philosophi as much as by medici. Where they differed was on the question of   its exact location: on the basis of   the common principle stating that in the origin of   the nerves lies the seat of   the governing principle, the former located the common sense in the heart, the latter in the brain. In the Commentaria in tres libros Aristotelis De anima (Venice 1575), the Jesuit Francisco de Toledo (1532–96) discussed the two positions in light of   the arguments and anatomical evidence supplied by Aristotle and Galen (Tables  3 and 4), yet he took issue with the principle of  the tripartite soul 74

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Table 4. Galen’s arguments on the seat of  the sensus communis (Toledo 1575: 124vB)

as well as with that of   localization in the brain.13 This question resonated beyond the scope of   its distinctly academic nature, becoming a point of   contention among physicians themselves: 13 Toledo 1575: cc. 2vB–4rA; 124rB–126rB; 160rA–161vA. Along with Francisco Suárez, Francisco de Toledo (1532–96) can be accounted as a faithful adherent of  the Aristotelianism of  the so-called School of  Salamanca. The success of   his Commentaria in Aristotelis De anima is owed to its clarity of   argumentation coupled with the broad range of  questions discussed in it – so broad, indeed, that it encompassed the whole of   contemporary scientia naturalis. Between 1575 and 1625 this text went through no fewer than twenty editions, and it still held its place as the textbook for the young Descartes when he was studying at the Collège Henri  IV de La Flèche. For an overview of   Toledo’s life and works, see Astrain 1909: 595–604, 630–33; Giacon 1947: 31–66; and Lohr 1982: 199. Specific aspects of  his thought have recently been discussed in DesChene 2000: 139–41, 155–57, 195–96.

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on the one hand, like the Spanish physician Juan Huarte de San Juan (1529–88), they took as established the role of  the brain as the origin of  an individual’s intellectual and affective life, while on the other hand, as in the case of  the Italian physician Andrea Cesalpino (1519–1603), they still clung to Aristotle’s account, identifying the origin of  the vascular and nervous systems in the heart.14 Another possible path to the localization of  the rational soul is the one that proceeds from the Scholastic distinction between external and internal senses. In  this case, the functions of   the soul are still considered sensory faculties, however in a  much more elaborate way. By localizing the ‘external senses’ (visus, tactus, gustus, auditus, odoratus) – each of   them understood to belong to a clearly identifiable bodily organ – one would thus be able to also localize the ‘internal senses’ (phantasia, cogitatio, memoria), conceived as modified sensory faculties. The classic account of   this physiognomical continuity between what is  external and what is  internal comes from Lodovico Dolce (1508–68), whose treatise Somma di tutta la filo­sofia d’Aristotele (Venice 1565) also provides an illustration laying out the cognitive functions attributed to the brain (Fig.  7).15 As it clearly 14  Huarte, like Galen before him, sided with the position that the rational soul is to be located in the brain, not without pointing out the errors made by Aristotle, see Huarte 1594(b): 23–24: ‘Antes que naciesen Hipócrates, y Platón, estaba muy rescebido entre los Philósophos naturales, quel el corazón era la parte principal, donde residía la facultad racional, y el instrumento con que nuestra ánima hacía las obras de prudencia, solercia, memoria, y entiendimento […] sino fué Aristóteles, el cual con ánimo de contradecir en todo Platon, tornó a  refrescar la opinión primera, y con argumentos tópicos hacerla probabile. Cuál sea la más verdadera sentencia, ya no es tiempo de poner-lo en cuestión; porque ningún filósofo dubda en esta era que el cerebro es el instrumento que naturaleza ordenó, para que el hombre fuese sabio y prudente […].’ This is in contrast with Cesalpino, Cesalpino 1593: fols 115r–121v and, in particular, fol. 120v D, who, along with Aristotle, reiterates: ‘nihil aliud est nervus quam extrema aortae, alia quidem in capite, id est in cerebro naturam nervi accipientia: alia autem circa imas partes, id est circa crura et articulos totius corporis.’ On the application of   the Aristotelian principle that the arteries, veins, and nerves form a continuum, see Pagel 1979: 201, n. 12; 204 ff. 15  The illusration provided by Dolce is  in part similar to that of    Gregor Reisch’s Margarita Philosophica (1503). For the description of  the sensus communis see Dolce 1565, fols  69r–v: ‘Il senso comune è potenza sensitiva inte­ riore, la quale apprende la spetie de’ sensibili a lei mandati, che si dimo­strano a i sensi particolari, cioè esteriori, e le appresenta alla fantasia. Il suo oggetto

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Fig. 7. Lodovico Dolce, Somma di tutta la filosofia d’Aristotele (Ve­nice 1565). Layout of  the external and internal senses. Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense.

appears, the internal senses, localized in the brain, are housed in the ventricles, and their activity requires a material substrate.16 Left out of   Dolce’s inquiry are both the faculty of   the intellect

è qualunque passibile e sensibile qualità: cioè qualità del tatto, colore, suono, sapore, e odore. Le specie delle qualità ritratte e moltiplicate, sono mandate per i sensi esteriori, come per sistole e canali, al cervello, ove è il senso comune e il ventricolo dinanzi del cervello: al cui cervello i Medici danno tre cellette, overo ventricoli, o picciole pelli capaci. Il qual ventricolo dinanzi ha humi­dità maggiore: onde è acconcio a ricever qualunque spetie, come la cera più age­vol­ mente riceve le forme; quando è più tenera.’ 16  On the history of    the cerebral localization of   the mental faculties, see the now-classic Pagel 1958 and Rocca 2003: 245–247. For an iconographic sampling and an updated bibliography on this topic, see Clarke and Dewhurst 1996, esp. 8–73 and Appendix I, 177 ff.

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(cogitativa) and that of   judgment (aestimativa) – even though both do appear in the illustrations – since, to an Aristotelian mind, these are faculties proper to the rational soul, and as such they do not admit of  any dependence on the material substrate. In the Galenic tradition, the materiality of   these two faculties is  instead recovered: an analysis of   the internal senses is  possible only through the external ones,17 and in this sense the head’s outer shape is  essential to an assessment of   what is inside, the brain, making it possible to establish a binding correlation between the mental faculties and the volumetry of   the cranium.18 This description, which to all intents and purposes is  physiognomical, entails a  distinction between the capacities of   man and those of   animals and, in humans, a distinction between individuals endowed with ingenuity (ingenium) and those who lack this faculty.

The Relation between the Whole and Its Parts Among physicians, however, there were also those who rejected the localizationist principle, pointing out the complexity and systematic organisation of  vital phenomena. The Frenchman Nicholas de Nancel (1539–1610),19 took Galen to task in an invective, De immortalitate animae, velitatio adversus Galenum (Paris 1587), that also collects other   Huarte 1594(b): 51–53.   Galen, AM, K I, 320,15–321,4. 19  There is  not much that is  known about Nicholas de Nancel. He  was born in 1539 in Tracy le Mont, a  small town between Noyon and Soissons, and attended the Collège de Presles in Paris. Here he also studied under Petrus Ramus, who recommended him to the same school as a  teacher of   classical languages. In 1565 he took a degree in medicine, going on to practice in Soissons and especially in Tours. Christina Savino, Savino 2011: 57, further points out that, he served as personal physician to Éléonore de Bourbon. In 1587 he became physician in residence at Fontevraud Abbey, where he died in 1610. He fathered a son who edited the posthumous publication of  his magnum opus, the Analogia microcosmi ad macrocosmon, which came out in Paris in 1611. On Nancel’s biography, see Chalmers 1812: vol. 23, 2; on the relation between Nancel and Ramus, see Waddington 1855, and for a quick glance at his position as physician, French 1994: 221–22. Not unlike the De immortalitate animae, even this short opuscle failed to engage the interest of  historians. Passing references to Nancel’s Quaestiones, most of  them striking a critical note, can nonetheless be found in French 1994: 221–22, and in Stevens 1997: 272. 17 18

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Fig. 8. Nicholas De Nancel, De immortalitate animae, velitatio adversus Galenum (Paris 1587). Frontispiece. Paris, Bibliothèque Saint-­Geneviève.

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quaestiones on the seat of   the soul (An sedes animae in cerebro? An in corde? Aut ubi denique est?), criticizing the arbitrary extension of  the localizationist principle to the functions of  the soul. Indeed, ‘the soul is entirely distributed in the whole body’ (anima est tota in toto corpore), and it cannot be identified with any of  the bodily elements. Nancel therefore rejects the Galenic thesis that equates the soul with innate heat.20 More generally, the tripartition of   the soul subscribed to by Galen points not to a real distinction among vital principles but only to a specification of   them, one that vicariously takes place at different sites (liver and brain) but that ultimately streams up from the heart. Indeed, any more granular localization of   the psychical functions would fall subject to a  sorites-type paradox, making it impossible to establish a direct relation between part and function.21 Galen’s functional polycentrism, in fine, is criticized as well for adopting the criterion of   anthropological continuity between man and animal, a criterion that works against any belief  and hope of   otherworldly rewards.22 For this reason, in the closing part of   the velitatio, Galen’s thought is ascribed to a camp inclusive of  libertines, Sadducees, and atheists.23 Not dissimilar to Nancel’s invective is the quaesitum set out by the Sicilian physician Marcello Capra (fl. c. 1510–1590) 24 in the opuscle De sede animae et mentis ad Aristotelis principia adversus Galenum (Palermo 1589). Here the problem proceeds

20  Nancel 1587a: chap. 1, c.  1v: ‘At enimvero, ideone calorem ascititium hunc, ergo malum quendam genium; illum vero nativum calorem, angelum quendam, sive bonum genium, vel Deum denique tutelarem aliquem atque ἀλεξίκακον, vel ipsam adeo cum Galeno medico (nam et Zeno, animam, esse ignem putavit) animam hominis esse dicam? Absit, inquam, ab homine Christiano tam impia cogitatio.’ In presenting Galen’s thesis, Nancel also uses terms like praecipitium, barathrum (Epistola, c.  4r), and scandalum (Conclusio, c. 51r). 21  Ibid., chap. 1, c. 2v. 22   Ibid., cc. 3v and 18r. 23  Ibid., c. 51r. 24 Marcello Capra studied medicine under Giovanni Battista da Monte and Gabriele Falloppia, out of   which experience grew his distinctly Paduan interest in problems of   general physiology and psychology. The  biography on Capra is  not too detailed, but for an introduction see Pitré 1942: 52 and 59; Garin 1966: 571; the entry ‘Marcello Capra’ in Gliozzi 1976; and Dol­lo 1984: 96, 113.

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Fig. 9. Marcello Capra, De sede animae et mentis (Palermo 1589). Frontispiece. Rome, Biblioteca Alessandrina.

from the distinction between ‘the soul’, understood as a  vital principle subject to generation and corruption (quaesitum de sede animae) and ‘the mind’, understood as the guiding principle of  the cosmos, immaterial, immortal, and eternal (quaesi81

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tum de sede mentis).25 The discussion therefore proceeds along two tracks. Unlike the mind, the soul is amenable to extension (extensio), for it is coextensive with the body in its entirety, but not to localization. It is nonetheless endowed with a ‘primacy’ (principatum), that is, an organ in which it naturally resides (sedes naturalis), with which it is  coupled (copulatur), and thanks to which it fulfils and develops all the functions proper to the organism:26 it is the heart, which is not only the source of   vital heat and of   the spirits, but also the first to be generated and to manifest its activity as the origin of   the organism. As  demonstrated in experiments in which arteries and nerves are tied, the soul tends to rebuild any link which has been interrupted or suppressed, and which therefore cannot be severed into parts. Indeed, organs whose connection to the heart is interrupted will become torpid or malfunctioning.27 By comparison with the heart, the brain presents itself  quasi excrementum et pondus iners.28 Furthermore, it does not seem essential to life and does not have any sensation of   its own, a view that entails a firm rejection of  some medical experiences, especially with regard to vivisections: Anatomists furthermore tie a dog, giving instructions to cut the thorax very quickly. They then tie four chambers of   the heart and remove it, at which point they set the dog loose, which cries and runs. […] These sorts of   escape routes are worthless, in the first place because the experiences these anatomists relate are decidedly uncertain, and in large part they may even be false. […]  Indeed, men will sometimes live even after a  part of   the brain has been removed from   Capra 1589: 1: ‘Disputaturus (ut ad Peripateticum pertinet) de animae sede. Quoniam una aeterna, ut in nostro quaesito demonstravimus: altera mortalis. Quibus non eodem modo sedes convenit. Propterea ut lucidior sit explicatio agam primo de sede animae quae interitui est obnoxia. Mox agam de sede mentis: hoc est illius partis quae venit deforis, et post corporis dissolutionem remanet superstes.’ 26  Ibid., 12. 27   Ibid., 8: ‘Et authoritatibus, et rationibus confirmare possumus. Et primo nos conspiciamus quod si a  corde ad reliquas particulas claudatur iter, aliae partes vitae privantur: nam et motu et sensu distincte conspiciuntur. Ut in obstructionibus, in epilepsia in ligationibus servare licet. Id minime eveniret si anima esset tota in quavis parte.’ 28  Ibid., 21. 25

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them, and animals have often been seen walking even headless. Furthermore, the lineaments of  the embryo are shaped before the brain is formed and when the heart is generated the embryo perceives and, if  is  pricked, it will contract, which instead will not yet happen to the brain.29

Yet the important role the brain plays as the seat of  thought is in part recovered in the closing section of   the opuscule, under the heading de sede mentis; here Capra argues that, even though the brain is  not the seat of   the rational soul, it is  used by the soul as its tool. The solution offered to this quaestio thus consists in postulating a twofold coupling between body and soul: the first, effected according to nature (copulatio et sedes naturalis), takes place in the heart; the second, effected operationally (copulatio et sedes operationis), takes place in a secondary organ like the brain, although Capra acknowledges that the brain is the site of  functions like phantasia and thus, by synecdoche, of   those of   the intellect.30 In keeping with this distinction, Capra defends that 29  Ibid., 23 ‘Insuper Anatomici quidam canem ligant, et secare iubent citissime toracem. Mox ligant quatuor vasa cordis. Et cor eximunt, deinde solvunt canem qui vociferat, et currit. […] Evasiones hae nullae sunt: et primo quae ab eis referuntur valde sunt dubia, et fortasse magna ex parte falsa. […] Vivunt enim nonnunquam homines quibus aliquid cerebri detractum fuit. Et avulso capite saepe progredi conspecta sunt animalia. Insuper informationes embrionis genito corde ante quam sit cerebrum productum, sentit embrio et si pungitur contrahitur. Non tamen adhuc cerebrum habet.’. 30  Ibid., 38–39: ‘Sed me conferens ad quaesiti dissolutionem considerandum quod quicunque ex Peripateticis animam omnem ortui atque interitui obnoxiam esse afferunt, veluti censuit Alexander, absolute dicere deberent totius animae sedem esse cor. Et ideo Alexander in[n]ixus suis fundamentis id asseruit. Qui vero contra, aeternam dicunt esse mentem, isti censent quod ut duplici coppulatione nobis iungitur, una per naturam, altera per operationem nobis coppularetur. Quoniam ea efficitur in cerebro tunc dicendum quod cererbum est sedes mentis. Si vero ei duplicem asserimus convenire coppulationem; tunc duplici quoque modo probatum est ei sedem convenire, unam per naturam, alteram per operationem. Per naturam iungitur animae eo praesertim loco ubi opera perficiuntur, et ad hunc sensum erunt istae conclusiones verae, videlicet. 1. Conclusio. Menti non convenit sedes. Haec vera est ea ratione qua diximus. quod mens a corpore, vel corporis partibus non dependet, nec organo particulari eget. 2. Conclusio. Cerebrum est sedes mentis. Haec est vera non ratione dependentiae sed ratione operationis. Nam in cerebro perficiuntur opera imaginativae. Haec autem est ministra intellectus. 3. Conclusio. Cor est sedes mentis. Haec est vera ratione coppulationis intellectus nobiscum quae nuncupatur coppulatio per naturam. 4.  Conclusio. Cor est praecipua animae sedes. Sedes inquam virtutis. 5.  Conclusio. Cererbum est sede operantis ani-

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experiments involving the tying of  arteries and nerves ultimately do not support the localizationist thesis: these procedures indicate not the origin of  a faculty but the seat where it operates. Both Nancel and Capra seem to highlight also another aspect of   the comparison between Galenism and Aristotelianism, namely, the order in which the vital organs appear in the embryo (quaestio de principatu partium) and the question of  the essence of  the natural faculties (quaestio de essentia facultatuum naturalium).

Vexatae quaestiones The question of   the order in which the vital organs make their appearance in the embryo received much emphasis in the late sixteenth century. It bears a direct relation to the principle of  the tripartite soul and, like the questions previously discussed, it originated out of  an essentially empirical problem. In the De semine, Galen upheld the Aristotelian theory of  generation, but then, in the De foetuum formatione, he revisited his position by identifying the liver as the first organ to be generated, a conclusion he was led to in view of   the liver’s greater increase in size relative to the other organs in the first months of   the embryo’s life, when the liver also serves a  haematopoietic function.31 This was a decisive factor in attributing mae, et operationum. 6. Conclusio. Animae sedes sunt spiritus, cum sint quasi vehiculum facultatum, eiusque commune instrumentum. 7.  Conclusio. Tota humana species est sedes mentis, proprie tamen homo sapiens. 8. Conclusio. Imaginativa est sedes mentis. 9. Conclusio. Cor essentialiter, et intrinsece est praestantius membrum quam cererbum. 10.  Conclusio. Cerebrum accidentaliter, et extrinsece est divinissimum membrum. 11.  Conclusio. Sed cum aeternum aeterno coppulari debeat dicendum, Deum esse sedem mentis. Quoniam in eo solo conquiescimus et in ultimo fine supernaturali. [Per infinita saecula saeculorum. Amen].’ 31  Confirmation of this thesis was claimed to derive from the dissection of aborted foetuses, in which the liver, at roughly the thirtieth day after conception, was observed to be larger than both the heart and the brain. Galen, FF, K IV, 662,16–663,7: ‘ἔν γε μὴν ταῖς ὑπὲρ τὰς τριάκονθ’ ἡμέρας τῶν ἐμβρύων ἐκτρώσεσιν ἐγγὺς ἀλλήλων σαφῶς φαίνεται τὰ τρία ταῦτα τοῦ ζώου μόρια, τό θ’ ἧπαρ καὶ ἡ καρδία καὶ ὁ ἐγκέφαλος, μεῖζον μὲν ἀμφοῖν τῶν ἑτέρων τὸ ἧπαρ, ἀπολειπόμενα δ’ αὐτοῦ πάμπολυ κατὰ μέγεθος ἥ τε καρδία καὶ ὁ ἐγκέφαλος. οὐ μὴν ὁπηνίκα γε πρώτη ἡ καρδία τὴν ἀρχὴν τῆς διαπλάσεως ἔχει, δυνατὸν εὑρεῖν· αἵ τε γὰρ ἀμβλώσεις αἱ κατὰ τὸν πρῶτον

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to it a ‘primacy’ (principatus) in the process of   natural generation; after all, in Galenic medicine this organ was already felt to be particularly important as the origin of  the veins and the seat of   the appetitive soul, which was thought to control the functions of  nutrition and growth and – on a moral plane – the primary impulses. Galen’s position, therefore, brought into being a  contraposition with Aristotelian cardiocentrism, and at the same time suggested profound anthropological consequences. The  centrality that Galen accorded to the liver signalled not only a primacy of   blood, food, and heat over the function that Aristotle assigned to the heart (that is  a  primacy of   raw matter over a  complex directive function), but also an emphatic revaluation of   the instinctual, and hence irrational, component of   the individual.32 From this point of   view, physiological polycentrism makes a clean break with the Aristotelian and Stoic cardiocentric tradition, where the heart is placed in a position of   logico-ontological superiority with respect to the other organs: when this link is broken – as we have seen in the previous chapter  – it  is  the selfsame concept of   essence that falls into crisis, diffracted into that of   the multiple faculties of   the body. What solidifies this crisis is the theoretical impasse that Galen decrees by rejecting the existence of  a single essence presiding over the manifestation of   the different natural faculties. The problem of  establishing such an essence spills over beyond μῆνα γιγνόμεναι σαφὲς οὐδὲν διδάσκουσιν, ἥ τ’ ἐπὶ τῶν ὁμοίων ἀνθρώποις ζώων ἀνατομὴ κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον οὐδ’ αὐτή τι δηλοῖ βέβαιον, ἔστ’ ἂν ἀδιάρθρωτον ᾖ τὸ κύημα.’ 32  This aspect of Galen’s anatomo-physiology has been clearly highlighted by Paola Manuli, who has noticed the incongruities that come about when Aristotelian psychology is overlaid on Platonic psychology, Manuli–Veget­ti 1977: 164: ‘That biology could interfere in psychology, and vice  versa, was regarded by Galen as a natural possibility, and indeed as necessary, but it does engender some paradoxical effects when the Platonic image of the body is overlaid with the Aristotelian image. […] Another rather curious effect, showing even more clearly how the Aristotelian language (which is functional) does not sit well at all with the Platonic language (which is psychological), arises out of the correspondence that gets established between the liver as a vegetable and the Platonic comparison of the epithymetikon to a wild animal (De usu, IV, 13; cf.  Timaeus 70e). While the Platonic “animal” winds up coinciding with the Aristotelian “vegetable,” we now see that this time, through the help of  Homer, the epithymetikon also includes the erotike epithymia among its manifestations.’ My translation.

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the compass of   medicine proper as a  form of   rational knowledge: it therefore lacks scientific import and as such belongs to the domain of   ‘probable’ (πιθανὸν).33 In nature, then, it is possible only to establish a link of   constant and necessary causality between functions and faculties, but not to inquire into the inherent essence of   these functions, which remains a  task for philosophy: [t]o the medici we entrust the limbs to be cured, to the philosophi we leave the task of   speculating on and investigating the most concealed secrets of  human nature […].34 33  A firsthand account of this core tenet of the Galenic epistemology comes, once more, from Eustachio Rudio, Rudio 1611: 18–19, who in this regard faithfully quotes Galen, SFN [=  PP] K IV, 761,10–763,1: ‘In this spectrum I hold a position that in truth is intermediate. Indeed, on other doctrines I am used to passing judgment in a more conclusive way, either because I have understood what in them is true or because I take nothing as certain. In the things I have just recalled, I can certainly reach a degree of probability, taking the view that the best thing is to proceed as I have done on those other occasions, taking sides on these questions according to the way in which it seems to be that things stand. In  this way, and unlike what others do, I  do not convince myself that I have attained an accurate understanding in matters for which, contrary to what such an understanding would require, I have no demonstration. In regard to all these arguments I will therefore say that they are not useful in curing the body, nor are they useful in improving the moral virtues of the soul, but that they would nonetheless stand us in very good stead if we could gain a knowledge of them like the kind we have of those notions in medicine and moral philosophy that are taken as absolute and clear. Such knowledge I believe to be useful, and think that it can be acquired by anyone who should devote themselves to the study of such disciplines. […] I cannot, however, with certainty say whether or not there exists an immortal soul that, in combination with corporeal substances, governs animals […].’ On the concept of ‘probable’ and its place in Galen’s philosophy the reader is once more referred to Chia­ra­don­na 2014. 34  Jordanus 1567: 8–9, the Latin original in its broader context: ‘Actiones a facultatibus haud aliter quam effectus a propriis causis dependent, hae vero a  temperamento, quod vel est ipsa anima, vel instrumentum animae immediatum. Quae cum ita sese habent quomodo eadem mutua affinitate sibi cohaerentia divellimus? Quo consilio continuam seriem, causarumque cum effectibus sibi invicem perpetuo succedentium, firmam connexionem salvis naturae legibus separabimus? Dum curatrices partes medicis delegamus, speculandi vero munus, naturaeque humanae secretiora philosophis indaganda relinquimus. Qua quaeso ratione curam phrenitidi, melancholiae, memoriaeque amissae instituemus, nisi nobis liquido constiterit, tam phantasiam, quam componendi dividendique vim, una cum iudicio, et memoria appetituque voluntario, necnon motu locali animae functiones esse? Amentiae sive delirii ipsemet Galenus plures tradit differentias, ubi nimirum imaginatio laesa est,

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So wrote the Austrian physician Thomas Jordanus (1539–85) in his introductory lecture to the Quod animi mores, additionally remarking that, [a]n expert and judicious physician observes actions, deduces the faculties that may be involved, and measures the temperament, but should not go any further, venturing with greater curiosity to inquire into the essence of  the soul, for this is a question that falls outside the boundaries and limits of  his profession […].35

While holding in check the unwanted Aristotelian spillover from physics to metaphysics, Galen’s denial of   the possibility of   reaching the essence of   natural phenomena gave rise to numerous concerns and objections, sometimes even among physicians themselves. Despite Galen claims that ignoring the essence of   the soul neither devalues medical practice nor undermines the precepts of   moral philosophy, this limitation was, on occasion, met with a  sense of   embarrassment. In  an attempt to set the question to rights, Rudio offered a  general casuistry of   Galen’s positions, here outlined in summary as follows: 3 positive theses under which the soul is equated with a) innate heat; b) an internal breath (vital air), or pneuma; c) the temperament c1) of  the body; c2) of  its main parts;

alias ratiocinatio vel discursus vim persentiscit, interdum reminescentiae noxa illata est: quae cum distincta sint animae officia, quibus usa praesidiis eiusmodi obeat munia nisi probe et ad amussim animae perspecta essentia frustra docere laborabimus.’ 35  Ibid., 10: ‘Porro medicum artificem quippe sensatum actiones intueri, facultates illinc colligere, temperamentum metiri, neque ultra progrediendo animae essentiam curiosius mirari ut pote rem extra fines sive limites suae professionis constitutam debere dixeris: facile id quoque concessero, a medico instituto alienissimas esse disputationes quae de immortalitate animae habentur, tum etiam an ea denuo creetur, an una omnibus sit, vel ut plures formae ita plures animae, an ubi corpore excesserit superstes maneat, an propagatione parentum educatur a  materia, vel formato iam corpori extrinsecus illabatur. Haec sane ad medicum primario non spectant, sed nobilioris sunt contemplationis.’

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1 disjunctive thesis under which the soul either depends on the temperament of  the relative organ or uses this temperament as it would be an instrument; 1 negative thesis under which there are no faculties other than those deriving from the action of  innate heat.36

Despite the plurality of  approaches that can be observed here, all the theses just outlined seem to conform to a criterion requiring a physical analysis of   vital processes. Consistent with the alternative put forward in the De elementis ex Hippocrate – where, as we have seen, sensation either emerges from matter by alteration or co-exists with it and coordinates the association of   elements – the Galenic theses that would become dominant in the Renaissance were those equating the soul with temperament and/or with innate heat. Because this latter hypothesis could be generalized to a greater extent, in that the temperament is none other than a particular degree of  heat in the body, it would follow a course of  independent philosophical development.

Innate Heat The nature of  innate heat (calidum innatum, σύμφυτον θερμὸν) is perhaps the last of  the big questions that engaged the Renaissance debate between medici and philosophi. Here the common theoretical background lies in the importance this factor takes on in activating and sustaining the main processes of   the organism; after all, even Hippocrates in the De carnibus considered innate heat ‘an immortal substance, capable of   know36  The table is based on Rudio 1611, 3: ‘Nihilo tamen minus millies atque millies Medicos et Philosophos nostrorum temporum illi exprobrare audivi, et  hoc unum vitio verti, quod videlicet, quid sit anima, se prorsus ignorare fateatur: et cum de eius quidditate, sive essentia, vel substantia, ei incidit sermo, modo cum Hippocrate innatum calorem, modo cum Stoicis insitum spiritum, modo opinatur corporis, aut praecipuarum partium temperamentum esse, aut huic temperamento inservire, aut uti, et interdum nullam aliam vim calore ingenito superiorem agnoscere. Et hac de causa subinde a nonnullis parum prudens habetur, et de inscitia, levitate, atque inconstantia notatur, et redarguitur.’

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ing and perceiving all phenomena’,37 a thesis that Galen in his De tremore, palpitatione, convulsione et rigore liber would make his own.38 As had been the case in ancient physiology, the question was developed in original ways in the sixteenth century, and the premises of   this development can be traced back to the reform of  the Galenic pneumatology undertaken by Giovanni Argenterio (1513–72). A homogeneous substance – warm, fluid, volatile, and essentially conveyed by the blood – pneuma (πνεῦμα, spiritus) was thought to result from the interaction of   inhaled air with certain processes of  the organism, foremost among which were the pulsation of   the heart and the arteries.39 In keeping with the localizationist principle by which the Galenic tradition is distinguished, three types of   pneuma were thought to exist, localized in the three main organs: natural pneuma (πνεῦμα φυσικὸν) in the liver, vital pneuma (πνεῦμα ζωτικὸν) in the heart, and psychic pneuma (πνεῦμα ψυχικὸν) in the brain. Although the existence of   natural pneuma may have been a topic of  controversy, for Galen did not explicitly recognize it, the theory of  the three spirits was passed on to the Middle Ages and hence to the Renaissance as a positive legacy of  Galenism. In the De somno et vigilia (Florence 1556), Argenterio took up the principles of   classical pneumatology but revised them in a  way that, while not making any experimental contribution, highlighted the weak points of  the Galenic system and the need to integrate it with precepts of   Aristotelian lineage, foremost among which was the need for a  single principle governing the animal. According to Argenterio, there is but one pneuma, the vital pneuma, that assumes different names and functions depending on its interactions with the parts of   the organism concerned in the activity at hand, a model on the physiological plane which takes up the Aristotelian doctrine of  the centrality of  the heart as a source of  vital heat.  Hippocrates, CN, chap. 2 (= Littré 584).   Galen, TPCR, K VII, 616,4–15. 39  On the formation and importance of   innate heat in Galenic physiology, see Durling 1988, and, more extensively, Siegel 1968, 167. 37 38

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An investigation of  pneuma and the sleep-wake cycle, however, entails an investigation of  innate heat, which is the property and medium common to all the functions of   the body, including sensation.40 Argenterio took up the theories set out in Galen’s De tremore, palpitatione, convulsione et rigore liber and the Adversus Lycum, faulting Galen for treating the topic in a  confused and cursory manner.41 Innate or native heat (calidum innatum seu nativum) is a body that differs from the simple quality of   heat (calor); it originally resides in seed and blood, and is  always associated with radical moisture (humidum radicale). Argenterio distinguishes four meanings or species of   such heat: (i) innate heat proper; (ii) a warm substance (substantia calida) present in the parts of   the body after it has developed; (iii) an influent heat (calidum influens), resulting from the union of   blood and pneuma, and which is  sent out from the heart to the periphery of  the body by way of  the arteries and veins; and finally (iv)  the union of   innate and influent heat.42 Among the most interesting aspects of  Argenterio’s observations is his engagement with, and accentuation of, the Galenic distinction between essence and instrument. Which is to say that, even as a common denominator to every activity of   the organism, innate heat cannot be identified with the essence of   the vital faculty, which as such is a divine creation knowable only by God; physicians and, more in general, natural philosophers can only gain access to the phenomenal plane of  the instrumentum through which this essence operates.43 As much as Argenterio’s reform did endow the Galenic doctrine with greater positivity and coherence, his distinction 40   See Argenterio 1556: 28–30. On  Argenterio’s reform of   physiology, Siraisi 1990: 165–75. 41  Argenterio 1556: 49. 42  Ibid., 64. 43  Ibid., 58: ‘Validae quidem sunt facultates corporis, quando insita substantia, in qua ipsae resident, plurima est, optimeque est affecta influens, quo alia fovetur, utiturque tamquam in instrumento omnis animae, et corporis facultas. Vitalis facultatis essentia calor nullus, nullumque calidum corpus est; quandoquidem omnis facultas est animae et formae, quae ex propria et nobis ignota essentia, diversa a  caloris natura, a  summo rerum opifice acceperunt: alioqui qua eiusdem temperamenti, aequalisque caloris censentur esse, eandem formam et vim obtinerent.’

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between substance and essence worked against some trends in Galenism itself, and in particular against the view that the material essence of  the soul can be identified as heat, which position was defended not only by a traditionalist like Rudio but also by a  more innovative philosopher like Telesio. This latter identification, in turn, stood in contradiction to some fundamental assumptions of   Aristotelian physics. Indeed, for Aristotle, heat was a quality, not a substance, and so could only be one among several concauses in the natural process of   generation, whose opposite polarities were matter and potentiality, on the one hand, and form and act, on the other. In this sense, the contraposition between Aristotle and Galen essentially hinged on the nature of   heat, on its essence and corporeality, two questions that feature prominently in the polemic that in the early seventeenth century engaged Cesare Cremonini (1550–1631) and Pompeo Caimo (1568–1631).

A Late-Renaissance Polemic: Cesare Cremonini and Pompeo Caimo In the Apologia dictorum Aristotelis de calido innato adversus Galenum (Venice 1626), Cremonini took up the theory of  innate heat in Aristotelian terms in an effort to neutralize its subversive implications. The  Italian philosopher laid emphasis in particular on the physiology of   plants and on the existence in them of   a principle analogous to animals’ innate heat. From a Galenic perspective, innate heat is a body composed by seed and menstruus (corpus concretum ex semine et mestruo) and it should not be present in plants, which are devoid of  both components.44 However, this contradicts the generally held principle according to which the whole of   the animate world requires innate heat for its generation, and thus Galen’s theory needs to be revised. According to Cremonini, Galen’s main error consists in holding that innate heat is an elementary and primigenial body, whereas it is necessary to consider the func44  Cremonini 1626: 74–75. Shortly before that, on page 70, innate heat is also defined as ‘substantia concreta ex prima coniunctione seminis et sanguinis mestrui.’

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Fig. 10. Cesare Cremonini, Apologia dictorum Aristotelis de calido innato (Venice 1626). Frontispiece. Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale ‘Vittorio Emanuele II’.

tion it serves in the composition of   natural entities (or mixed bodies, corpora mixta). Indeed, the so-called ‘agential qualities’ (hot/cold) do not remain changeless when they combine with the ‘complementary qualities’ (dry/humid), but remit their intensity, giving rise to a  new form that constitutes a  condi92

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Fig. 11. Pompeo Caimo, De calido innato libri tres (Venice 1626). Frontispiece. Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale ‘Vittorio Emanuele II’.

tionally necessary state of   matter.45 Each state in turn marks a stage in a process that is overseen by the form and proceeds by degrees of   increasing complexity until the embryo’s heart   Ibid., 8–11.

45

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is  formed, which organ is  the only true source of   heat in the animal organism.46 It therefore does not make sense to hold that innate heat preexists and is  separate from the dynamic combination of  the other elemental qualities: innate heat coincides with temperamental heat, and, as such, it always turns out to be proportionate to the temperament of   the bodily parts.47 Cre­mo­nini thus rejected the arguments advanced by Galen in the Adversus Lycum, where the amount of   innate heat is  considered to be greater in the young than in adults, not depending  on the development of   the organs but rather preceding it.48 This line of   criticism was taken up by the Galenist Pompeo Caimo, who in the same year published the De calido innato libri tres (Venice 1626). This voluminous work is an attempt to summate not only Aristotelianism and Galenism but also the whole of  the literature on the topic of  innate heat. Caimo rejected the view that the essence of   the soul lies in innate heat, but he did acknowledge its substantiveness as an ‘instrument of   the form and the soul’ (organum formae et animae).49 The objections raised by Cremonini – who is never explicitly mentioned – are addressed most concentratedly in the third book, although their solution is developed with continuity throughout the arc of  the treatise. Caimo addresses in the first place the attempt to

46  Ibid., 14–15: ‘Tertium dictum de varietate mistorum, in animatis, quae necessario inducti varietatem temperamenti, et caloris, qui sit calor temperamenti, unde videbitur non posse esse unum calorem, et unum mistum animarum, non est difficile resolvere, quia sicuti partes ille sic diversae simul proportionatur ad unum animatum constituendum sub una tantum forma, quae est anima, ita illi calores temperamentorum sub qua tota illa consitutio essentialiter est ordinata.’ On the role of   the heart, Ibid., 23–24: ‘Ventriculus facit unam coctionem, hepar ulteriorem, cor exactam, inde autem ad partes distribuitur nutrimentum, quod debet partibus assimilari per actionem proprii caloris. Tertium unum est considerandum, quod calor temperamenti in animatis est varius in variis partibus varie temperatis, cum tamen animatum sit unum, oportet huic calori attribuere aliquam unitatem, et ideo oportuit in perfectis animalibus adesse cor, quod sua actione sanguinem, et spiritum faciat, quos transmittat ad partes rationes usus, qui dicendus erit.’ 47  Ibid., 15–16. 48  Ibid., 72–84. 49  Caimo 1626: 30: ‘[…] et calidum est organum formae elementaris, est organum animae operantis […].’

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equate innate and temperamental heat, claiming that in mixed bodies in which heat does not prevail by reason of  its intensity (ratione gradibus et intensione), it nonetheless prevails by reason of   its overseeing the association of   the elemental components (ratione regiminis et directione).50 Innate heat is therefore an autonomous substance whose action preexists that of   the other elemental qualities. In  general, Caimo contends, it will also be necessary to distinguish two kinds of  innate heat: inherent and influent. The  former can also exist in plants in a  way that is analogous (proportionale) to what happens in animals. These two kinds of  heat furthermore exist as two aspects of  the same phenomenon: innate heat in animals initially presents itself  in the seed as an oily and moist corpuscle, but once the heart is  formed it subsists wherever moisture and fluidity are present.51 Every part of   the body thus partakes of   heat and life, such that innate heat in all its different forms can be considered an animal substance.52 In regard to this last point, concerning the comparative amount of   heat in the young and the elderly, Caimo objects to Cremonini that the former are more humid than the latter and need more nourishment, concluding on this basis that they need a greater proportion of   innate heat insofar as nourishment and humidity are indispensable components of  inherent and influent heat.53 At issue in the polemic between Cremonini and Caimo is, once more, the role of   form in the natural process of   generation. Whereas Cremonini conceives heat as a subordinate quality subject to the dynamic of  elemental bodies, Caimo reiterates that heat is endowed with an autonomy enabling it to oversee all vital phenomena: ergo, heat is a primal, elemental, and substantive component of   life, replacing Aristotelian essence with a concrete organic form. Set in opposition, then, are two competing visions of   natural generation, the former understood as a  process ad quem, the latter as a  process a  quo. This second vision lays less emphasis on recourse to a final cause, or at least   Ibid., 37.   On this point see Durling 1988. 52  Caimo 1626: 428. 53  Ibid., 114. 50 51

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it does not clearly frame generation within any grand metaphysical scheme.

Medicine for the Soul and Treatment for the Passions Just as the Aristotelian essential bond was significantly inverted in explaining natural phenomena, so it was in moral inquiry, where Galenic physiology embraced the complex sphere of   the passions of  the soul. In this matter Galen had proceeded coherently with the premises of   his natural philosophy, which, as previously discussed, was based on localizationism as well as on the thesis of   the continuity between man and animal. Following Plato,54 Galen held that the passions were distinct and opposite movements of   the soul, and that they could therefore indicate the corresponding parts of   the body from which they originated. With this reprising of   Platonism, however, also came a reprising of   the most distinctly naturalistic themes of   Aristotelian ethics. Indeed, it had been Aristotle who characterized the passions of   the soul as ‘reasons inseparable from their material substratum’ (τὰ πάθη λόγοι ἔνυλοί εἰσιν) and who envisioned the prospect of  pharmacological treatment as a valid moral corrective.55 From this synthesis there emerges a substantially pessimistic moral philosophy in which the human being, subject to the sway of   irrational instincts, is incapable of   exercising control over the passions on their own and thus needs an external overseer. What is  more, in the process of   identifying this figure, the already strong naturalistic component of   Galenic ethics becomes increasingly rigid, so much so that, if  in the De  cuiuslibet peccatorum dignotione et curatione this role can still be filled by a friend or any trustworthy person, in the Quod animi mores it is already entrusted to the physician. The  upshot of   this progression is  that the concept of   passion winds up being significantly overlaid with that of  pathology, in such a way that, depending on the subjects involved and on the type and degree of   their ‘moral pathology’, the therapy can be   Plato, RsP, 439a  ff.   Aristotle, An., 403a,24–25; EE, 1214b,28–1215a,2.

54 55

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fashioned on either a  psychological/moral basis or a  pharmacological basis, the latter model being the one to which preference is  accorded in the Quod animi mores. The  argument on which this choice hinges is that, if  those who are educated may benefit from a mild moral corrective, those who are uneducated need a pharmaceutical treatment, which can, in turn, be a prerequisite for a  proper moral upbringing and education. Such a treatment can, in any event, keep in check what has become an untameable force of  passion. Given its preparatory character, the treatment of   temperament will therefore, in a constant and necessary manner, be tied to a  psychological treatment of   the passions. An example of  this twofold approach to the passions can be found in two works concerned with a similar topic, namely, the De compescendis animi affectibus (Basel 1562) by Lui­gi Lui­sini, and the De atra bile quoad mores attinet (Paris 1641), by Sci­ pione Chiaramonti (1565–1652). The  time lag between these two works may at first sight seem surprising, but it will be less so if  one considers that the De atra bile was actually written in 1597, only later to be published at the initiative of  Gabriel Naudé (1600–1653), an active promoter of   Italian culture in  Paris.56 Lui­sini’s small treatise is surely the more original and interesting of  the two, and, owing in part to its widespread circulation, it may have served as a model for Chiaramonti’s work.57 Despite the theoretical contiguity, the two authors differ in their approach to the Galenic psychology: whereas the former espouses the theses advanced in the De placitis and the Quod animi mores – with the single exception of   the thesis of   the mortality of   the soul –, the latter uncompromisingly rejects any notion of   a causal link between temperament and character, instead proceeding along the lines of  a reasoned exposition of  the Pseudo-Aristotelian Problema XXX. From this difference in approaches it is  possible to appreciate also the specificity of   Galen’s stance in the matter of   ethics and the development of  this stance in the late sixteenth century.   See Chiaramonti 1641: 215, bearing the date 13 March 1597.  Medicine was indeed a  field with which Chiaramonti must have had a certain familiarity, considering that his father was a physician. 56 57

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Fig. 12. Luigi Luisini, De compescendis animi affectibus (Basel 1562). Frontispiece. Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale ‘Vittorio Emanuele II’.

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Fig. 13. Scipione Chiaramonti, De atra bile quoad mores attinet (Paris 1641). Frontispiece. Perugia, Biblioteca Comunale Augusta.

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In the three books making up Luisini’s De compescendis animi affectibus, the moral discussion of  the passions is entirely focused upon the needs of   the therapeutic practice: in Book I, Luisini provides an overarching definition of   passion and an exposition of   its kinds, while in Books II and III he addresses their prevention and treatment. It is  noteworthy that of   the three perspectives from which the topic may be addressed – i.e. theological, moral, and medical – Luisini takes only the last two into account, favouring them over the theological insofar as they make it possible to provide explanations cast in strictly natural terms. Indeed, the passions are considered inborn conditions, impossible to uproot but amenable to control,58 and their origin is identified in the intemperantia, an imbalance at once physical and moral. Properly a  disease of   the soul, each passion can thus be treated by way of   a  two-pronged therapy combining a  ‘moral treatment’, based on practical expedients and philosophical precepts, with a ‘medical treatment’, based on the practice of  what were known as the ‘six non-natural factors’ (sex  res non naturales). For instance, the method for preventing a passion like raging wrath (furor) will involve a combination of   practical expedients (e.g. keeping a  safe distance from the wrathful subject, removing from his grasp any tools he may be brandishing, and if  necessary even tying him), while sadness is prevented by inviting the patient to ponder the question of  the non hoc tibi soli, coupling this contemplation with activities such as strolling in parks and sunny places, gratifying the five senses, engaging in pleasing conversation, and taking tonics specific to each of  the main organs.59 The treatment will instead be strictly medical, based on the threefold action of   diet, phlebotomy, and the administration of  drugs. This medical aspect receives much emphasis at the beginning of  Book III, where Luisini insists on the opportunity, and indeed the necessity, of  resorting to pharmaceuticals or to phlebotomy in treating subjects who are prone to excessive passion, even 58  Luisini 1562: 18–19: ‘Rectius itaque tenendum cum Peripateticis arbitror affectus innatos nobis esse, neque evelli omnino posse, sed posse resecari: licet enim primi motus affectuum in manu ac potestate nostra minime sint, adest tamen moderatrix illorum paulo post ratio.’ 59  Ibid., 74–75.

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if  they are reluctant or unwilling to undergo such treatment. This is  why medical therapy needs to be coupled with practical expedients as well as with a subtlety of   intuitive perception – all of   which makes this a valuable handbook of   medical psychology. As Luisini reminds us, in following dietary precepts it is good practice to break up food so as to make it seem more abundant, and also to serve beverages in shallow cups, to isolate the patient from any tablemates so as not to encourage comparisons with what is on their plate, and finally to divert the mind both during and after a meal. The physician should not be taken aback by a patient’s attempts to refuse drugs and, to this end, he should draw on examples from the ancients.60 The two faces of   passion – the moral and the pathological – are thus considered by Luisini as a unified whole from the standpoint of  medical therapy, but from a  general philosophical standpoint they are considered independent. As  much as intemperantia constitutes a common denominator to both, the link is not causal but analogical; passion, in other words, does not originate from an alteration of   the organic substrate but is  rather connected with it. This is a particularly telling view indicative of   the kind of  responses that the Galenic psychology suggested both before and after the publication of   Huarte’s 1575 Examen de ingenios, making it useful to also consider the matter in light of   Chiaramonti’s treatise, where that reaction is already at work. Conceived as a treatment of  the differences (Book I), causes (Book  II), and remedies (Book  III) of   the imbalances pro60 Ibid., 154: ‘A levioribus autem inchoantes, tradere in primis oportet quomodo ita aliquem cum victu tenui detinere possimus, ut non eum moleste ferat. Fit hoc multis modis. Primum quidem, si in minimas partes secuerimus alimenta, quod secata maiorem ambitum occupantia quam si integra sint, plura videbuntur. Dehinc si in vasa plura distribuerimus quae secta fuerint. Fit enim et sic deceptio quaedam. Quod vero ad potum pertinet, quem oportet proportione cibis respondere, debet in vas minus infundi, et poculum quoque quod ori admovendum brevius esse par fuerit. Praeterea seorsum ab aliis parata mensa prandere, ac coenare his consuluerim, qui tenui victu utuntur: etenim minime fieri posset, inspecta aliorum voracitate, qui et ipsi aliquando praescriptos sibi limites praeterirent. Sed nec illud praeter rem foret, ut adesset aliquis, alioqui gratus, qui eos inter comedendum verbis detineret, ut in respondendo occupatos, temporis aliquid conterere faceret, ne ictu oculi (ut aiunt) absumant quae sibi apposita fuerint, et ob id pauca se sumpsisse sentientes contristentur. Cum vero iam absunta eorum omnia, officium istius fuerit, ut de aliis quam ad cibos pertinet, verba fiat.’

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voked by black bile (melancholia, μέλαινα χολή), Chiaramonti’s De atra bile quoad mores attinet is at the same time framed as a  natural complement to the ‘moral semiotics’ outlined in his work on physiognomy De coniectandis cuiusque moribus et latitantibus animi affectibus (Venice 1625). Physiognomy offers a clear indication of   how we ought to understand Chiaramonti’s stance toward the Quod animi mores with which the proem quite sententiously opens: In a  specific book, Galen shows that the traits of   the soul follow the temperaments of   the body. As  much as this is a completely false assumption, in a restricted sense, it may turn out to be true.61

This hard stance seems to be a  response to the radical interpretation Huarte proposed for Galen’s Quod animi mores; an intepretation Chiaramonti seems to know well, although he makes only indirect references to it.62 Unlike Huarte, the power of  the temperaments lies for Chiaramonti in their shaping a  characterial inclination that never coerces any choice of   behaviour: only those who do not educate their disposition become slave to the power of   temperaments. Innate temperaments can, however, work against reason, especially in adolescence, and this is why the De atra bile is entirely devoted to the effects of   black bile, the humor that more than any other can coerce human behaviour. The various passions associated with black bile are set within a general scheme that varies depending on the amount of   the humor itself, its degree of   heat, the kind of   baking (bilis combusta, adusta, incensa), how tenuous or fat it is  (bilis tenuis/ crassa), and its colour (turbulentia/nitor).63 The effects, which 61  Chiaramonti 1641: 1: ‘Galenus in libro peculiari ostendit, mores animi, corporis temperaturam sequi. Quod ut absolute falsum; ita, aliquatenus verum esse constat.’ 62  Ibid., 1641: 17. 63 Ibid., 10–11: ‘Summa itaque est, ex atra bile, pro eius frigiditatis, et caliditatis gradibus, et pro eius copia, immutari partem cognoscentem, intelligentemque. Unde alii stolidi, et insipientes, alii prudentia, et artibus praeclari; alii Sybillae Bacchae, secundum Aristotelem. Non enim Sibyllae verae, ex hac causa extiterunt. Immutatur quoque pars appetens; primaque immutatio, est

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can be either suppressive or generative of   a particular faculty/ behavior, will in turn vary depending on the faculty involved. In the rational faculty, in particular, there may be witlessness or dementia, or again prudence or the ability to excel in the arts, while in the appetitive faculties there may be assuredness or self-confidence, or again fussiness, a spontaneous nastiness, or anxiousness. Associated with each of  the passions so construed is also a particular physiological mechanism: fear, sadness, and pain engender a cooling of  the heart that takes place by suffocation (per suffocationem) and is  the reason why those afflicted by this condition sigh. Envy, that is a pain for the greater wellbeing of  others, gives rise to coldness, and so does mercy, which causes the vapours given off  by the heart to condense at the height of   the eyes, similarly to the process through which rain is formed.64 In all these cases, the physiological effects the passions bring about in the organism are secondary, and the body’s reactions cannot be generated but in response to the motions of   the soul. According to a distinction which was accepted by almost all philosophi, and which is  clearly set out by Cremonini, the action the temperaments exert on a subject gives rise to a phenomenon that cannot be described in terms of  essence but only in terms of   degree. The temperaments and the motions of   the body are therefore responsible not for the springing up of   the passions but for the intensity with which they manifest themselves. In this sense, then, the relation between passion and temperament is the opposite of  the one outlined by Galen, and this is also the reason why the philosopher Chiaramonti proves less securitas animi, et confidentia; contra vero, meticulositas, et molestiae spontaneae, atque angentes animum: [e]x securitate, atque confidentia, nascitur fortitudo naturalis, liberalitasque: liberales enim quadam confidentia ducuntur: [e]x formidolositate autem, et angore animi, oritur timiditas, et ignavia, intemperantia quoque; nam ut angorem perpetuum expellant, vehementibus voluptatibus egent, quales sunt corporis voluptates. Nascitur et vicissitudo quaedam laetitiae, et molestiae internae; pro gradibus tamen frigiditatis atque caliditatis bilis: in quibus enim calidior, illis frequentiores sunt laetitiae, rariores moestitiae: quibus frigidior est, contra. Qui tamen largius, tacitus, et solitarius, spontaneae laetitiae indulget, etiam si calidior sit, temporis tamen tractu, in frigidiorem statum, atque turbulentum angorem cadet […].’ 64  Ibid., 63–75.

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inclined than the physician Luisini to consider the therapeutic aspect of  the passions. In conclusion, the differences between Luisini and Chiaramonti reflect not only their different approaches but also their different methods in natural philosophy. Indeed, while physicians tended to regard passion as a primarily physiological phenomenon, philosophers asserted the autonomy of  morality and of  the human in general. This overall picture which, if  intensely controversial, could still be considered balanced, would change drastically after 1575, following the publication of  Huarte’s Examen de ingenios, a  work destined to serve as a  new and more radical canon in light of   which to address the philosophical issues raised by Galen’s Quod animi mores.

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CHAPTER THREE – FROM GALEN TO HUARTE

CHAPTER THREE

FROM GALEN TO HUARTE: THE QUOD ANIMI MORES AND THE ‘THEORY OF  INGENIUM’

For all the significant references that Galen makes in several writings to the theory of   the soul,1 it is  the De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis and the Quod animi mores that surely stand as the most important works to understand the core tenets of   his thought in this regard. Set out in the latter work, in particular, is  what from the Middle Ages onward would be considered Galen’s classic thesis, equating the rational soul with the temperament of   the brain.2 But it would be inaccurate to characterize the Quod animi mores solely through this lens, for that would fail to reflect its complexity as a work whose discus1  Galen’s references to theory of   the soul can be found also in the De propriorum animi cuiuslibet affectuum dignotione et curatione, the De animi cuiuslibet peccatorum dignotione et curatione, and the De propriis placitis. The last of  these works has long been known only through its last two chapters (whose most recent critical edition has been realised by Vivian Nutton, Galen 1999(b)) and collected under the title Fragmentum de substantia facultatum naturalium. Only in 2005 did the complete De propriis placitis resurface, when it turned up at the Vlatades Monastery in Thessaloniki (MS  Vlatadon  14) as rediscovered by Antoine Pietrobelli, see Baudon-Millot and Pietrobelli 2005. In  this work, Galen revisits his views on the role of   sensation, and he also reworks some doctrinal points elsewhere taken for granted, an example being the capacity of   plants for sensation, here understood in a much broader sense as an ability to attract that which is similar and to expel that which is dissimilar, and so in a sense bearing a much looser connection to the anatomy of   the nerves. An  essential reading for an approach to the questions treated in the De propriis placitis can be found in Nutton’s account, Galen 1999(b), and, most recently, in Mario Vegetti’s discussion, Galen 2013(b): 167–83. 2  A characteristic statement to this effect can be found, for example, in Cremonini, Quaestio, fol.  168v (= Kuhn 1996: 630): ‘[…] in nulla sententia est magis constans Galenus quam quod anima sit temperamentum.’

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sion of  a whole range of  questions would lead to consequential developments. In the De libris propriis, where Galen lays out the genesis and structure of   his own works, the Quod animi mores is classified among those concerned with Plato’s philosophy and is placed just after a treatise on the parts and faculties of   the soul.3 This is a precious piece of  information, making it possible to read the Quod animi mores in light of   the Hippocratic-Platonic anthropology blocked out in the De placitis (and then reworked in the De moribus), whose thesis of   a causal nexus between temperament and function the Quod animi mores reprises and makes even stricter.4 Strongly rhetorical in style, the Quod animi mores could be characterized as a pamphlet aimed at two specific polemical targets: the Platonic thesis that the rational soul can be separated from the body, and the Stoic thesis that man is born good but corrupted by society. Finally, as almost all Renaissance commentators point out, from a formal standpoint the work is  structured on three argumentative levels: a  priori, a posteriori, and ex auctoritatibus.5

Themes and Arguments in the Quod animi mores The a  priori argument is  based on the causal link between temperamenta and mores and is  supported by recourse to the model of   anthropological continuity between man and animal: like dispositions in animals, the passions of   children are innate, stemming from the rapport of   balance or imbalance between the different temperamental species at the time of  con  Galen, LP, K XIX, 46,17–18.   Originally published in four books, the De moribus survives in an Arabic epitome discovered and published in 1939 by Paul Kraus. In 1949, Richard Walzer devoted an important article to this discovery, bringing out the innovative philosophical aspect of   Galen’s moral thought, to which he would devote another article in 1954, see Walzer 1949 and 1954 respectively. The work was translated into English by John N. Mattock, Mattock 1972: 235–60 and it has been recently re-edited, with revision and introduction, by Peter N.  Singer, Galen 2013(a): 135–172. On  the continuity between the Quod animi mores, the De moribus, and the De placitis see Walzer 1949: 83 and Singer in Galen 2013(a): 109, 122, 133. 5  On the threefold structure of  the Quod animi mores see Piccolomi­ni 1596: 106; Cremonini, Quaestio, fol. 171v (= Kuhn 1996: 635); and Rudio 1611: 53. 3 4

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ception.6 Galen thus illustrates the thesis of   the tripartite soul, a thesis taken up in the De placitis and further supported by reference to Book IV of   Plato’s Respublica, where the Greek philosopher argues that the different passions of  the soul cannot be reduced to any single principle.7 When it comes to the immortality of   the soul, however, Plato is not taken as authoritative, for this is  a  question that Galen considers non-scientific and theoretically undecidable. Having ruled out the direct approach to the substance of   the soul, Galen is left with the indirect one, which consists in comparing the functions and faculties of   the rational soul with those of   the other souls –  the spirited and the appetitive – respectively localized in the heart and the liver. From this comparison there emerges an important logical premise: if  the rational soul can be localized in a specific part of  the body, then it must be considered as an organic form, subject to corruption and death. This premise is  then backed up by recourse to a  deliberately naturalistic interpretation of   the Aristotelian concept of   form, originally understood to denote a ‘configuration of   the organic body’ and here revised to mean a  ‘composition of   homogeneous bodies’; as already discussed in chapter one, in fact, Galen holds that function and structure of   the organism proceed from the composition (μίξις) of   its humors and temperaments (Table 2).8 To this grounding thesis of   the Quod animi mores, Galen adds the a  posteriori argument, which concerns the psychological effects of   foods, beverages, psychotropic substances, and acute illnesses.9 Criticizing the Platonic theory that the immortality of   the soul lies in its separation from the body, Galen insists that the temperamental imbalances caused by diseases like phrenitis and the plague not only deprive individuals of  their own faculties but also throw their thinking and character into disarray, deeply altering their personality.10 From this argument Galen draws a conclusion of  broad scope: even those who grant the immortal nature of   the rational soul are forced   Galen, QAM, chap. 2, K IV, 768–72.   Plato, RsP, 439a  ff. 8   Galen, QAM, chap. 3, K IV, 772–79. 9 Ibid. 10  Ibid., and chap. 5, K IV, 785–89. 6 7

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to subordinate its activity to the dynamic of  the temperaments, making it an unseverable slave to the body.11 The closing argument – the argument ex auctoritatibus  – consists in invoking the authorities of   Hippocrates, Heraclitus, Plato, and Aristotle in support of   the core thesis, even if  this means sometimes twisting their conceptions out of  shape.12 By reiterating the thesis that character and the characterial inclinations derive from temperament and are innate, Galen also lays out a twofold implication that his thesis carries for the life of  the polity: whilst rulers must be entrusted with the task of  killing or keeping the unredeemables in check, physicians should be in charge of  treating those whose constitution has been damaged. This outcome, Galen highlights, does not undercut the value and utility of   moral philosophy. Indeed, the criterion of   moral responsibility stands secure even granting that the characterial inclinations are hereditary: as a spontaneous inclination, an individual’s propensity toward the good or evil is inborn, and does not require any awareness or conscious deliberation about its origin and causes. Everyone will therefore simply incline toward what they perceive as good, while recoiling from its opposite. The Quod animi mores closes with a frontal attack on Stoic ethics for its precepts cannot be squared with the origin of  evil; in other words, it is not possible for human beings to be born good and then be corrupted by society. The origin of   evil must be sought inside the human soul and it lies in the anthropological continuity between man and animal and to the prevalence of  irrational instincts in both, accounting for errors of  judgment as well as for false opinion.13 The human inclination toward evil is thus an imprint that everyone carries from birth, impossible to be rooted out but amenable to control by keeping company with one’s betters and seeking the help of  a good physician.14  Ibid., chap. 4, K IV, 779,13–21: ‘ἀναγκαῖον οὖν ἔσται καὶ τοῖς ἰδίαν οὐσίαν ἔχειν ὑποθεμένοις τὴν ψυχὴν ὁμολογῆσαι δουλεύειν αὐτὴν ταῖς τοῦ σώματος κράσεσιν, εἴ γε καὶ χωρίζειν ἐξουσίαν ἔχουσι καὶ παραφρονεῖν ἀναγκάζουσι καὶ μνήμην καὶ σύνεσιν ἀφαιροῦνται καὶ λυπηροτέραν καὶ ἀτολμοτέραν καὶ ἀθυμοτέραν ἐργάζονται, καθάπερ ἐν ταῖς μελαγχολίαις φαίνεται, καὶ τούτων ἔχειν τἀναντία τὸν πίνοντα τὸν οἶνον συμμέτρως.’ 12  Ibid., chap. 4, K IV, 780–84; chaps. 6–8, K IV, 789–804. 13  Ibid., chap. 11, K IV, 819. 14  Ibid., chap. 11, K IV, 814–22. 11

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Constitution, Typology, and Physiognomy As much as the overall approach of  the Quod animi mores takes up principles proper to Aristotelian biology and ethics, Galen conceptually refashions his source in a radical way. Significant in this regard is his moving away from categories such as potentiality and actuality, an aspect we have already mentioned in Chapter 1, and which we will find as a distinctive trait of   other Galenists as well. The  same goes for the use of   the term ἕξις (habit, state), which, in keeping with an argument already outlined by Galen in the De consuetudinibus,15 is equally understood as a moral habit and as a type of   constitution. It is precisely in this use of  homonymy that the key lies to interpreting this work and its implicit objective, which is  to normalize the relations between interior and exterior, soul and body, and hence between mind and matter, within the frame of   the principles of   natural philosophy, thus enabling the control of   its mechanisms through medical therapy. This also requires the substantial physiognomic refashioning of  those conceptions that appear to stand in continuity with Platonic psychology, and in particular Platonic anamnesis. If  Plato conceived recollection (anamnesis) as an ideal progress from object to concept, and from particular to universal, Galen moves in the opposite direction, allowing the universal wisdom of   nature to regress into a  pre-rational desire for self-preservation, compelling the animal to pursue a predetermined series of  tasks and goals.16 15  It is Galen’s purpose in the De consuetudinibus to show how a custom (ἔθος) can also be understood as a therapeutic guide or ‘indication’ (ἔνδειξις). So,  even though the problem is  not strictly moral, Galen tends to make the moral coincide with the physical, habit with nature, this in keeping with the lines of   argument we set out in the first chapter. Indeed, in the De consuetudinibus (Galen 1941: chap. 2, 18,6–11, and 23–28), Galen argues that the reason why animals can recognize the food that is suited to them is that the body acts on the basis of  a natural innate power (ἀδιδάκτως) of  attraction and repulsion. The body, in other words, will desire or repel something depending on the similarity between specific food and the animal’s own constitution. Galen underscores that humans do the same thing, and that such behaviour amounts to a custom (ἔθος), which signals a specific mode of  conformity to nature. If  this conformity is  consolidated, it becomes second nature and a  habit, and this is the sense in which custom can sometimes also be considered a natural cause. 16  In support of   this hypothesis, Galen could more or less explicitly interpret Plato’s idea of   a  natural knowledge inherent in the soul, an idea that

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Considered in combination, in effect, both the levels of   argumentation and the different topics found in the Quod animi mores appear to revolve around the classic problem of   the relation between nature and morality, a  relation that, in its literal and in any event ancient sense, is  to be understood as a  co-implication between φύσις and γνώμη, and so as a  problem of   physiognomics. In  this sense, the work can be said to carry forward an approach already present in the De  temperamentis, where the physiognomic features of   the face and of   the other parts of   the body are framed within the scheme of   balance/imbalance between the different temperamental species. This framing makes it possible to shift from the strictly descriptive context of   the what (ὅτι) to the normative context of   the why (διότι), in that the intuitive analogies detected by the physiognomist are  deduced from the cause-and-effect relationship between temperament and function.17 But physiognomics appears to find also its scientific foundation in physiology through implicit correspondences, analogies, proportions and cross-referring observations –  all of   this on the basis of   a  criterion of   symmetry that shapes from within the selfsame construction of   the table of   the temperaments, starting from the identification of   the ‘perfect temperament’ (σύμμετρον), serving as a benchmark for measuring, and hence deducing, all possible dyscrasias (Tab. 5 and Fig. 14).

crops up in several places in Plato. In the Phaedo (Ph., 237d, 6–9), for example, Plato claims that everyone is governed by two principles, one of   which is innate (ἔμφυτος), and that is pleasure, whereas the other is acquired and consists in the capacity to make judgments in view of   what is best. A similar theme can also be found in the Symposium (Sym., 191c,8–191d,5) where Plato claims that every creature is  possessed of   an ‘innate craving’ or ‘instinctive lust’ (ὁ  ἔρως ἔμφυτος) for the satisfaction of   its primary desires. Finally, in the Timaeus (Tm.,  43a,3–b,1) – a  work to which Galen devoted an extensive commentary and is  among his favorite sources of   inspiration –, Plato describes a  mortal kind of   soul that is  embodied and arises out of   the violent passions. This soul presides over the satisfaction of   the primary instincts, is  capable only of   ‘reasonless sensation’ (αἰσθήσει δὲ ἀλόγῳ) and is driven by an undifferentiated lust for all things (ibid., 69c,5–d,6). 17  Galen, T, K I, 624,3–17.

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Table 5. Galen’s deduction of  simple and compound imbalances (dyscrasias) from the determination of  the perfectly balanced temperament (symmetron).

Fig. 14. Oddo degli Oddi, Expositio in librum Artis medicinalis Galeni (Venice 1574). Table of  the temperaments. London, Wellcome Library.

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A two-pronged principle, midway between interior and exterior, symmetry (symmetria), understood as ‘proportion’ (proportio), is the key element on which rests the concept of  health; it is a ‘ratio’ by virtue of  which the humors and temperaments are said to be in equilibrium, and which constitutes the Polykleitan kanon which defines the normal and healthy relations between the internal and homogenous parts (similares partes) and external and non-homogeneous parts (dissimilares partes).18 It  is within this conceptual framework, then, that physiognomics and physiology coexist.19 Another fundamental criterion common to the two research lines is that of   ‘type’. The idea here is to reduce an individual’s moral and psychical characteristics to a  pre-established model or ‘type’, generally defined by distinctive traits that are few but significant. In  physiognomy, types are brought into relation with the external build, and typology is thus founded on analogy. The effort, in other words, is to establish a relation between facial features and traits of  character: the individual is the explicandum, while the animal functions act as explicans in ascribing certain moral characteri­sti­cs to an individual. As much as these ascriptions may be conjectural, they are not devoid of   logical form, and Aristotle, followed by Gio­vanni Bat­ti­sta Del­la Porta (1535–1615), had already discussed their heuristic validity within the third figure of   the syllogism (Fig.  15).20 In  the  framework of  Hippocratic-Galenic medicine, recourse to typology is instead   Galen, OCNC, K IV, 745,14–1746,6; AM, K I; 342,14–343,6.   See in this regard the entries ‘temperies’ and ‘temperamentum’ in Bartolomeo Castelli’s Lexicon medicum (Messina 1598), where the Latin definition of  temperies is traced to that of  the Greek symmetria, Castelli 1598: 396: ‘Symmetria, idest temperies, contemperatura, est debita convenientia, et proportio inter se tum similarium partium, in calido, frigido, humido, et sicco, tum instrumentalium in compositione, numero, magnitudine, figura, I. de sanitate tuenda cap. I.’. An emblematic use of  coupling between the criterion of  proportion and that of   temperament can be found in Jean Bodin (1529–96), who in the Universae naturae theatrum (Lyon 1596), considering the temperaments as an expression not only of  harmony but also of  arithmetic precision, goes to the extent of   likening the temperamentum ad pondus (the ideal temperament) to a proportio mathematica and of  associating the temperamentum ad iustitiam (an effectively healthy and balanced temperament) with a proportio geometrica, see Bodin 1597: 439. 20  Aristotle, An. Pr., 70b, 7–38; Della Porta 1586, Bk. I, chap. 18, ‘De syllogismo physiognomonico’, pp. 26–27. On the logic of  late-Renaissance physiognomics, see the excellent account by Maclean 2011. 18 19

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Fig. 15. Giovanni Battista Della Porta, De humana physiognomonia (Vico Equense 1586). Scheme of  the ‘physiognomic syllogism’. Padua, Biblioteca Antica ‘Vincenzo Pinali’.

largely based on the cause-effect rapport validated empirically with the deterioration of  patient’s health, whose cause is in turn identified in the alteration of   the temperaments and humors. Hence the study is more appropriately termed pathognomy. As much as pathognomy may share with physiognomics an interest in describing facial features and other parts of  the body, the patient is here associated with a characterial type when an alteration of  an organ’s humor (a constitutional habitus) makes it possible to record a matching variation in the patient’s mood or state of  mind (a characterial habitus). Having been identified with a natural habitus, the patient is implicitly associated with one of  the temperamental, and hence humoral, imbalances (dyscrasias), the same ones that over the course of  the Middle Ages would morph into characterial types proper (choleric, bilious, sanguine, and phlegmatic). From Galen’s perspective, then, the two models just outlined merge, and the physiognomic theme of   a  psychosomatic correspondence between man and animal is revisited and normalized in the conceptual framework offered by pathognomy.

Analogy and Consecution: An Advanced Model It is clear by all means that, without radically tightening this link and continuity between physiognomy and pathognomy, Galen would not have been able to proceed in his attempt to natu115

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ralize the sphere of   moral action, at least not to any significant extent. But this was far from being a  clearly defined attempt, either in Galen or, all the more so, in the tradition that drew on his thought. Indeed, in collapsing relations of   analogy into relations of  causal consecution, Galen’s approach sometimes violates the one-way rapport between cause and effect by positing a mutualfeedback relation between changes in temperament and changes of  character. The reasons why it seemed necessary to posit such a relation are of   an essentially clinical nature, in that habit and the individual passions may alter the patient’s original physical state and there is no way to ascribe such alterations to any other factors. So  it  is that in Book  II of   the De  temperamentis, custom is conceived not as an outcome resulting from the dynamic of   the temperaments, but as the cause by virtue of   which they change, and this cause is  carefully distinguished from that of   the effects ascribable to innate temperament.21 And then in the Ars  medica, having set out a  distinction already drawn elsewhere between natural and non-natural factors (res naturales vs. non naturales), Galen also reckons among the latter the passions of   the soul, understood as causes capable of   bringing about a change of  temperament.22 Since the res non naturales are defined as factors dependent on the subject’s will, there clearly emerges a conflict of   interpretation between this position and the one set out in the Quod animi mores, where the passions are understood as a consequence of  temperament. An attempt to set this incongruity to rights can already be found in the final chapter of   the Quod  animi mores itself, where the temperaments, however much in passing, are singled out as causes explaining not so much character itself  as the degree of  a moral inclination,

  Galen, T, K I, 604,3 ff.   Galen, AM, K I, 367. In the De causis pulsuum, CP, K IX, 105 ff., Galen had drawn a distinction between natural (or ‘innate’) causes of  temperamental change and non-natural (or ‘external’) causes. The  former group comprises five factors, namely, sex, age, season, region, and pregnancy; the latter six, which in the Middle Ages would be referred to as the sex res non naturales (‘six non-natural factors’), and these are (i) air and the environment, (ii) exercise and rest, (iii) food and drink, (iv) sleeping and waking, (v) secretions and excretions, and (vi) the passions of  the soul, on which Galen, AM, K I, 367 ff. 21 22

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or its greater or lesser force.23 Furthermore, in the Ars medica Galen also clarified that he was not concerning himself  with the passions of   the soul from a philosophical point of   view, that is, he was considering such passions not as mental states of   individuals capable of   making their own decisions, but as innate dispositions.24 The passions are thus to be understood as those inclinations that precede the formation of   the individual’s will, a  hypothesis which the Spanish physician Fran­ cisco Vallés (1524–92) had already advanced in his commentary on the Ars medica, and which today is  further borne out in the Arabic epitome of  Galen’s De moribus.25 In this light, what initially appeared to be a  radical thesis in the Quod animi mores now seems less so, considering that the relation between temperamenta and mores can also be understood as one of   correlation between two phenomena, that is, as a case of  analogy.   Galen, QAM, K IV, 821.   Galen, AM, K I, 336,16–337,2. Indeed, the Greek verb ἕπεσθαι, as used in the Quod animi mores, can point either to a parallelism between passions and temperaments, where it is thus understood to mean ‘follow’, or to a strong reductionism, where it is instead understood to mean ‘bring about’. The first angle of  interpretation was offered in the modern period by Pierre Petit (1617– 87): following a passage from John the Grammarian, Petit proposed that the title of  the Quod animi mores corporis temperamenta sequantur be rendered as ‘That the passions of  the soul follow the temperaments of  the body, apart from any philosophical consideration’, Petit 1682: 88–91 (also quoted in Galen 1854: vol. I, 47, n. 1). Although the text does seem open to such an interpretation, one needs to bear in mind that Galen held a broadly Gnostic view about the possibility of   discussing the immortality of   the rational soul, and in an even broader sense he was inclined to consider it mortal. These elements seem to highlight, rather than downplay, the work’s inherently deterministic and materialistic stance. 25  In interpreting Galen’s assertions, Vallés refers to both the Quod animi mores and to the comment on Hippocrates’ De natura hominis, Vallés 1592b: 60–61, E–F: ‘Monet vero Galenus caute admodum quae de moribus qui sequuntur temperamentum naturalia hic aut ubi alibi scribuntur (scripsit vero librum quod animi mores corporis temperiem sequantur et duo de natura humana) de naturalibus moribus intelligi. Nam per philosophiam, et per probam aut malam educationem et consuetudinem cum bonis viris aut malis, mutari possunt naturales mores potestque frigidus et siccus iracundus: et calidus et siccus patientissimus fieri. Atque plusquam haec omnia gratia Dei potest ad bonos mores. Nam divina vocatione mala natura praeditos, et mala educatos, eosque qui in malis operibus consequerunt, solet ad bonos mores trahere sed hic illud unum consideratur, quod ipsa natura fert.’ As for the relation between moral good and education, Galen’s ideal in the De moribus appears to be similar to the Aristotelian one, insofar as it relates closely contemplation and happiness, see Walzer 1949: 94–95, and Walzer 1954: 245 ff. 23 24

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Within the Galenic horizon, then, the model based on causal consecution represents a  theoretically and methodologically advanced approach, even though it is never definitive nor is it everywhere prevalent.26 In fact, it was in coming to grips with this underlying ambiguity that two basic orientations developed in the Renaissance in the reception of   Galen’s treatise, which, on the one hand, was understood as a physiognomical analysis of  character,27 and, on the other hand, as a psycho­physiological analysis. But when it comes to the cultural significance of   the Quod animi mores as viewed through these two lenses, any assessment will have to recognize that it stands on two differ26  The concurrence of   two levels of   analysis in Galen’s epistemology has been clearly highlighted by Peter Singer, who points out the coexistence of   a  teleological and a  reductionist approach, Singer 1997: 536–37: ‘The tendency of   modern scholarship when faced with such apparent differences of   philosophical account as one finds in Galen is  to attempt a  reconciliation within a  single theory. And its tendency when faced with problems arising from the apparent conflict between materialist and teleological explanations is to demonstrate how the two can function alongside each other, representing the same physical events under a different aspect. The interpretative complexity of  the former undertaking, as well as the philosophical sophistication required of   the latter, is  considerable. It will therefore save us considerable trouble if  we happen to find evidence that Galen himself  did not believe in such reconciliation. […]  There is, then, a  problem for the characterization of   Galen as a low-level determinist, a problem arising from the insufficiently clear nature of   the “following” and “consequence” of   which he speaks. But it is  not just Galenic vagueness or indeterminacy which speak against the interpretation. For in fact Galen gives us an explicit suggestion of   a philosophical alternative. […] It is, as it were, rising on the path from lower to higher, from De elementis secundum Hippocratem to De naturalibus facultatibus. Now, the kinds of  account De temperamentis gives of  the relationship of  humoral mixture and character might themselves be the topic of  useful discussion. In contrast to the De-usu-partium-style analysis, where it is clear that whatever physical characteristics animals, or by extension their parts, have is to be explained causally by their purpose or structure, De  temperamentis seems, while generally sharing the same style of   explanation as De usu partium, at least sometimes to reverse the situation. Bravery is explained as because of  heat in the chest.’ 27  The most important works that take a physiognomical view of   the Quod animi mores can be considered to be those by Johannes ab Indagine, Introductiones apotelesmaticae in physiognomoniam et in complexiones hominum (Strasbourg 1522); Guglielmo Grataroli, De praedictione morum naturamque hominum (in Opuscula, Lyon 1558: 64–176); Giovanni Battista Della Porta, De  humana physiognomonia (Vico Equense 1586); Caspard Peucer, Commentarius de praecipuis divinationum generibus (Zerbst 1591); Livio Agrippa, Discorso sopra la natura e complessione humana (Milan 1621) and Scipione Chiaramonti, De coniectandis cuiusque moribus et latitantibus animi affectibus (Venice 1625). Those that instead understand the Quod animi mores as a psychophysiological investigation are discussed in the rest of  this book.

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ent footings: while in the former current of   interpretation the treatise exists alongside several other sources one could turn to (among which the Pseudo-Aristotelian Problema  XXX and the Physiognomica), in the latter it truly set the standard for an entire field of   inquiry, laying the groundwork for that ‘theory of  ingenium’ whose most significant and original developments, not incidentally, would come in the field of  medicine.

Juan Huarte’s Examen de ingenios (1575) That last point takes us to Juan Huarte de San Juan (c.  1529– 88). For it fell to him – a physician – to harvest the fruits of  the cultural ferment just alluded to: his Examen de ingenios para las sciencias (Baeza 1575), recognized as the most important work on psychophysiology of  the sixteenth century, is arguably responsible for sparking the exceptional interest in the Quod animi mores in the late sixteenth century.28 Huarte’s Examen, premised on the thesis that the mental faculties are causally dependent on the temperaments of  the brain, is  geared to a  broader ethico-political strategy, which is  made explicit in Huarte’s dedication to Philip  II of   Spain: the aim is that of  singling out the mechanisms that regulate the physiology of   the temperaments, and hence to lay the theoretical and practical foundations on which basis to nurture and guide the main capacities at work in the social body, all the while ensuring a more rigorous organization of  these capacities. Supporting 28  On the key role of   Galen’s Quod animi mores as a source for Huarte’s Examen we have clear testimony from Huarte himself, Huarte 1594(b): 23: ‘Finally, all that which Galen writeth in this his booke, is the groundplot of  this my Treatise.’ On the work’s importance for Huarte, see Huarte 1846: vi, and Iriarte 1948: 135; and on the broader contribution of   Galenic medicine, see Read 1981: 48–49. A position opposite to the one taken here has historically been defended in Guardia 1855: 250 ff., arguing that whereas Galen wound up formulating a blind determinism, Huarte was rather more inclined to ascribe common sense, prudence, and other virtues not to temperament but to the soul as such. Having rejected Hippocrates’ position – more nuanced and open to the idea of   an indirect influence of   climate on character – Galen would thus have boxed the human being into a  blind fatalism, ibid., 240: ‘Jeté comme un automate au milieu de l’univers, l’homme, soumis à un fatalisme aveugle, n’aurait point de liberté; il n’aurait, par consequent, ni responsabilité ni mérite; la coscience serait une dérision. Huarte conclut contre Galien que le bon sens, la prudence, la saggesse et les autres vertus sont en partie dans l’Âme même, et ne dépendent pas absolument du tempérament et de l’organisation.’

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this project and carrying it into execution is  medicine, which acts on the social body on two fronts, that is, by setting out criteria on which basis to analyse aptitudes, all the while proceeding to a eugenic selection. This premise helps us to capture not only the essence of  Huarte’s work but also the radical interpretation to which he subjects his source. Indeed, picking up from where the Quod animi mores draws its conclusions, the Examen de ingenios gradually lays out the premises of  an overall design that unfolds across the fifteen chapters making up the first edition of   the work, which essentially proceeds along three argumentative levels: 1. a demonstration that knowledge is  a  natural endowment and the intellect an organic faculty (chaps. 1–7); 2. an exposition of  the way in which ingenium differs depending on the individual’s temperament and on the social type he/she belongs to (chaps. 8–14); 3. an exposition of  the criteria of  eugenic selection (chap. 15).

The general premise that there exists an innate natural knowledge is introduced at the beginning of   the fourth chapter (seventh in subsequent editions) and is set out quite concisely: The temperature of   the four first qualities (which we heretofore termed Nature) hath so great force, to cause that (of   plants, brute beasts, and man) each one set himselfe to performe those workes which are proper to his kind, that they arise to that utmost bound of  perfection which may be attained, sodainly and without any others teaching them; the plants know how to forme roots under ground, and by way of   them to draw nourishment to retaine it, to digest it, and to drive foorth the excrements: and the brute beasts likewise so soone as they are borne, know that which is agreeable to their nature, and flie the things which are naughtie and noisome. And that which makes them most to marvell who are not seene in naturall Philosophie, is, that a man having his braine well tempered, and of   that disposition which is requisit for this or that science, sodainly and without having ever learned it of  any, he speaketh and uttereth such exquisit matters, as could hardly win credit.29   Huarte 1594(b): 33.

29

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The diversity of   wits thus seems to have a  natural origin, and unless an individual is possessed of  a natural disposition toward a discipline (sciencia), he or she will not be able to make progress in study; even so, a comparison with the Galenic backdrop against which the Examen de ingenios is to be set will show that something here has changed.

Natura facit habilem Whereas in the Quod animi mores the anthropological continuity between man and animal was for the most part concerned with children (given their pre-moral status), and thus only indirectly with the adult, in the Examen the causal link between nature and character encompasses plants and human adults alike, but this radical turn is still underpinned with the suggestions that derive from Galen’s De locis affectis: The knowledge of   the sensitive soule, takes his dependance also from the temperature of   the braine, for if  the same be such as his operations require that it shouid be, it can perform with due perfection; otherwise, the same must also erre no lesse than the soule vegetative. The manner which Galen held to behold and discerne by eysight the wisedome of  the sensitive soule, was to take a yoong kid, but newly kidded, which set on the ground, begins to go (as if  it had bene told and taught that his legs were made to that purpose) and after that, he shakes from his backe the superfluous moisture which he brought with him from his mothers belly, and lifting up the one foot, scrapes behind his eare; and setting before him sundrie platters with wine, water, vinegre, oile, and milke, after he hath smelt them all, he fed onely on that of   milke. Which being beheld by divers Philosophers there present, they all with one voice cried out, that Hippocrates had great reason to say, that soules were skilful without the instruction of  any teacher. But Galen held not himselfe contented with this one proofe, for two months after he caused the same kid, being very hungrie, to be brought into the field, where smelling at many hearbs, he did eat only those, whereon goats accustomably feed.30 30  Ibid., 36. For the reference made to Galen, see Galen, LA, K VIII, 442,16– 443,17.

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The Galenic theme is thus revisited in an original way: not only does Huarte read Galen’s experiment in light of  the Quod animi mores, and he is perhaps the first commentator to see the connection so clearly, but he is  also quick to support the validity of   such an assumption by pointing out clinical cases from his own personal experience pertaining in general to acute illnesses that make it possible to develop abilities that are either latent or altogether new.31 And yet, in Huarte’s view the natural wisdom ascribable to the soul can also be demonstrated a  priori, that is, by analysing the brain’s temperamental complexion at the different stages in the life of   an individual. Indeed, at each age there develops a temperament appropriate to it, and the brain’s different temperamental complexions serve the function of  sustaining the activities that are necessary to humans and to their development. Thus if  the brain was initially hot-humid in its temperamental make-up, children would certainly be possessed of  natural wisdom at birth, but they would be incapable of  suckling milk from the mother’s breast.32 Also reflected in nuce in the thesis of   a  natural wisdom of   the soul is  Huarte’s project to outline a ‘natural history of  man’, from conception to sexual maturity, a  project that seizes on the unexpressed but cognizant homonymy between conceptus, understood as ‘embryo’ or ‘mental content’, and ingenium, designating a mental faculty or an individual’s innate constitution. Thus, according to Huarte, nature no longer determines just the degree to which a  natural inclination manifests itself, but also its essence, in keeping with the Hippocratic dictum natura facit habilem. It necessarily follows from this thesis that the intellect is reduced to an organic faculty (ingenium). When it comes to the localization of  the functions of  the soul, the thesis adheres to the medical tenet that locates the seat of  the rational soul, and indeed of   the individual’s entire psychical life, in the brain. Anatomy is  not, however, decisive in determining the exact location of   the mental faculties in the brain, and Huarte openly recognizes the limits and uncertainties of   the discipline

  Ibid., 42–44.   Ibid., 40–41.

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Table 6. Huarte’s Classifications of  Arts and Sciences according to Intellectual Function, Cerebral Temperament, and Faculty.

in this matter.33 If   the Examen can be said to rest on any basis of   certainty, that would instead have to consist in physiological analysis, which also makes it possible for each of   the three Aristotelian faculties of   memory, imagination, and intellect to be distinctly associated with a  specific cerebral temperament (Table 6).34   Ibid., 52–53.   Ibid., 102–04. The  correspondence that Huarte set up between moral types and the different skills or abilities present in the social body was not new, nor can Huarte be said to have innovated on it. It originated out of   rhetoric, its classic example being Theophrastus’s On Moral Characters. Even in 33 34

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This strict dependency of   the mental faculties on temperament proves to be essential to understanding why, with the single exception of   the sovereign,35 it is impossible for anyone to achieve excellence in all three mental faculties. For their development is governed by the square of  opposition and association between the elemental qualities (viz. the composite dyscrasias), and in this scheme the dry temperament, which is necessary for the intellect to operate, is  incompatible with the humid temperament, which underpins the development of   memory.36 medicine the use of   socio-moral typologies was not new, and Marie-Christine Pouchelle, Pouchelle 1990: 152–54, has clearly highlighted the important analogies that could be drawn between the parts of   the human body and those of  the social body in a work of  medieval anatomy such as Henri de Mondeville’s Cyrurgia. 35   On the temperament of   the sovereign and the make-up of   the three faculties in him, see Huarte 1594(b): 240. 36   Huarte 1594(b): 51 ff. The  point is  first made in the proem, ibid., The second Proeme to the Reader: ‘This manner of  proceeding would I, that I might observe with thee, (curious Reader) if  meanes could be used, that I might first treate with thee, and discover betweene thee and me the disposition of  thy wit. […]  But if  thou be discreet, well compounded, and sufferent, I  will deliver unto thee three conclusions very true, albeit for their noveltie they are worthie of   great marvell. The first is, that of   many differences of   wit, which are in mankind, only one can with preheminence fall to thy lot, if  alreadie, nature, as verie mighty, at such time as she framed it for thee, did not bestow all her endevour, in uniting two onely, or three, or (in that she could not effect the same) left thee a dolt, and deprived of   them all. The second, that to every difference of  wit there answereth in preheminence, but one only science, and no more of  that condition. So as if  thou divine not to chuse that which answereth thy naturall ability, thou shalt be very remisse in the rest, though thou ply them night and day. The third, that after thou hast knowen which the science is, that most answereth thy wit, there resteth yet (that thou mayst not be deceived) another greater difficultie, which is, whether thine abilitie be more appliable to the practick than the theorick, for these two parts (be it what science it will) are opposite be-themselves, and require wits so different, that they may be placed one against the other, as if  they were contraries. Hard are these sentences, but yet they have greater difficultie and hardnesse, viz. that we cannot appeale from them, nor pretend that we have received wrong. For God being the author of   nature, and seeing that she gave not to each man more than one difference of  wit, (as I have sayd before) through the opposition or difficultie which combreth us in uniting them, he applied himfelfe to her, and of  the Sciences which are distributed amongst men by grace, it is a miracle, if  in an eminent degree, he give more than one.’ The temperamental make-up of   memory subscribed to by Huarte came under withering criticism from Giovanni Battista Persona, Per­sona 1602: 172 ff., who took issue with both Huarte’s explanation and the underlying physiology of  it. Persona’s polemical attitude is also highlighted in Iriarte 1948: 353.

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The reason for so reducing the conditions of  compossibility, or simultaneous excellence, among psychical faculties is to make it easier to identify each individual’s moral type; this is, of  course, in keeping with the physiognomical principle whereby an individual’s ascription to any given type depends on no more than one or two characteristics.

Intuition and Genius Having thus reinforced the dependence of   the psychic functions on their organic substrate, Huarte also upends the inductive approach taken in the Quod animi mores, along with the methodological cautions that prevented Galen from arguing the thesis of   a separate existence of   the rational soul. With Huarte, the intellect becomes an organic faculty, and in this way he can establish an a priori equivalence between the parts of   the body and the functions of  the soul: […] we have made the Understanding an instrumentall power, as the Imagination, and the Memorie: and have given driness to the braine, as an instrument with which it may worke; a thing far repugnant to the doctrine of  Aristotle and all his followers, who placing the understan­ding severed from the bodily instrument proove easily the immortalitie of  the reasonable soule, and that the same issuing out of  the body, endureth forever. Now the contrarie opinion being disputable, the way hereby is stopped up, so that this cannot be prooved.37 […] To the first principal doubt, we answer, that if  the understanding were severed from the body, and had nought to do with heat, cold, moist, and drie, nor with the other bodily qualities, it would follow that al men should partake equall understanding, and that all should equally discourse. But we see by experience, that one man understandeth and discourseth better than another, then this groweth, for that the understanding is an instrumentall power, and better disposed in one than in another, and not from any other occasion.38

  Huarte 1594(a): chap. VI, 70.   Ibid., 75.

37 38

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The criticism here directed at the Aristotelian notion of   separation is  made with a  very clear purpose in mind. Indeed, by claiming that the intellect or, better yet, judgment, is a corporeal faculty (entendimiento potencìa organica), Huarte frames the concept of  genius in such a way as to bring into it two kinds of   faculties that Aristotle had kept separate: on the one hand are those faculties which are given by nature and are ‘gradable’ (and which can be designated by the Greek term δύναμις); on the other, are those faculties which are governed by intuition (νοεῖν, θιγεῖν), represen­ting ‘possession in actuality’ and not admitting of   any gradation, in that they preside over functions whose value can only be either true or false. Even more than in Galen, then, in Huarte the equivalence between genius and intuition marks the moment where the notions of   potentiality and actuality (i.e posse and esse) are definitively discarded. The separability of  the intellect is rejected by Huarte because it is  inconsistent not only with the psychological varieties of   individuals but also with the scheme of   natural causes, the only ones amenable to scientific explanation. Indeed, having set aside the idea of  a continuous divine intervention in nature – an idea that he considered naïve and scientifically inadequate to the degree of   knowledge reached by the medicine of   his time – Huarte brought in the model of  an indepen­dent physical causality, one with which God works but by which he is nonetheless constrained.39 Having reduced knowledge to a  natural inclination and the intellect to an organic faculty, Huarte has laid out the premises from which to proceed in building the argument for the last of  the three main parts of  his programme, namely, the argument for eugenic control of   the population. To this end he takes up the final point made in Galen’s Quod animi mores, coherently following up on it by ruling out any moral assessment of   the passions and putting forward the idea that society would benefit from a therapeutic and orthopaedic intervention aimed not only at classifying individuals into types but also at determining their social utility and assigning them to the functions they are best suited to in view of  the state’s needs. In  this sense, eugenics serves as an instrument with which to   Ibid., 13–18.

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Fig. 16. Juan Huarte, Essame de gl’ingegni (Venice 1586). Frontispiece. Rovigno, Muzej Grada Rovinja.

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control and safeguard the social body –  a  noteworthy programme whose importance Huarte underlines in his own original contribution to the discussion.

Principles of  Eugenics Resolutely rejecting the classic and loose analogies between vis cogitativa and vis seminalis, Huarte proceeds in his discussion by arguing directly from comparative physiology, and in particular from the effects of  castration: […] but the member which most partaketh the alterations of  the belly, all Phisitions say, is the brain, though they have not set down the reason wheron they ground this correspondencie. True it is Galen prooveth by experience, that by speying a Sow, she becommeth faire and fat, and her flesh verie savory: and if  she have her cods, she tasteth little better than dogs flesh. Wherby we conceive, that the belly and the cods carrie great efficacie, to communicat their temperature to all the other parts of  the body; especially to the brain, for that the same is  cold and moist like themselves. Between which (through the resemblance) the passage is  easie.40 […] and because we sayd, that from the wit and manners of  a man we conjecture the temperature of  his cods, it is requisit that we take notice of   a notable point, mentioned by Galen, namely, that to make us understand the great vertue which a mans cods possesse, to give firmnesse and temperature to all the parts of   the body, he affirmeth that they are of  more importance than the heart: and he rendereth a reason, saying, that this member is the beginning of   life, and nought else, but the cods are the beginning of  living soundly and without infirmities. How much it endammageth a man to be deprived of   those parts (though so small) there need not many reasons to proove, seeing we see by experience, that forthwith the haire and the beard pill away, and the big and shrill voice becommeth small, and herewithall a  man leeseth his forces and naturall heat, and resteth in far woorse and more miserable condition than if  he had bene a woman. But the matter most worth the noting is, that if  a man before his gelding had much wit and habilitie, so soone as his stones   Ibid., 273.

40

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be cut away, he groweth to leese the same, so far foorth as if  he had received some notable dammage in his very braine. And this is a manifest token, that the cods give and reave the temperature from all the other parts of   the body […].41 So  it  falleth out a  matter certaine, that from the wit and habilitie we may gather the temperature of  the cods […].42

Hence, in addition to controlling the development of   secondary sexual traits (hair, beard, tone of   voice, and the like), the testicles also account for character and genius (‘the wit’). More specifically, the testicles make it possible to expel semen, since through the concoctio seminalis they can gauge the degree of   innate heat in the organism. Modelling his account on the Galenic theory of   degree of   drugs, Huarte classifies these traits into seven degrees of   intensity, distinguished by as many signs indicating the relative temperaments.43 Huarte’s eugenic project is  thus structured under four main headings: (i)  the qualities and temperaments that both sexes need to have if  they are to beget any offspring; (ii) the expedients that parents need to have recourse to in order to procreate male children; (iii) the expedients needed to ensure the procreation of   intelligent children; and (iv)  the kind of   childrearing needed to increase a  child’s ingenium after birth.44 To each of   these tasks Huarte devotes a specific examination, even if  the therapies he suggests do not much differ from the traditional dietary and hygienic precepts of  ancient medicine. The significance of  his eugenic programme lies instead in its ability to coherently accomplish the aim of  regulating and overseeing the couple’s sexual life; at this point the Examen can be said to have met the ethico-political precondition of  its own project.

From mens to ingenium It would not be long before the radical nature of   the theses expounded in the Examen would draw the attention of   church   Ibid., 279.   Ibid., 280. 43  Ibid. 272–73. 44  Ibid., 267–68. 41 42

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authorities, which a  few years later, in 1581, placed it under censorship.45 The censorship was aimed in particular at the seventh chapter of   the first edition, where, in direct contradiction to the rest of   the treatise, Huarte argued for the immortality of  the rational soul, distinguishing it from the bodily ingenium. Huarte’s position on religious questions was, after all, ambiguous: although he criticized Galen’s theses as impious and materialistic, his outlook was essentially sceptical when it came to the nature of  miracles and the possibility of  divine intervention in nature.46 Even though the second edition of   the Examen, edited by his son Luis (Baeza 1594), takes out all material not conforming to the censors’ annotations,47 the work retained its overall design, and Huarte’s radical outlook continued to reinforce Galen’s, to the point of   establishing itself  as the most 45  The events leading to the banning of  Huarte’s work began in 1578, when a young theology student by the name of  Diego Alvarez wrote a seventy-sevenpage commentary in folio titled Animadversión y enmienda de algunas cosas que se deben corregir en el libro que se intitula Examen de ingenios del Dr Juan Huarte de San Juan and had it sent to Huarte, see Rocío G. Sumillera in Carew 2014: 19. The first condemnation came in 1581, when the Examen was placed on the Portuguese Index librorum prohibitorum as an anonymous work, followed by its 1583 placement on the Spanish index as a work requiring amendment. That same fate befell the work in Italy, where, in 1590, it was placed on the Roman index under the canonical formula donec iuxta regularum formam repurgentur, see Balsamo 2006: 241. 46 Huarte 1594(b): entire chap. VII, 88–101. On  his criticism of    Galen see in particular the marginal note p. 89: ‘Galen dying, went to hell, and saw by experie[n]ce that materiall fire burned the soules, and could not consume the[m]: this Physition had knowledge of   the Evangelicall doctrine, and could not receive it.’ Huarte’s naturalism and his interest in a  constitutional analysis of   Christ, and more generally his tendency to frame Christian precepts and doctrines in a physicalist conception, have sparked a historico-biographical interest in the cultural roots of   such an attitude. Thus on account of   the surname appearing in the frontispiece of   his Examen, it has on several occasions been conjectured that Huarte may have been a  converso, namely, a  Jew who had converted to Catholicism but the evidence in support of   the claim is little and inconclusive, see Read 1981: 24; Baroja 1986: 297, n. 44 and Schleiner 1995: 65–66. 47  One of  the sticking points for the censors lay in Huarte’s suggestion that since no direct evidence can be adduced in support of   the immortality of   the soul, this thesis needs to be taken pura fide. This conclusion followed from Huarte’s rejection of   the Aristotelian compromise of   the anima forma corporis, a  thesis that on several occasions had been dogmatically asserted in the resolutions of  the Council of  Vienne (1311–12) and in the papal bull Apostolici Regiminis, issued by the Fifth Lateran Council on 19 December 1513.

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paradigmatic expression and authoritative interpretation of   it. As such it is indeed mentioned in the only modern commentary on the Quod animi mores, the one by Giovanni Batti­sta Per­sona (Ber­gamo 1602): Worthy of  note, finally, is what Galen states in regard to the rational part of   the soul. Indeed, having identified it with a given temperament of  the brain, he holds that it, too, perishes. From these words it can be clearly inferred that Galen regards the intellect, the will, and all the powers of  the soul as corporeal and material, just as was previously shown to be the case. There is no shortage of   followers and staunch defenders of  such a view, among whom is one John Huarte, a  Spaniard who published a  famous and truly commendable book in which he examines the varieties of  wits and the differences among them with the sole purpose of   reducing each to the temperament that is proper to it. This exceedingly learned man, I was saying, in this work of  his sets out to demonstrate that the intellect is  corporeal and resides in the brain as an organ proper to it, not unlike the way in which the vital faculty resides in the heart and the natural one in the liver. He departs from Galen, however, in making another rational soul immortal, but holding that while this soul exists in the body, it has no sense of   what can be done without the aid of  the body and its temperament.48 48  Persona 1602: 95–96: ‘Tandem vero illud est in praesenti dictione notatione dignum quod dicit Galenus de rationali animae parte. Statuit enim ipsam quoque interire, propterea quod quaedam sit cerebri temperatura. Ex quibus quidem verbis illud evidentissime deducitur, fuisse Galeni sententiam hoc loco intellectum ipsum, ac voluntatem animae potentias esse corporeas, ac materiales, aliter atque nos docuerimus supra. Quam quidem sententiam non defuerunt, qui reciperent, atque omni conatu defenderent, inter quos Ioannes quidam Huartes extitit Hispanus, qui librum illum edidit certe pulcherrimum, in quo ingeniorum varietatem, ac differentiam examinat, unicuique suum conatus adscribere temperamentum proprium. Hic, inquam, doctissimus vir, suo illo in opere acriter contendit intellectum ipsum minime incorporeum esse, sed in cerebro ut in organo consistere, non aliter atque facultas vitalis in corde, et naturalis in iecore. In eo tamen a Galeno dissentit, quod aliam rationalem ipse quoque immortalem facit; sed audire non potest hanc, dum in corpore est, quicquam efficere posse sine corpore auxilio, et temperamento. Nos autem huius viri argumenta, quibus in talem abductus est errorem hoc loco silentio praeterire decrevimus: non modo quia contraria, veraque sententia supra satis expresse est demonstrata, verum etiam quoniam volens hic author evitare absurdum illud, quod aliam post hominis mortem sit penitus ociosa (hoc enim sequitur, si nihil agit ipsa sine corpore) statuit animam alios oculos habere,

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Persona goes on to point out the aporias in the thesis advanced by Huarte, who, in contradiction to the overall design of   his work, finds himself  forced to concede the existence of   an immortal soul separate from the body, a soul that remains completely idle throughout a  person’s life. Apart from potentially eliciting censorial qualms, this double-faced solution figures as something of   a common thread to the whole of   Renaissance naturalism, and it stems from the impossibility of  relying solely on the dynamics of   natural elements and causes in accounting for the complex of  relations between man’s psychical and emotional life. This is  a  problem we will return to later, when we shall discuss the outcomes of  Telesio’s naturalism, which in this sense stands as the paradigmatic example of  such an approach. The Examen de ingenios, in conclusion, reveals itself  to be open to analysis from multiple angles, and its influence on late-Renaissance culture was indeed remarkable.49 A work that alias aures, aliqua denique sensoria, prater ea quae sunt corporea.’ Persona thus brings his argument to a conclusion as follows: ‘Hoc autem quam sit absurdum nemo non videt. Vivente enim homine, vel sunt penitus otiosae hae potentiae, vel non. Si otiosae non sunt, sed his quoque virtus animae ad operandum, ipse circa idem revolvitur saxum. Statuit enim animam, dum est in corpore propriam operationem habere, quod iam negaverat. Si vero dicat ipsas ociosas manere; quam rei huiusce causam assignabit, et impedimenti? Certe nullam. Sunt enim spiritales.’ 49  Huarte’s work extended its influence pretty much all across Europe, but significant developments came especially in Italy, where it gave rise to a line of   inquiry parallel to the discussion on ingenium that flourished in Neoplatonic and then in Telesian philosophy. The  history of   the Italian reception of   the Examen appears to coincide in particular with the transformation the term ingenium went through, and, clearly, it also went hand in hand with the renewed interest in the questions taken up in Galen’s Quod animi mores. The Examen was first translated into Italian in 1582 by Camillo Camilli and then in 1600 by Sallustio Gratii, and it would see numerous reprints. Contributing to its early fortune was the Jesuit scholar Antonio Possevino (1533–1611), who took Huarte’s work as a model for his Coltura degl’ingegni (Vicenza 1598), an extract from the first twelve chapters of  the first book of  the Bibliotheca selecta, see García and Alonso 2004: 387–96; Balsamo 2006: 64–65. The Coltura degli ingegni offers itself  as a more extensive and reasoned ratio studio­rum for Jesuit education, addressing the question of   the aims, methods, and faculties through which to reach perfection in Christian wisdom. Even though the work unambiguously steers away from Huarte’s thesis of  the corporeality of  the intellect, in conceiving his examen as a coltura Possevino espouses Huarte’s ethico-political ideal, the point being to lay the groundwork for a better ordering of   the Respublica Christiana. Also testifying to Huarte’s influence is  the work of   the bishop Antonio Zara of   Aquileia (1574–1621), the author

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proved to be of   extraor­dinary success – running to numerous editions in almost all modern languages until the eighteenth of   an Anatomia ingenio­ rum et scientiarum (Venice 1615). The  rendering of  examen as anatomia, already present in the translation by Camilli, must have been a fairly widespread practice in the Latin of   the day. Anatomia is understood by Zara as an inquiry where the mind (mens) is analyzed into constituent aptitudes and faculties conceived as ‘limbs’. The analysis that Zara was intent on carrying out is thus specifically medical, in the sense that it undertakes an anatomica resolutio, where the task, from Galen to Vesalio, had been to demonstrate how each structure of   the mind perfectly corresponds to the design willed by God: hence Zara’s extensive description of  the limbs of  the body with a view to exalting the presence of   a superior design, thereby downplaying the unconventional elements of   Huarte’s naturalism, including the materiality of  the intellect, a thesis that Zara rejects, see Zara 1615: 54. Finally, Huarte also figures prominently in the two-volume treatise Dell’ingegno humano (Venice 1629), written by Pompeo Caimo (1568–1631). The treatise sets out to systematically order the treatment of  ingenium starting out from the writings of  Zara and Huarte, with Caimo making constant reference to the physiology of   the temperaments, its species, and its outward manifestations, while also engaging in a polemic with Huarte, taking particular exception to the thesis that the intellect needs an organic support in the brain and that the faculties of  the intellect are mutually exclusive. Caimo recognizes that the question of   ingenium has only been treated in obscure ways by the ancients, and that it therefore poses a challenge for the moderns. In an original way the work makes a comparative analysis of   the natural faculties of   man and woman. Indeed, coherently with the dedication addressed to the grand duchess of   Tuscany Cristina of   Lorena, much space in the second volume is devoted to the question of   female genius (ingegno donnesco), which is claimed to be of  equal standing with male genius – here, too, in explicit disagreement with Huarte – and equally rejected is the Aristotelian claim that the female is a flawed or ‘deformed male’ (on which Aristotle, GA, 737a,25–28). Also in very much evidence is Caimo’s use of  character types, each distinguished by its own temperies and hence by a physiognomical mark of   recognition. But precisely this use indicates that the relation between temperament and character is by and large conceived by Caimo as an analogical link rather than as a causal consecution. A separate story, finally, is what might be characterized as the Examen’s literary fortune, where by metonymy ingenium is transformed into the brain. A case in point is the Theatro de vari et diversi cervelli mondani (Venice 1583), next to which it is worth mentioning L’hospitale de’ pazzi incurabili (Venice, Ferrara, Piacenza 1586), both written by the Lateran canonist Tommaso Garzoni da Bagnacavallo (1549–1589), who also wrote other works devoted to social types, an example being La piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo (Venice 1585). An extravagant and prolific polymath, Garzoni was influenced by the discussions on ingenium that were being promoted in various parts of   Italy, as well as by Huarte’s Examen, demonstrating that he was familiar with the theses advanced in it, see Garzoni 1595, fols  2r–v. In  Garzoni, the qualities of   ingenium find themselves ironically associated with the dimensions of   the body understood as a tool, and he presents a wide-ranging panoply of  brain species (cervellini, cervellazzi, cervelletti, cervello­ni) corresponding to qualities such as promptitude, intelligence, and idleness. If   the Theatro quintessentially exemplifies a  literary work that

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century and beyond 50 – the Examen at the same time became a  cultural manifesto and template for erudite libertinism.51 Huarte worked together and radicalized a  complex of   themes and concerns that in classical medicine presented themselves in a fragmented and rhapsodic way. In so doing it heightened the perception that Galenism broke with Aristotelianism, giving rise to a heterodoxy that could now be seen to clearly turn on four basic questions: – the natural hereditariness of  knowledge; – the materiality of  the intellect; – the ideal of  medicine as a science of  psycho-moral hygiene; – the heteronomy of   a  morality wherein only the sovereign is  recognized as personifying intellectual excellence in its every form.

Under this last heading, the Examen does an even better job than the Galenic model at translating the ethico-political ideal expressed in Plato’s Respublica a work hierarchically structured on different levels of  moral, and hence, intellectual order. There is, finally, a clean break that Huarte makes with the Aristotelian concept of  contemplation, and so with the whole problem of  the so-called species intellegibiles: there is in fact no longer any realonly superficially deals with medical questions, it is a closer connection to such questions, and especially to the Examen, that can be observed in the Hospitale de’ pazzi incurabili, which in its thirty discourses does strike a conversational and even a  burlesque tone, but which nonetheless stresses the pathological aspect of   ingenium, listing countless deficiencies and deformities, along with the kinds of  individuals who are affected by them. As varied and interesting as the casuistry of   Huarte’s epigones may be, it only represents a minor chapter in the broad topic he gave prominence to. The spread of   the theses advanced by Huarte and the controversies they sparked did in any event have the merit of   reigniting the debate on ingenium conceived as a  closer and more radical interaction between mind and body. 50   The original Examen (1575) ran to six editions in Spanish (1575–81), six in Dutch (1591–1702), eight in French (1580–1633, Chappuis), six in Italian (1582–90, Camilli, four edns; 1600–03, Gratiis, two edns), five in English (1594–1693, Carew), five in Latin (1612, Arctogonius, one edn; 1621–63, Eschacius, four eds), and two in German (1752–85, Lessing): a total of   thirtyeight editions. In Huarte 1930: xxiii–xxviii, Rodrigo Sanz counts all of   sixtytwo, including his own, in the period spanning from 1575 to 1930. 51 The important role the Examen played as a  model that seventeenthcentury materialism could look to, especially in France, has been rightly highlighted in Walter F. Lupi, Lupi 1981: 243.

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ity ‘in actuality’ to be realized, and each person’s creative and intellective spontaneity is safeguarded, without being tied to any metaphysics. What is being enacted, in other words, is the conversion of   mens, abstract and universal, into ingenium, which instead is corporeal and individual. As pathbreaking as Huarte may have been, the novelty of  his conception stems from his reworking of  a theme already developed not only in Galenic medicine but also, and especially, in Aristotelian psychology. It was previously discussed, in chapter one, how sensation and knowledge are understood by Aristotle and his followers to be inherently, if  sometimes ambiguously, bound up in a relation that, in Book III of   the De anima, takes shape in the distinction between potential intellect and actual intellect, the former tied directly to the senses by way of   the imagination, the latter not. In Aristotle the distinction between these two modes of  the intellect is made to turn on the concept of   intuition (νοεῖν), the faculty capable of   grasping the essence of   sensible manifestations already processed by the imagination and producing (ποιεῖν) scientific knowledge, such as the knowledge of  causes.52 The difference between these two modes was thus conceived by Aristotle as one between the particular and the universal, that is, between induction and deduction. Furthermore, whereas potential intellect was as such (by virtue of   its potential mode) connatural to the animality of   humans, actual intellect required constant exercise so as to ensure its continued possession (ἡ  γνωρίζουσα ἕξις). Between these two modes of   knowledge, however, Aristotle seemed to be emphasising not so much a clear-cut distinction as a certain closeness: intuition was not only defined in his account by way of   tactile metaphors but was also likened to a form of   sensation, almost as if  it, too, were innate and natural.53 It can therefore be clearly appreciated how this account was amenable to being tilted one   Aristotle, An., 430a,10–12.   Especially prominent is the use the tactile metaphors found in Aristotle’s account of   our intuition of   what is  true and what is  false. Indeed, in stating something to be true, the intellect ‘touches’ (θιγεῖν) the essence; when this contact, by contrast, does not take place (μὴ θιγγάνειν), the outcome is simply non-knowledge (ἀγνοεῖν), see Aristotle, MPh, 1051b,24–25. A key analogy between intuition and sensation can also be found in Metaphysica XII, MPh, 1072b,17 ff. on the activity of  the divine intellect. 52 53

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way or the other in the theorizing of  later commentators, especially in the Renaissance, in which the question of  the body once more took centre stage. In  this sense, the novelty introduced by Huarte is twofold: it lies, on the one hand, in the coherent and uncompromising way in which he argued for the mental faculties as natural faculties –  as cannot be said, for example, of   Pomponazzi, who in this regard still finds himself  grappling with the ambiguities present in the Aristotelian text – and, on the other, in his equally coherent rejection of   the metaphysics of   forms. In this sense, Huarte fundamentally sets himself  apart from the Neoplatonic tradition, particularly that of   Mar­ si­lio Fi­ci­no, in which genius lies in the intersection between two opposite realities, a celestial one and an earthly one, thus constituting at once a medium and a particularization of   a single spirit – a unity that with Huarte is completely severed.

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CHAPTER FOUR

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Between the end of   the fifteenth and the beginning of   the sixteenth century, the question of   ingenium saw a  remarkable development, especially as part of   the Platonic revival promoted in Italy by Marsilio Ficino (1433–99).1 Its significance, at least as far as the history of  medicine is concerned, lies in its having sparked a renewed interest in Galen, out of  which would spring, with different outcomes, the contributions of   Tele­sio and late-Renaissance naturalism. It  bears pointing out from the outset, however, that the thesis of   a direct line of   continuity between Platonism and the medical tradition of   ingenium is not supported by any compelling evidence, and in fact any such continuity would seem unlikely. Indeed, Ficino’s De triplici vita (Florence 1489) can be interpre­ted as an attempt to apply Galenic medicine to a treatment of  the spirit, understood not only as a vital or physiological component of   the individual but also, and especially, as a medium on a graduated scale that, on the model of   alchemic distillation, measures a  spectrum of   purity ranging from physical to metaphysical reality. This under­standing of   the spirit brings back into play the idea of   an essential bond between immanence and transcend-

1  The literature on the remaking of  genius by Ficino is quite vast. The reader wishing to go delve into the question can refer to the bibliography. In  the meantime, I should begin to point out Cassirer 2012, which we will be coming back to shortly; also useful is the old Cassirer, Kristeller, and Randall 1948, as well as the singularly successful Klibansky, Panofsky, Saxl 1964. For a more recent perspective, see Brann 2002.

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ence, the intent of   which runs counter to a  properly Galenic approach. Such an understanding of   spirit is antipodal to the epistemological turn that emerges with the rediscovery of   the body, the centrality of   which Galen had already brought into clear view, and which after Vesalius would become a necessary assumption. Not incidentally, the various attempts that would be made at ‘Platonizing’ Galen –  chief  among which those of   the French physicians Symphorien Champier (1471–1539) and Fernel – almost inevitably took the form of   endeavours to reform a  body of   thought otherwise marked by a  naturalism that runs through it as a constant and distinguishing theme.2 Even so, the Neoplatonic interpretation provides that unifying

2   In connection with this whole matter, we should not neglect to take into account the assessment offered by Cassirer 2010: 101–02: ‘The basic magicalastrological view of   causality is  strongly interwoven with the whole Renaissance philosophy of   nature, from its inception in the fifteenth, throughout its life in the sixteenth, and even through the beginnings of   the seventeenth century. To understand nature according to its own principles (juxta propria principia) seemed to mean nothing but to explain it by the forces innate in nature. But where did these forces appear more clearly, where were they more graspable and more general than in the movements of   the heavenly bodies? If  the immanent law of   the cosmos, the all-embracing universal rule even for particular occurrences was readable at all, it must be here. During the Renaissance, therefore, astrology and magic do not conflict with the “modern” concept of   nature; on the contrary, they become its most powerful vehicle.’ This view may seem to have been eclipsed, to be sure, but it nonetheless needs to be kept in sight because, in the historiography of   Renaissance philosophy, it lies firmly at the origin of   the still current notion that natural philosophy and magic both developed within an indistinct theoretico-cultural continuum. Cassirer seems to have arrived at this notion by zooming in on the view that Ficino held of   the cosmos (a view previously espoused by Nicholas of   Cusa) and arbitrarily ascribing it by extension to the whole complex of   intellectual forces operating in different fields, places, and times throughout the Renaissance. Also at work, in accounting for this misconception, there seems to be an overzealous attempt to distil these forces into a single grand vision. Even more importantly, however, this notion stems from a failure to recognize the role that medicine played in forming much of   the new philosophy of   nature. This misrecognition has given rise to a historiographical myth proper – clearly present, for example, in Walker 1958: 189–94 – according to which, even the Renaissance naturalist thinkers who opposed the magico-natural conception, should properly be located, at least in point of   fact, in an episteme based on analogies, correspondences and similarities, that is, the current of   thought that runs from Ficino to Campanella. This myth continues to vitiate much of  the contemporary debate on the natural philosophy of  the sixteenth century (thanks especially to Foucault and his followers, see Foucault 1966: 45–49, and,

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frame which in a  sense is  missing from Galenic psychology, and which therefore enjoyed some success, especially of   a literary kind.

Antonio Persio’s Trattato dell’ingegno dell’huomo (1576) A good example of   this literary fortune is the Trattato dell’in­ gegno dell’huomo (Venice 1576) by Antonio Persio (1542–1612), one of   the first and most devoted proponents of   Tele­sio’s natural philosophy. The  work comes ten years before the main edition of    Tele­sio’s De rerum natura iuxta propria principia (Naples 1586) but diverges from the latter in significant ways, an element suggesting that Tele­sio’s anthropology had not yet been adequately firmed up by the time Persio came to write his own treatise. Despite these divergences, however, Persio carried forward some of  his teacher’s themes, for which reason his Trattato was regrettably to attract the same censorship as Tele­sio’s works.3 Indeed, the tract sets out to clarify ‘the efficient causes of  genius’, programmatically confining itself  to the natural ones,4 even though there is  a  continuity with Platonism that soon induces Persio to give away his intent, turning Telesian sensualism into a spiritual monism closer to Ficino’s philosophy.5

for a critical assesment of   this position, Maclean 1998) making it difficult to recognize the continuity between Renaissance and seventeenth-century philosophy. 3   Despite the cautious language and hedging, some of   it explicit, that can be found at several places in Persio’s Trattato, in 1593 the work was placed on the Index librorum prohibitorum, along with Tele­sio’s Quod animal universum and De somno, however much under the saving clause donec expurgentur. The  censorship was later upheld in 1596. For a  brief  overview of   the history of   the censorship visited on Persio’s Trattato, see Eugenio Canone and Germana Ernst’s preface to the treatise in Persio 1999: xi. 4  Although Persio correctly traces the Italian noun ingegno (genius, wits, ingenium) from the Latin verb ingigno (engender), the innatism he advocates does not bear the distinctive traits of  the naturalization effected through Galen’s Quod animi mores. 5  On the influences acting on Persio’s thought, see Garin 1984: 11–12 and Persio 1999: ix, xi.

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Indeed, ‘ingenuity’ (ingegno) is described as the highest degree of   refinement reached by the spirit (spiritus) that resides in the cerebral ventricles,6 which is the animal’s single substance and is  at one with the spirit of   the universe. The  term spiritus goes by several names depending on the functions it fulfils in each organ, thereby determining the different inclinations of   genius: […] thus I say about this spirit, which Galen invested with the nature of   air, and then with the nature of   fire, that anyone claiming it to be father, source, and root of   genius would do so on very likely grounds; so, too, someone would be right in arguing that, according to the different dispositions and the ways it is interwoven in our body, this spirit gives rise to different forms of   genius, and the more it is  refined, the more honed and distinct one’s genius will proved to  be; this in just the same way as a  mirror, which will have greater shine, smoothness, and cleanness in proportion as it will more naturally and easily receive the imprint and likeness of   an image – our spirit being nothing if  not a  mirror bearing the imprint of   the species of   things, and differing from a mirror by virtue of   its knowledge.7

The purification of  the spirit is subsequently likened to the socalled ‘fire assay’ (saggio dell’oro), a process in use at the Venetian mint to determine the quality of  metals and which, as that of  distillation, lent itself  to alchemic suggestions.8 As  we will   Persio 1576: 12 ff.   Ibid., 27–28: ‘[…] adunque dico che questo spirito che Galeno vestì di natura d’aria, et appresso di natura di fuogo, chi volesse dir che egli fosse padre, fonte, et radice dello ‘ngegno, lo poria sostenere con ragioni molto verosimili, et  aggiungere che secondo la diversa disposizione, et intessimento di lui nel corpo nostro ne nascono le diverse forme de gl’ingegni, e secondo detto spirito sarà più affinato, mostrerà più affinato, et rilevato ingegno, a guisa d’uno specchio, il quale quant’è più terso, liscio e polito, tanto più naturalmente, e facilmente riceve la ‘mpronta, e similitudine della imagine, non essendo altro il nostro spirito che uno specchio nello ‘mprontarsi delle specie delle cose, e differisce dallo specchio per la conoscenza.’ 8  Ibid., 5r–v: ‘Hora io stimo che gli stromenti e suoi [scil. dello spirito] adoperatori siino questi: senso, ragione, mente, ingegno, et spirito; li quali, non discostandoci dall’origine del nostro favellare, chiameremo, i due provatori ordinari, il terzo straordinario, le bilancine, il fuogo: et un provatore sarà il 6 7

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see shortly as well, Persio’s divergence from Tele­sio is  most marked in the matter of   the relation between ingenium and spiritus, where the former stands to the latter as the particular does to the universal. While in Tele­sio this derivation of   the human ingenium from the universal spirit is  framed within a  materialistic cosmology, in Persio it is  arrived at by way of   a  Platonic analogy in which an individual manifestation of   the cosmic spirit is  analogized to an oil lamp whose light, internally pure and unblemished, is  externally altered by the characteristics of   its envelopment.9 The purpose of   the analogy is  to reiterate, if  on a  different level, the truth of   Galen’s thesis that the inclinations of   the soul follow the temperament of   the body. But so framed, the relation between the particular and the universal reveals itself  to be the reverse of   both the Galenic model and, a fortiori, the Telesian model. Indeed, the inversion becomes particularly apparent where Persio turns to the question of   how intellectual knowledge can arise out of   sensible knowledge, describing this transisenso, et l’altro la ragione, il terzo la mente, le bilance lo ‘ngegno, et il fuogo lo spirito, che ciascuna fiata intende ad assottigliare, et a purgare; la verga dell’oro sarà poi questa sembianza delle cose naturali. Ma perché non tutte le cose naturali sono a una medesima maniera, et per conseguente non ci parano ad esseguirle una istessa facilità o difficoltà, però nasce che non vagliano tutti i predetti stromenti somigliantemente al far della pruova; che dove il primo è buono, non così sempre il secondo, et dove è il secondo, non è così sempre il terzo, vagliaci giudicio ben disposto. Le cose della natura sensibile tocchi il senso. Et la ragione specoli quelle cose che a lei soggiacciono: et la mente si communichi all’une, et all’altre, com’a lei è in piacere; a cui per giunta attribuiscasi la speculazione delle cose celesti et divine.’ 9  Ibid., 125–26. The example is quite commonplace, recurring constantly throughout the Renaissance at least since Nicholas of   Cusa, and it was also used by Nicholas de Nancel, see Nancel 1587a: 37r: ‘Quemadmodum lumen aut lucerna ardentissima et lucidissima, opaco inclusa lanternae corpore, suos radios execernere, lucemque effundere cohibetur. Aut sol semper clarissimus, suum splendorem nobis foenenari et expandere, tum nube densa interposita, tum luna interiecta, tum terrae opaco intermedio corpore, eclipsin noctemve faciente, prohibetur: aut sane concolorem obiecto corpori iaculatur lucem, viridem, luridam, rubram, flavam, caeruleam, et caetera id genus, ut iam antea coepi demonstrare. Sic anima haec et sapiens, et intelligens, puerili, senili, aegro in corpore conclusa; ob immoderatam organorum intemperiem, calidam, frigidam, humidam, siccam, sua munia exequi, aut saltem extrinsecus communicare atque expromere (licet ipsa sui semper similis) minus commode potest: sed interdum imperfecte, aut etiam vitiose et depravate; ignoranti, deliranti, desipienti, furenti denique similis.’

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tion as a  form of   Platonic anamnesis enabling the spirit to recover the ‘prime notions’ that perception has reawakened only in an obscure fashion.10 From this standpoint, which is  diametrically opposed to the Galenic one, the inheritance of   natural traits becomes a particular case of   the theory of   soul’s reminiscence. A closer relation to the Galenic tradition can instead be observed in the details of  Persio’s anatomy and physiology of   the cerebral ventricles,11 as well as in his description of   the dynamics of   innate heat12 and the short list of   ‘efficient causes’ of   ingenium, which are said to consist of   nutrition, the purity of   the blood, the diversity of   climates places, and eugenic therapies. Especially useful among such therapies are the parent’s exercise of   imagination and sexual desire,13 which are thought by Persio to secure a  more developed ingenuity for any children they may have who are born out of   wedlock. Indeed, the lovers desire each other more ardently in their love-making than would happen in a regular conjugal relationship.14 Through the concepts of   love (amor) and sympathy (sympathia), Persio’s treatise outlines the nature of  the spirit (spiritus) in connection with another typically Platonic image, that of   the world-soul (anima mundi); thus Telesian sensualism is  put through yet another inversion, by virtue of   which the sun becomes a  ‘visible’ symbol of   the ‘invisible’ sun, in which lies divine knowledge. While this conclusion works in precisely the opposite direction to the Galenic psychological tradition and its reworking into Tele­sio’s philosophy, it does cohere with the overall tenor of   the Trattato, whose passing references to current or mainstream medical conceptions are aimed at supporting its essentially rhetorical and literary character.

  Ibid., 78.   Ibid., 27. 12   Ibid., 32. 13  Ibid., 91–92. 14  Ibid., 97–98. 10 11

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Fig. 17. Antonio Persio, Trattato dell’ingegno dell’huomo (Venice 1576). Frontispiece. Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale ‘Vittorio Emanuele II’.

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From Galenism to Naturalism: Agostino Doni’s De natura hominis libri duo (1581) In contrast to Persio’s requirement for continuity with Platonism is  the De natura hominis libri duo (Basel 1581), by the physician Agostino Doni of   Cosenza (c. 1540–1583), in which Plato is  not regarded as worthy of   mention in scientific discourse. The  development of   Doni’s theory, in fact, is  owed entirely to his dialectical but fruitful exchange with Aristotelianism and Galenism.15 In taking this position, while drawing a clear line of   demarcation between natural and metaphy­sical causes and plumping for the former,16 Doni becomes perhaps the first Italian author to inaugurate a  properly medical discussion of   ingenuity. Indeed, his De natura hominis presents itself  as a  comprehen­ sive recasting of   Aristotelian natural philosophy and Galenic anthropology within the frame provided by the physiology of   the spirit –  a  single, mobile substance capable of   sensation. As  early as in Francis Bacon’s Of  the Proficience and Advancement of   Learning, Divine and Human (London 1605), this overlap with Tele­sio was taken to mean that Doni was a  pupil of   Tele­sio,17 an assessment that has later been revised.18 These affinities are actually owed to the fact that Doni and Tele­sio both drew on the same Galenic   The historical record on the life Agostino Doni is quite scant: not even his dates of   birth and death are known. Some elements that may be useful in giving a biographical account can be gleaned from Luigi De Franco, De Franco 1973: 15–47, who reconstructs Doni’s curriculum and the events that for religious reasons pushed him to the outskirts of   Italy. Doni’s De natura homini libri duo did not meet with much success. At once obvious and telling, in this regard, is  the fact that these two books circulated mainly among physicians. They were certainly familiar to the Bolognese naturalist Ulisse Aldro­vandi (1522–1605); and a copy was also owned by the Pontifical Archiater Deme­trio Canevari (1559–1625). 16  As it was the case for Huarte, Doni staked a position against the detractors of   natural philosophy on the ground that natural entities are manifestations of  God himself, see Doni 1581, Praefatio: 56, 59. 17  Bacon 1605, II: 35v. 18  It was Luigi De Franco who pointed out that, in the matter of   human nature, Doni’s De natura hominis libri duo contains specific theses that Tele­sio had not developed through the two editions (1565 and 1570) of  his main work, the De Rerum Natura Iuxta Propia Principia, see De Franco 1973: 56–57 and, more extensively, 165–90. 15

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sources, while interpreting them in original ways. And in fact in Doni we find all the motifs that have already been seen to distinguish the anthropological turn of   end-of-century Galenism, most notably the project of  restricting the study of  human nature within a  naturalistic frame, the rejection of   the universal species, the deconstruction of   the Aristotelian theory of  essence, the criticism of  the view that locates human agency in a separate and external mens, the replacement of   this mens with ingenium, and the thesis that it is  impossible to demonstrate the immortality of   the soul on the basis of   natural philosophy alone. In the De natura hominis these themes are logically laid out in two books: while the first, consisting of  a pars destruens, sets the stage by subjecting Aristotle and Galen to critical scrutiny, in the second, the pars construens, Doni puts forward his own theory. It  is  Doni himself  who reveals the driving purposes behind his natural philosophy: I go in search of   novelty not by virtue of   some desire for new glory but simply to expound and put out those truths that with great pains I believe I have discovered. It must be noted that my opinions are not even entirely new, for many of  those will be such to have been somehow already believed or reported by the ancients. And yet, they did so much doubtfully (dubi­tanter), or even twistingly (perverteret), and changing whatever failed to agree with the initial premises – evidence that what they asserted had not been adequately investigated. Still, in not too small a measure, this will help me deflect the animus elicited by those who discover new things.19

19 Doni 1581: 60: ‘[Eoque aggrediar alacrius quod (deos hominesque contestor)] nulla cupidine novae gloriae nova molior, sed ut simpliciter proferam tradamque quae magno labore invenisse videor. Quamquam ne nova quidem prorsus ea sunt – nam vero pauca comperientur meorum dictorum quae veterum aliquis quoquo modo non viderit atque retulerit, licet vel dubitanter diceret, vel rursus aliquando perverteret, vel etiam deinde ea subderet, quae non apte quadrarent positis, quod erat signum non explorata satis ratione protulisse ea quae protulerat – mihi autem id erit multum ad fugiendam novitatis invidiam.’ That the doctrines laid out in the De natura hominis are dependent on those of  the ancients is something Doni noted from the outset in the preface, see Doni 1581: 3–6.

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The reference made to the classic doctrines and the controversy surrounding them is still probably a reference to Galen, whom Doni has already faulted for being captious and inconstant (perverse et incostanter…loquutus),20 in that Galen identifies the soul now with innate heat, now with the spirit and temperament of  the main organs. That Galen is the target of  Doni’s criticisms can be better appreciated later on (bk. II, chap. 9), when Doni accuses him of   having posited the identity of   soul and spirit without the backing of   a  coherently stated argument.21 Thus Doni’s effort is  to develop (evolvere) 22 the conclusions set out in the De elementis ex Hippocrate 23 by arguing against the first of   Galen’s thesis – on which sensation is made to derive from alterations of   matter – so as to uphold the second, on which matter is endowed with an original and irreducible sensibility of  its own. To Aristotle, and particularly with regard to his theory of  forms and universals, Doni devotes a different and most harsh line of   criticism.24 As was previously the case with Huarte, this criticism sets the premise without which it would not be possible to proceed, in the second book, to naturalistically reduce mens to ingenium. Still, Doni allows that Aristotle’s works on animals   Ibid., 40.   Ibid., 42, 49. 22   Ibid., 45. 23  Ibid., 42–43. Here, too, Doni makes his point by reference to the De elementis ex Hippocrate (Galen, EH, K I, 433,12–15), which accordingly asserts itself  as the key text for his reflection on the question of  the sensibility of  matter. Indeed, the two main theses of   the De natura hominis, namely, the oneness of   the spirit and its natural sensibility, are modelled on Hippocrates’ De  carnibus and Galen’s De elementis ex Hippocrate. In  addition to these, it also bears mentioning that Doni refers to Galen’s apocryphal Introductio seu medicus, out of   which he extracts the enticing but unsupported thesis that a material substrate can mediate between the contrary forces of  agential natures (e.g. hot and cold). Galen is finally praised for having located in sensibility alone the root of  all psychical motions of  the animal. 24  Ibid., 29–30. The difference between the two criticisms can be appreciated in their extent (thirteen pages devoted to Aristotle in chapters 7 and 8, as against the sixteen pages devoted to Galen in chapter 9). But also appreciable is the difference in tone: while the criticism directed at Aristotle is for the most part couched in the third person, the one directed at Galen takes the form of  a dialogue, in which Doni occasionally engages Galen directly, as if  they were reasoning in common on the question of  the nature of  the soul. 20 21

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sometimes offer important insights on the nature of   heat and universal sensibility.25 A noteworthy difference between Tele­sio and Doni lies in the latter’s profession as a physician, enabling him to develop his philosophical premises more incisively.26 In reducing consciousness to a material spirit, Doni does away with the Aristotelian theory of   universals, in its place bringing in a kinetic theory of   the spirit. Indeed, knowledge now emerges as a kind of   contact between matter and spirit by virtue of   the latter’s ability to recognize recurrent patterns (formae) in the motion of   matter.27 Unlike Persio, this materialistic scheme does not result in Platonic reminiscence, and Doni denies to the spirit any form of   self-consciousness. Going down the same path, Doni even denies the existence of   any entity superior to the spiritus derived from the semen: unlike Huarte, and later Tele­sio himself, Doni cannot accommodate any ‘superadded soul’ (anima superad­dita), for this would be not only useless but also incompatible with the rigorous premises of   his natural inquiry. The psychical sphere is thus reduced to a physical movement of   self-preservation that pervades nature in its entirety (omne quod natura constat vim sentienti habet et sine ea esse non potest).28 It  was precisely the radical nature of   these theses that caused the De  natura hominis to be censored and its author to be persecuted as a heretic – a fate not unlike that which would befall Tele­sio, who, as we will see shortly, proceeded from the same premises and problems but presented his conclusions within a broader philosophical scheme. 25   Ibid., 36–40. The  reference is  to the famous passage in Aristotle, GA, 736b,29–737a,5. On Aristotle’s role in shaping Tele­sio’s naturalism, see Hirai 2012. 26 This is  an aspect that in the nineteenth century was remarked upon by Francesco Fiorentino, Fiorentino 1872–74: vol. 1, 328, 336–41. 27  Doni 1581: 74: ‘Non est enim sensus tantum dignotio alterationis, ut quidam docuerunt, qui quidem unam modo speciem finiverunt sensus, sed etiam eius affectus (non invenio aliud verbum quo exprimam rem), qui a similibus et cognatis attingentibus datur; qui quidem non est alterationis et motus de statu, sed dulcissimi et (ut sic dicam) vitalis motus ad vim amicam blandissime quasi afflantem et vegetantem.’ 28  Ibid., 332.

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Fig. 18. Agostino Doni, De natura hominis libri duo (Basel 1581). Frontispiece. Fermo, Biblioteca ‘Romolo Spezioli’.

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Naturalism and Medicine in Bernardino Tele­sio’s Quod animal universum (1590) Likewise, the philosophy of  Bernardino Tele­sio (1509–88) developed in close contact with the then-current Aristotelianism and Galenism, which also framed the speculative horizon and conceptual lexicon of   his thought. Neoplatonism, in contrast, had no role in shaping Tele­sio’s thought, and any Stoic influence always filtered in via Galen. And it is precisely with Galen that Tele­sio engages starting from the Quod animal universum ab unica animae substantia gubernatur: contra Galenum, a book posthumou­sly published by Antonio Persio (Varii de naturalibus rebus libelli, Venice 1590), even though, by Tele­sio’s own account, it was written at the time of   the first edition of   the De rerum natura (Naples 1565), if  not before.29 The Quod animal universum may be a  booklet (libellus), but its plan is  still elaborate, its eighty-four folios (forty-two recto-verso pages) breaking down into thirty-eight chapters. The unusual format is a further indication that this work probably marks what is  truly the first stage in Tele­sio’s thought, which evolved by reasoning about issues and topics of  a strictly medical nature.30 It was, after all, the work’s adherence to a particularly controversial version of   Galenic thought that caused it to be condemned, along with the booklet De somno, by Pope Clement VIII in 1593. 29 On the dating of    the Quod animal universum, see Tele­sio 1981: xxi; Bondì 1993: 406, n.  8 and, more recently, Pupo 1999: 17. Evidence for the contemporary writing of  the Quod animal universum and the De rerum natura lies in the fact that reference to both of  these works is made by Tele­sio himself  in the first edition of  the De natura iuxta propria principia (Rome 1565), bk. II, chap. 49, 157. 30  As highlighted by Guido Giglioni, Giglioni 2011: 160–63, medicine plays a prominent role in the overall scheme of  Tele­sio’s thought. From the very first pages of  his booklet Quod animal universum, Tele­sio proposes to proceed with attentive and rigorous care whenever medicine has any bearing on the subject at hand. It is indeed by engaging with Galenism, however polemically so, that Tele­sio extracts the main instruments of   his naturalistic inquiry. Also bearing out this claim are the later booklets, such as the Quae et quomodo febres faciunt and the De rigoris aestusque, quae rigorem excipit, causis, both of   which keep returning to the question of  the effects and nature of  heat, be it innate, febrile, or tied to the physiology of  the pulse, and in so doing developing ideas that run contrary to those of  Galen. On the relation between Tele­sio and Galen, see also Temkin 1973: 145–48.

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Fig. 19. Bernardino Tele­sio, Varii de naturalibus rebus libelli (Venice 1590). Frontispiece. Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale ‘Vittorio Emanuele II’.

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The immediate purpose of  the Quod animal universum is to offer a criticism of   Galen’s physiological polycentrism. Yet the broader philosophical objective is to fashion and frame the core ideas and themes proper to Galenic physiology within a unified system resting on a  strictly naturalistic foundation. The  more detailed objective is to trace the effects of   the natural and vital faculties to a single animal faculty proper to the spirit, and to demonstrate that no operation of   the soul is  in itself  devoid of   sensation and discernment. Like Doni, then, Tele­sio takes up and builds on the first of   the two premises behind Galen’s De elementis ex Hippocrate. As to the organization of   the Quod animal universum, the work can be divided into three main parts: – an introductory part (chaps. 1–14), in which the Galenic doctrines are expounded, discussed, and corrected; – an intermediate part (chaps. 15–24), setting out the reasons why the faculties that Galen terms natural (growth, nutrition, and reproduction) are instead to be considered operations of   the animal faculty; this part can further be broken down into two subparts depending on the kind of  argument employed, with a first subpart (chaps. 15–19), in which the basic Galenic operations (attraction, retention, alteration, and expulsion) are reduced to manifestations of   the single activity of   the soul, and a  second subpart (chaps. 20–24) arguing for the same conclusion on the basis of  the physiology of  the pulse; – a closing part (chaps. 25–38), restating the previous theses and arguments in summary and rejecting the use of   the localizationist principle for diseases and the passions.

While the possibility of   reinterpreting the natural faculties as animal faculties can be grounded in the principle that the operations by which specific juices and foods are selected imply the existence of   sensibility and discernment,31 it proves more challen­ging for Tele­sio to explain how the brain – identified as the main seat of  the spirit (spiritus in cerebri ventriculis contentus) – is concerned in functions usually considered to be invo­ lun­tary or at least not deliberate. In  order to make this case, Tele­sio revisits and reworks Galen’s experiments on the ligature   Tele­sio 1590: fols 16v–17r.

31

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of   nerves and arteries (Fig. 20), in an operation whose aims are similar to those promoted by Argenterio.32 Indeed, if  Galen’s experiments were aimed at decentralizing some of   the bodily functions by locating them in structures that channel their faculty through privileged con­duits (the nerves for the brain, the arteries for the heart, the veins for the liver), these same experiments are now reinterpreted to demonstrate that all peripheral functions are governed and directed by a  single faculty, which the brain sends out to the entire body by way of  the nerves and fibres: […] if  an artery that climbs from the brain to the heart is tied, the upper section will cease to pulse, almost as if  it had been severed from the heart; which is not without reason, and this is why it appeared to Galen that the artery had stopped pulsating, considering that a  choke point was obstructing the passage of   something from which the pulsation would have originated; but in reality, considering that not all arteries that climb to the brain reach its ventricles, it must be concluded that the spirit contained in the arteries originally made its way to the brain from its ventricles and not from the heart, that is, it moved in from other arteries that develop out of  the brain, or else from those parts of   the brain which are closest to the ventricles or through which the spirit, starting out from the ventricles, gains access to a cavity; so, then, the pulsation of  the arteries ceases because a stoppage is hindering, not the faculty that flows from the heart, but the movement that from the totality housed in the ventricles of  the brain seems to spill onto the pulsating parts of  the arteries.33 32  The procedure adopted by Tele­sio consists not in calling Galen’s experiments into question but in setting out to properly interpret and correct them where necessary. In fact, the intent is for the most part to show that, had Galen himself  correctly interpreted the experiments he performed, he would have reached the same conclusions. It is therefore by reasoning on the Galenic experiments that Tele­sio feels justified to correct them. On this broad approach, Tele­ sio argues that in the single spirit issuing from the cerebral ventricles lies the source not only for the actions by which the penis excretes urine and becomes erect, but also for the action of   the heart, whose movement, he claims, originates from the spirit infused into the fibres and nerves encircling its structure. On the whole matter see Giglioni 2011: 165 who notes Tele­sio’s penchant for subjecting Galen’s experiments to interpretation. 33  Tele­ sio 1590: fol.  22v: ‘[…] vel si arteria a  corde ad cerebrum sublata, funicolo alligata, superior eius pars, quae a  corde veluti seiuncta est, non amplius pulsat; nam non perperam quidem, propterea non amplius illam pulsare Galeno visum est, quod rei cuipiam inde advenienti, a qua pulsus fiat, praeclusa est via; at vero quia quae a  corde ad cerebrum ascendunt arteriae

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Fig. 20. Berengario da Carpi, Isagogae Breves (Bologna 1523). Example of  ligature of  the aorta. Paris, Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire de Médecine.

The natural faculties are therefore exercised not by virtue of  the temperament specific to each organ, but at the behest of   the spiritus contained in the ventricles: the faculties, in other words, answer directly to the soul in its totality. Indeed, denying that every action originates from the totality of  the spiritus would be tantamount to accepting the view that the different parts of  the animal are endowed with spontaneous, autonomous, and arbitrary capacity for action of  their own34 – something that cannot non omnes cerebri ventriculos attingunt, ut iis inexistentem spiritum ex illis primo illapsum fuisse existimandum sit; et non ipso a corde, sed aliis ex arteriis, quae a cerebro iisque ipsius adnatae sunt partibus, quae ventriculis proximiores forte sunt, vel in quas e ventriculis aditus spiritui patet; non magis arteriarum pulsationem cessare, quod facultati, a corde emananti, quam quod motui, qui ab universitate in cerebri ventriculis residente portionibus arteriae pulsantibus indere videtur, praeclusa est via.’ 34   Ibid., fol. 19v.

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be reconciled with the animal’s primary need of   self-preservation. Thus, Tele­sio’s reasoning also undercuts the distinction between voluntary and involuntary movements,35 but not that between conscious and uncon­scious movements, considering that, for Tele­sio, consciousness is  a  condition ascribed to the individual in which the spirit resides.36 In support of   the main thesis of the Quod animi mores Tele­sio finally offers a specific analysis of   the pulse, observing that it correlates with passions

35   Few of   the conclusions reached by Tele­sio do as much to bring his philosophy in line with the modern spirit, making it possible to point out several significant parallels between his physiology and that of  Descartes. Also significant is the fact that this affinity is achieved, once more, by calling Galenic physiology into question. In  the seventh book of   his De rerum natura, for example, Tele­sio analyses Galen’s view that vision is  made possible by the action through which the spirit residing in the pupils interfaces with the ambient air, and even as Tele­sio rejects those views, he does find himself  in agreement with Galen on a fundamental point, namely, that visibilia do not issue from things: vision rather depends exclusively on the brain and the nerves that stem from it, which nerves process images by interpreting the changes imparted from the outside. Tele­sio writes in this regard, Tele­sio 1586: 302: ‘Rerum scilicet, quae sentientem animam non contingunt, nec vires ei nec speciem percipi posse existimanti Galeno, nihilque (ut videtur) e rebus, quae spectantur, simulachra emanare intuito et cerebri unius propriam esse sentiendi vim, nervis vero eatenus eam inesse, quatenus a cerebro ea donentur, quatenus scilicet a cerebro immutentur in eiusque agantur naturam, itaque immutatos non ipsos modo externarum rerum vires speciemque percipere, sed cerebro sentiendam eam praebere statuenti, necessario (ut dictum est) quo rerum imagines spectentur, vel anima ipsa, vel aliquod eius organum ad res spectandas emittendum Galeno fuit, quod eas intuitum earum speciem animae communicaret; spiritus nimirum, qui oculo inesse, et qui si non animae ipsius substantia at praecipuum eius organo Galeno visus est, et qui longe ad exiliendum aptissimus videri potest.’ On the physiology of   perception see also Tele­sio 1586: 181–82, 187, 188–93. On  the question of   so-called ‘active perception’ as it relates to Tele­sio and his theory of   vision, see Spruit 2008: 212 pointing out that, for Tele­sio, ‘the soul is not actualized by external forms. Sensation is essentially an operation of   the spirit. At this point it is impossible to distinguish the process from the product. Perception is neither direct pick-up nor gradual assumption of   forms, but rather a  sensory-motor enactment. Sensation consists in the reaction of   the spirit to its alterations. Since the spirit is  hot and mobile matter, this reaction is  a  motion. The  spirit’s reaction to external stimuli is like a primitive awareness of   its affections. The central part of   the spirit stores the motions that caused its alterations.’ Spruit clearly shows how the theory of   vision as ‘active perception’ (a top-down theory) is  historically rooted in Platonic philosophy and is also reflected in those Renaissance authors (among whom Gia­como Za­ba­rella) who tend to interpret Aristotle’s De anima through a Neoplatonic lens. 36  Tele­sio 1590: fols 14v, 15r, 16r.

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and states of   mental distress,37 whereupon it accelerates, while slowing down when one is  prevented from breathing; indeed, like any animal action, pulse depends directly on the spirit residing in the cerebral ventricles, where it is always active and conscious. What pulsates, therefore, is not the arteries or the veins individually but the entire soul with them, in a continuous movement that, within the classic antipodal scheme of   hot and cold, repeats the action of  the spiritus as it constricts and dilates.38 On the basis of   these premises Tele­sio thus also rejects the application of  the localizationist principle to maladies and passions of   the soul. Indeed, as can be appreciated from cases like fainting and apoplexy, even an affliction of   only a  single part can give rise to general conditions affecting the entire organism, showing that each action is dependent on a single material substance.39 The same holds for the passions, whose apparent rapport of   mutual opposition is  an effect resulting from the capacity of   the spirit to manifest two opposite inclinations, namely, an appetite for that which preserves the spirit itself, and a repulsion for that which hinders its preservation.40 This model demonstrates, in a  sense, the moral side of   the Galenic faculties of   attraction and repulsion. In  keeping with this assumption, therefore, Tele­ sio highlights that not only do certain physiological states change in response to external events, but each passion manifests only one of  the two elemental instincts of  the spirit. Indeed, the passions are inseparable from the totality of   the soul/spirit, and it would not be possible to simultaneously perceive two painful stimuli, since each of  them – especially in the event of  serious wounds – engage the corporeal soul in its entirety.41   Ibid., fol. 29r–v, and then again, shortly thereafter, fols 30v, 31r.   On the status of  pulsation in Tele­sio, see Mulsow 2002: 426–27. 39  Tele­sio 1590: fol. 34v. 40 Ibid., fol.  43r: ‘Pugna porro, quibusdam propositis operationibus in anima interdum oriri videtur, quae antiquiores omnes et ipsum in primis impulsit Galenum, ut vel e diversis illam componerent substantiis, vel tres omnino et summopere a  se ipsis differentes homini inderent animas; ea in primis haudquaquam pluris a substantiis et diversis positis in locis diversoque donatis ingenio, sed ab una omnino eademque animal universum gubernari, omnesque quas animal operatur operationes et appetitiones, quae animali insunt omnes, una modo a substantia aedi et uni inesse omnes.’ 41   Ibid., fols 43v  ff. 37 38

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The ‘Two Souls’ in Tele­sio’s Philosophy The study of   medicine thus exposes Tele­sio to the principles and procedures in light of   which he will revisit Aristotelian physics and anthropology. From this medical standard comes the centrality of   the spirit and the substantiality of   heat, the need to restrict the study of  nature to a study of  natural events, and the opposition between mens and ingenium – all elements he draws from his engagement, however dialectical it may be, with the Galenic tradition and the naturalism of   the Paduan physicians.42 His Quod animal universum, in particular, develops the critique of  physiological polycentrism that, as discussed in Chapter 2, is aimed at reinstating a unified criterion for the development of   the organic functions, a critique that finds its immediate chronological antecedent in Argenterio’s De somno et vigilia (1556). From Argenterio, and indeed from the medical tradition broadly, Tele­sio also inherits the need to distinguish between instrumentum and essentia, but in so doing he reinterprets and radicalizes this distinction. While, for Argenterio, the unknowability of   essence means that the instrument through which the soul operates cannot be identified with its material substance, Tele­sio substantializes the instrumentum so as to clearly delimit the boundaries and possibilities of   natural inquiry. The  spirit originating from the semen is thus reinterpreted as substance, while essence – understood in the Aristotelian sense as an immaterial activity  – is  now seen as falling outside the scope of   natural inquiry, playing no more than a  marginal role, if  any, in the construction of   that knowledge. The methodological distinction between instrumentum and essentia thus turns ontological and translates into a distinction between two souls: one ‘originating from the seed’ (anima e semine educta) coinciding with the spirit and capable of   being known – for, in the manner of   an instrumentum it is  observable and consistent with the realm of   nature – and another one ‘infused by God’ (anima a Deo immissa), coinciding with essentia and reserved for the realm of  faith. 42  Tele­ sio’s engagement with the School of   Padua, especially with regard to the optical studies of   Federico Delfino and Geronimo Amalteo, has been highlighted in Mulsow 2002: 423–24.

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In point of   fact, a stark opposition of   this kind is going to affect both the coherence of  Tele­sio’s system and his anthropology in no small way. The problem comes in the form of  a logical disjunction applying to the nature of   the spirit, which will have to be considered as either (a) material, and thus amenable to investigation through the senses, or (b) immaterial, and thus unknowable. If   the spirit is fully immaterial and unknowable, it will not be necessary to deny its existence: since there is no such thing as an immaterial entity, the immaterial is unthinkable and impossible. However, it is precisely this tenet – denying the existence of   an immaterial cause – that forms the dialectical core of   Tele­sio’s entire philosophy. From this denial it follows not only that the immaterial is possible and thinkable, but also that the spirit can be said to be material only by ruling out that anything immaterial can have any part in it, and this means attributing to the spirit precisely the ontological positivity that was denied at the outset. Hence, either (c) the distinction between material and immaterial things does not hold up, since both are an object of   knowledge, or (d) the distinction does identify two different realities, but that means reintroducing an incomparable cause in the chosen explanation. Thus, if  on the one hand, Tele­sio’s revisitation of   naturalism makes it possible to draw a  clearer boundary between physical and metaphysical inquiry – hence avoiding the ambiguity of   the traditional Galenic approach; on the other, it inherits the vision behind that approach, a  vision that now takes shape as a  contradiction. As  discussed at some length in the previous chapter, the same contradiction also marks Huarte’s naturalism, but it becomes especially noticeable in the work of   Tele­sio; indeed, while in Galenic medicine the opposition between materiality and immateriality is  resolved by gauging the degree to which the latter can be held up as certain on a  scientific basis, a  study of   nature carried out exclusively iuxta propria principia entails a need to constantly redraw the boundary between the two fields of   inquiry, which in turn means unwittingly intruding oneself  into the investigation and implicitly legitimizing the realm of   the transcendent. Tele­sio’s ambivalence in this regard therefore looks more like an unwitting but inherent consequence of  his system than the outcome of   a  strained attempt to shape it into conformity with a  reli157

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gious worldview, even though such concerns are also certainly present.43 On an anthropological level, by contrast, the ontological distinction translates into a dualism that accounts for the harrowing irreconcilability between man’s physical and spiritual nature. In  broader terms, the radicalization of   Galenic naturalism has the effect of   demoting, if  not altogether doing away with, the Aristotelian concept of   species. It  is  here that the ‘medical reasoning’ becomes a ‘sensitive reasoning’, which for Tele­sio acts as the most effective weapon in his polemic against Aristotelianism: whether he is  studying a  disease or the onset of   fever, the physiology of   breathing or that of   sleep, every aspect of   his thought bears a deep, continuous, and vital connection with medical thought – and medicine, not incidentally, was the milieu most immediately receptive to his ideas.44 As with Huarte, it is by reason of  this significant continuity that Tele­sio rejects the Aristotelian principles of   potentiality and actuality. In the realm of  the physical, Tele­sio opposes the matter/form/ privation scheme (which latter in Aristotle corresponds to poten-

43  For a good summary of   the interpretations that have historically been given of  Tele­sio’s distinction between anima e semine educta and anima a Deo immissa, especially in his De somno libellus, see Pupo 1999: 23 ff. For a different account than the one here offered, see Bondì 1993: 408–09, which at 413 states: ‘The simple claim that there exists a divine soul takes on the flavour of  a concession, considering that such a soul remains an extraneous element, one that cannot easily be made to cohere with the overall context.’ My translation. Indeed, Bondì argues that the distinction between soul e semine educta and soul a Deo immissa was introduced by Tele­sio only after he reworked the De rerum natura for its second edition (1570). This interpretation, however, is itself  difficult to square with the fact that the distinction at issue can already be attested in Tele­ sio’s Quod animal universum. On the same point, see also Bondì 1997: 81. 44 It bears noting here that even the readership for Tele­ sio’s De rerum natura initially consisted of   physicians. This is  evidenced by the copy of   the book found in the rich collection held by the physician Domenico Cotugno – a copy now held at the Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples (see Roberto Bondì’s account in Tele­sio 2009: XII) – but further evidence comes from Tommaso Campanella, who in his Philosophia sensibus demonstrata recounts that in his youth Tele­sio’s philosophy became a topic of  conversation with two physicians, Giovan Francesco Branca di Castrovillari and Plinio Rogliano di Roggiano, who promptly agreed with the principles set out in the De rerum natura, see Campanella 1591: Praefatio, 4.

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tiality) with the dynamic polarity of  matter and force.45 Tele­sio’s dyad originates in turn from the opposition of  the two agential qualities (hot/cold). These, although still conceived by Tele­sio as formae – that is, as substances in the Aristotelian sense – at the same time figure also as concrete entities, capable of  stretching and contracting (formae intenduntur et remittuntur).46 Furthermore, and in opposition to Aristotle’s concept of  generation – which requires a terminus ad quem and an ideal scheme capable of   resolving and harmonizing the interaction between elements in an order of   growing complexity – Tele­sio argues that the agential qualities are spontaneously capable of   coalescing and shaping reality. This is an inherent ability of   matter (ingenium), belonging in particular to heat (ingenium calidi), whose changes in temperature correlate with changes in the degree of   complexity characterizing the structures of   living beings.47 Heat is thus the genus formarum out of  which all other Galenic faculties develop and to which they can therefore be reduced.48 Hence, it is  from this primary capacity for sensation – which carries forward and builds on the Hippocratic-Galenic idea of   the natural wisdom of   the body  – that all other psychical manifestations originate.  Tele­sio’s conception of   matter has been investigated by Karl Schuhmann, highlighting how – unlike Aristotle – Tele­sio equates matter with body, Schuhmann 1990: 117: ‘The foremost characteristic of  matter, in Tele­sio’s eyes, is precisely its corporeality, which distinguishes it very much from Aristotle’s way of   conceiving it. Heat and cold must be incorporeal, since nothing bodily is taken from a thing that emits them, and nothing bodily is added to a thing into which they enter. Yet, since all things we encounter are corporeal, matter must be the principle of   their corporeality and thus must be corporeal itself. Matter is therefore simply equated by Tele­sio with “corporeal mass”; and this latter term is more prominent in his work than “matter”.’ 46 This scheme, already present in Thomas Aquinas, is  something that Pomponazzi targets for criticism in his 1525 Tractatus acutissimi et mere peripatetici, where it forms the object of   the ‘Quaestio utrum formae intenduntur et remittuntur’. 47  For a critical discussion of   Tele­sio’s theories on natural generation and vital processes, see Badaloni 1989. 48  In this sense, see Tele­ sio 1590: fol. 35r. On the idea of   heat as a genus formarum, see Antonii Persi, Apologia pro Bernardino Tele­sio adversus Franciscum Patricium and Antonii Persii Responsiones ad obiecta Francisci Patritii contra Telesium, MS  Magliab. XII. 39, Florence Central National Library, cc. 2r–14r, recently reprinted in Tele­sio 2013. 45

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Spiritus ingenium est: From Physiology to Ethics Even though the basic outline of   Tele­ sio’s anthropology is blocked out in the first edition of   his De rerum natura iuxta propria principia (1565), it is not until the last edition (Naples 1586) that this investigation comes fully into its own.49 In order to grasp its main features it is first necessary to focus on the kernel of   his programme: to clarify how the soul/spirit can recognize and perceive the external movements by which it is affected (quomodo anima sentit, et quomodo intellegit), and more generally to expound the nature of   the intellect.50 Tele­sio rightly considers these problems to be connected, while pointing out the ways in which his conception diverges from the Aristotelian one, in which the mind is a ‘place of   forms’.51 This Aristotelian 49  Anthropology is here understood as an investigation directly concerned with the soul and with the moral repercussions of  such an investigation. It was only at a later stage that Tele­sio took an interest in this line of  inquiry, as is demonstrated by a letter of  28 April 1570 addressed to Cardinal Flavio Orsini in which Tele­sio comments how sparsely the soul is dealt with in the first edition of  the De natura iuxta propria principia (1565): ‘Dell’anima se ne dicono pochissime cose.’ And he goes on to point out that, even then, the scope of   his remarks on the soul is restricted: ‘Et quelle sole, ch’appartengono alla materia delli principij, et all’anima sensitiva, et motiva’, saying that the books he would shortly thereafter send to press would clear up the controversial points of  his new doctrine, even though it seems this did not happen in the event. On the content of  the letter, see De Miranda 1993: 374. By Tele­sio’s own account, even his interest in medicine came late. This statement, however, can easily be misread, because in all likelihood Tele­sio understood medicine in the technical sense of  medical practice, while medicine as a branch of  natural philosophy is a discipline he was well conversant with. On medicine in Tele­sio, see Giglioni 2011: 154–68, offering a clear outline of  Tele­sio’s relation to the medicine of  his own time. 50  Tele­sio 1586: 275. 51  The theory of   the identity between the intellect and the intelligible (meaning the store of   universal primary notions acquired by abstraction) is set out in several passages of   Aristotle’s works, but especially clear are the statements in Metaphysica, XII.7, and De anima, III.5, where Aristotle postulates an identity between the capacity for understanding (intellect in potentiality, νοῦς δυνάμει), with which man is endowed as a natural entity, and intellect in actuality, where one is  actually using the universal and necessary notions that make up the principles of   the sciences. Contrary to the Platonic theory of   ideas, where universals account for the particulars, here the intellect and the intelligible issue from a single act (ἐντελέχεια) of   thought, in which man is similar to God, whose essence is actuality itself. The Aristotelian theory therefore entails that any content of   thought qualifying as ‘universal and necessary in its objectivity’ is  both ‘external’ (θύραθεν) and ‘separate’ (χωριστὸς) from potential intellect, before it is even thought, for if  such universals depended on individual intelligizing, there would be no science proper but only shared opin-

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conception is replaced by Tele­sio with the ingenium, of   which the intellect is a development, and which by recourse to analogy (similitudo) elicits two closely related powers: that of  assessment (vis existimandi) and that of  recall (vis commemorandi).52 At least in this specific sense, Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945) was right in his view that, for Tele­sio, sensation and knowledge figure as only one of   the problems of   natural philosophy as a  whole, being part of   his ‘physiology’.53 Indeed, in receiving ion. So, in order for something to be accounted as objective and real, it must necessarily be external to the individual, and an intellectual tension must therefore exist in order to achieve the ‘objective mode’ that Aristotle understands scientific knowledge to consist in. The criticism Tele­sio directs at this theory is set out in particular in the De rerum natura, bk. VIII, chaps. 19–28, making it explicit that the reason why the theory is to be rejected is that it requires a habit of   thinking (in the form of   what Aristotle called the γνωρίζουσα ἕξις, or knowledge-making habit), and hence an ab extra objectivity that sits poorly with an exclusively physical theory of  the origin of  concepts. 52  Tele­sio 1586: 341–42. 53   This use of   physiology as a term designating an investigation in natural philosophy is also attested in other contemporaries of Telesio’s, such as For­ tu­nio Liceti (1577–1657). The term was coined by Aristotle to refer to the preSocratics (οἱ φυσιολόγοι), but its meaning and import changed over time. In the sixteenth century, most notably with Jean Fernel, it began a new life when it was pressed into service to designate the functions and faculties of  the soul. Tele­ sio’s understanding of   the term is neatly explained by Cassirer, Cassirer 1952: 268–70: ‘On account of   these principles, Tele­sio has been defined a precursor of   sensualism, but despite the outward agreement between the main themes, this definition does not accurately capture the gist and historical particularity of  his doctrine. What prevails in sensualism, however imperfectly, is an interest in knowledge: the task at hand is to find a way to work from the senses and the impressions to real objects. Psychology is the jumping-off  point and supreme model entrusted with explaining and illuminating even the concepts of  physics. Tele­sio’s doctrine works in quite the opposite direction: the effort here is to start from some fundamental tenet of  physics so as to arrive at physiology, which he equates with psychology. It is in things that lies the self-evident datum; sensation and consciousness are merely a subproblem within the world of   objects.’ My translation. A few pages later Cassirer closes his analysis with this conclusion, Cassirer 1952: 272–73: ‘It is evident that the conception from which these doctrines originate is  far removed from any theory of   knowledge, whatever orientation it may proceed from.’ Likewise: ‘In the final analysis, Tele­sio is far from the new frame of   mind that gives rise to the modern science of   nature, even where his conclusions land him closer to that science.’ My translation. An assessment not unlike the one just presented can be found in The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy (Cassirer 2010), where Tele­sio’s naturalism is seen as an exception in the landscape of  a sensualism which inevitably draws on magic, and which is therefore cut off  from any positive continuity with modern science, at least in its Galilean avatar (see, specifically, Cassirer 2010: 148). Here, as in note 2 of  this Chapter 4, Cassirer’s assessment has been quoted

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and being affected by external motions, the spirit carries to completion an action that is proper to it; corresponding to each external motion of   matter is in fact an internal one of   tension and relaxation.54 Because such motions (motiones, commotiones) act in different ways depending on their intensity, the inclinations of   character, and so ingenuity, will vary from one individual to the next depending on their physical constitution: Indeed, since the understanding comes about by recalling the passions and the motions by which the spirit has on previous occasions been moved; and since the spirits vary widely in heat, tenuousness, and purity – for they reside and operate in very different ventricles of   the brain – and since they are not all moved in the same way by external things – nor do they all have the same knowledge of   past motions, nor do the same motions remain the same, nor do the spirits all have the same readiness in recalling such motions, nor do these motions wind up in a suitable place – it must perforce be that the spirits understand in markedly different ways.55 in full because it raises several problems, foremost among them the problem of  method. On the one hand, in fact, Cassirer clearly identifies some of  the distinguishing traits of   Tele­sio’s thought, on the other hand, however, he seems to misconstrue their historical place. It is here that the historian of   ideas, however accurate and insightful he may be, finds it difficult to slough off  a Kantian legacy that essentially gets in the way. Indeed, in a strange reversal of   his later Philosophy of  Symbolic Forms (1923), Cassirer fails to fully appreciate the philosophical import of  the philosophy of  nature in the modern age, perhaps because until the birth of  modern biology, that is, until Charles Darwin, this philosophy is  informed by Aristotelian categories that neo-Kantianism rejects and never quite metabolizes. Cassirer thus clings to his initial vision, already in large part fleshed out in Substance and Function (1910), and according to which the discovery of   modern physics, interpreted through Kantian lenses, alone provides the template for reconstructing the entire history of   modern thought. In  this framework, it is clear that such thinkers as Tele­sio and Tommaso Campanella – and generally all scientists working in the Aristotelian/Galenic tradition, like Santorio Santori and William Harvey – are difficult to fit into the mold, and may even not be worthy of  mention. 54  The dilation and compression of   the material spiritus contained in the cerebral ventricles are to be paired with the general motions animating the entire cosmos as envisioned by Tele­sio, a cosmos composed of  actions (motiones) and reactions (commotiones). Their contraposition shapes the mechanics of  an antiperistatic motion that from the centre of  the body spreads out to its periphery, thus making it possible for the spirit to be evenly and constantly distributed from the brain’s ventricles to all the other parts of  the animal. On the principle of  antiperistasis, see also Mulsow 2002: 424–25, and Giglioni 2011: 158. 55   Tele­sio 1586: 349: ‘Quoniam enim passionum motuumque, quibus alias commotus est spiritus, recolitione intellectio fit, et spiritus longe a  se ipsis

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Fig. 21. Bernardino Tele­sio, De rerum natura iuxta propria principia (Naples 1586). Frontispiece. Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale ‘Vittorio Emanuele II’. calore tenuitate et puritate differunt, in longeque diversissimis collocati sunt operanturque cerebri ventriculis, nec aeque ab externis rebus commoti sunt omnes, nec praeteritorum motuum cognitio motusque ipsi aeque in omnibus remansere, nec aeque ad eos recolendos prompti nec aeque aptum locum nacti sunt omnes; longe intelligant diversissime necesse est.’

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Tele­sio will thus devote much discussion in the closing chapters of   the eighth book of   the De rerum natura (chaps. 29–36) to the different kinds of   ingenia, even as he recognizes that such a discussion diverges in part from the overall objectives of   his inquiry. But the point of   the discussion, analysing the different kinds of   ingenuity, is precisely to lay out the bases of   ethics, generalizing the concept of   spontaneity so that its natural manifestations will even include vice and virtue. Indeed, these are no longer conceived as habits (habitus) or dispositions (dispositiones), something an individual can pick up or lose, but as expressions of  the soul’s primary appetite, in which also lies the highest good of   the whole of   nature, namely, the drive for selfpreservation. Characters (mores) thus will be the result of  inborn faculties, qualifying as virtues if  they cooperate toward the preservation of  the spirit and as vices if  they work against such preservation.56 Even though Galen’s Quod animi mores is not directly quoted, Tele­sio’s argument clearly depends upon it: To further illustrate this concept, the point will emerge with patent clarity if  we consider the different mores of  children and the changes that in many of   them take place as they grow older; add to this the virtues and vices specific to each nation and to each kind of   animal. […] This, then, is why different children have different mores, and why in all men mores change almost identically as they age, by virtue of  the fact that the substance of   the spirit also changes, and each nation and each kind of  animal presents a distinctive virtue by reason of   the fact that, just as their bodies are akin, so are the spirits, and the closeness will be even greater among the latter than among the former and all the more is  this the case for the latter than for the former, because the same climate and the same foods that make our bodies similar also make our spirits similar. […] and so, as would seem to be the case, there can be no further calling into doubt of  the fact that even the virtue and the vice of  the appetitive faculty exist by nature.57   Tele­sio 1586: 357–58, 363–64, 391–92.   Ibid., 394–95: ‘Quod si amplius id declarari placeat, diversi id infantum mores eorumque immutationes, quae iuxta aetatum immutationes in plerisque fiunt, praeterea et nationum singularum singularumque animalium 56 57

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An original trait that distinguishes Tele­sio’s theory of  soul from those of   both Galen and Huarte consists in its being unified. Tele­sio is not concerned to establish a strict causal consecution between temperamenta and mores, for he posits the existence of   a single material spirit at once capable of   perceiving, thinking, and acting, in such a way as to suppress any intermediate relation. In this conception there is no longer an ‘outside’, for it is rather physiology that in itself  accounts for the classic polarities of   physiognomy (internal vs. external, subjective vs. objective) and the various facultates of   ancient medicine. In Tele­sio, then, the basic theses of   Galenic psychology find their most universal formulation: it is not the subject who is sentient but the spirit, and so the naturalization of   knowledge and morality is at this point fully accomplished, however much on a different level.58 generum propriae virtutes propriaque vitia apertissime declarant. Neque enim infantum alii mansueti, verecundi, veraces, liberales, fortes, alii contra iracundi, impudentes, mendaces, avari, timidi videri possunt, quod iuxta dictas virtutes vitiave diu operari, habitum tandem iuxta haec illasve operandi, et haec omnino illasve sibi compararint. Minus etiam, si virtutes vitiaque consuetudine comparantur, qui eodem in omnibus propemodum modo iuxta aetatis immutationes hae in illas et e contra immutentur, aut nationes singulae iisdem universae propemodo virtutibus vitiisque perpetuo donentur, aut qui iuxta proprias virtutes propriaque vitia adeo inter se eiusdem generis quae sunt animalia differant, quin contrariis quaedam virtutibus vitiisve donata sint, intueri prorsus non licet. At si natura inesse statuantur, manifestissimum id sit. Propterea scilicet diversi sunt mores infantum, quod et spiritus diversi sunt; et propterea iuxta aetatum mutationem in omnibus propemodum mores immutantur, quod et spiritus substantia; et singulae nationes singulaque animalium genera propriis virtutibus propriisque vitiis universa propemodum donata sunt, quod veluti illorum horumque corpora sibi ipsis similia cognataque sunt, sic et spiritibus; et illorum amplius, quod eodem a caelo iisdemque e cibis, similibus praesertim in corporibus, similes conficiuntur spiritus. […]  Itaque et appetentis virtutem, vitiumque natura inesse, nihil amplius (ut videtur) ambigere licet.’ 58 On the non-distinction between consciousness and unconsciousness in Tele­sio, Ingegno 1989: 62–63: ‘Tele­sio not only does away with the distinction between intellects purported to be of   different natures, but also criticizes the multiplying of   different intermediate faculties, such as the sensus communis  and the cogitative faculty (in regard to this latter faculty, he could work the argument much to his advantage by pointing out that Aristotle never even mentions it in his writings, and in fact that it was only introduced by his commentators in an effort to resolve some peculiar difficulties of   his thought). It is thus coherent with this essential identity of   the intellects that he sees an essential identity between the principles of human knowledge and those of  ani-

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This conclusion, undeniably leads down a materialistic and deterministic path59 and, in a sense, figures as a necessary premise for the later advance of   deductive physiology of   a Cartesian cast. Indeed, in Tele­sio knowledge is by now reduced to the process of  the spiritus acting on the organs whose action it controls through nerves and fibres. The spirit’s action on the fibres, such as those of  the oesophagus, can in turn be ascribed to a mechanism that follows the geometric properties of   the anatomical structure and uses them to preserve the animal itself.60 So, too, more generally, just as the single movements of   the body are

mal knowledge […]. Always under attack, then, is the possibility of  there being an intermediate term between the sensible and the intelligible […].’ My translation. On the same question, see Badaloni 1989: 35–36. 59  See, for example, Bondì 1993: 408, going so far as to place Tele­sio’s materialism in the same league with that of  Epicurus. Tele­sio’s materialism also carries ethical implications, as has been stressed by one of   the leading modern authorities on Tele­sio, Luigi De Franco, even though he argues for the possibility of   reconciling the two opposite spheres of   the soul: that which is home to the soul e semine educta, on the one hand, and that in which resides the transcendent essence of   the soul a Deo creata, on the other. De Franco argues that ‘a  conclusion of   this kind, while admittedly materialistic, would not be regarded by Tele­sio as contrary to faith, insofar as moral life according to nature does not contradict moral life according to religion’, see Tele­sio 1976: xxv–xxvi. So, in finding that Tele­sio is not contradicting himself, De Franco is still forced to concede that while a naturalistic ethic can be reconciled with a fideistic one, the latter does not in any way affect the substance or the overall design of  Tele­ sio’s De rerum natura. As  De Franco comments, Ibidem: ‘even if  these two ethics can, and indeed should, be reconciled in a proper reading of  Tele­sio, this should not be taken to suggest that the divine or supernatural moral good in which the latter is grounded can have any part in framing the rule or benchmark against which to measure the moral worth of   actions as either good or bad, for this standard can only be arrived at by a strictly naturalistic inquiry.’ On the determinism of  the passions in Tele­sio, see Ingegno 1989: 69–70. 60 Tele­ sio 1586: 242: ‘Oesophagus duplici constat tunica, rectis altera atque obliquis fibris intertexta, solis altera transversis; et rectis transversisque in ventriculum attrahit, e ventriculo contra transversis modo eicit. Quoniam enim circulo, ut diximus, hae constringunt, utramque in partem propellunt: at non rectae itidem. […] At e gula in ventriculum valentissime attrahit spiritus, si quidem et fibrae, per quas ulterius feratur, supersunt, et brevi e gula ad ventriculum tractae spatio vehementer intenduntur. Nam quae e longinquo trahuntur et longae omnino ipsae sunt, non valde intendi eae possunt; quod spiritus, earum pondere gravatus, languide eas trahit, veluti et homini funes, quas e longinquo attrahunt. Ventriculo itaque inexistens spiritus et atrae bilis morsus sensiens […] nimis in eo constrinctus cibos appetit; quia scilicet internum nullum adest, quo quae molesta sunt reiciat, externum quid, quo id operatur, expetere atque inquirere videtur.’

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particular cases of   the spirit’s dilatory and compressive movements, so sense perception is  nothing other than an outcome of   that same movement of   the spirit, whose natural knowledge is  more an attitude (ingenium) than a  form of   consciousness and is invoked mainly to explain the self-preservation instinct proper to living beings. Movement and sensation, which in the medical tradition make up the animal’s proprium,61 thus wind up coinciding, so much so that the involuntary mechanization of  perception prompts Tele­sio to specify the limits and characteristics of   this scheme.62 Yet the premises from which to proceed in tracing animal behaviour to an automatism are already in place: the body no longer needs a rational soul coordinating all the different impressions, and everything happens through variations in volume and degree, through motions of  action and reaction, that is, through the action of  forces. It is also significant that Tele­sio subscribes to the Aristotelian antiperistatic model, a model which in the sixteenth century will also be appropriated by Paracelsian medicine – specifically in Gerhard Dorn’s representation of   homo alembicus (Fig.  22)  – and which in Tele­sio is taken to extremes.63 This can be clearly 61  This can be appreciated, for example, in Realdo Colombo, clearly following Book III of   Aristotle’s De anima, Colombo 1559: 8: ‘Cum itaque constet, sicuti initio dictum est, totam ossium molem esse veluti fundamentum animati corporis, cuius proprium est, ut sentiat et moveatur; inutilis illa constructio fuisset, quae continua esset, ac solida.’ 62  Tele­sio’s argument on the distinction between animal and machine proceeds from his criticism of   the Aristotelian theory of   the animal’s movement, Tele­sio 1586: 206: ‘Minus etiam animal moveri intelligere licet, quod nervi, quibus illius partes veluti vinculis quibusdam alligatae sunt, laxentur, solvanturque; eaque illis solutis; per se, et sponte moventur sua, machinarum more, quae spontaneae dicuntur; quae laxatis solutisque, et sese mutuo impellentibus vertebris moveri uidentur. […] Minime praeterea mutuo impulsu, veluti machinarum vertebrae, sic et animalium partes, sed singulae fere per se reliquis quiescentibus omnibus, extremae praesertim moveri videntur.’ 63 The homo alembicus model, so termed by Alain Mothu, gained wide currency in Renaissance natural philosophy. Although it clearly derives from Paracelsian alchemy – its first illustration can be found in Gerhard Dorn’s Aurora thesaurusque philosophorum Teophrasti Paracelsi (Basel 1577)  – it  codifies theories dating to an earlier time, starting from that of   κατάῤῥους developed by Avicenna and the Arab physicians. For a  clear example of   the alchemic model being adopted among Italian physicians, see Cesalpino 1571: 106 v. As Frank Sherwood Taylor has suggested, Taylor 1953: 249, the understanding of  human physiology as a distilling process probably derives from an interpre-

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Fig. 22. Gerhard Dorn, Homo alembicus, MS Pal 666, containing the Italian version of  Gherard Dorn’s Aurora thesaurusque philosophorum Teophrasti Paracelsi (Basel 1577). Florence, Biblioteca Nazio­nale.

tation of   Galenic physiology as a series of   increasing refinements, and before that from the antiperistatic motion Aristotle described in SV, 456b, 20 ff., according to which the heat generated by digestion would rise to the brain and then, by destillatio, would fall back down through the nose and mouth in the form of   mucus. It  is  thus in this sense significant that the Latin term destillatio was used to translate the Greek κατάῤῥους, especially in Galen’s texts, as in Wilhelm Kopp’s Latin edition of   Galen’s De locis affectis, Galen 1549: 139: ‘Praeterea considerandum est, utrum excernant quippiam, vel ex nari-

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appreciated in the theory of   animal generation, which follows Aristotelian physiology; it does so with the polarity it sets up between the two ends of  the axis traced by the ascending aorta: at one end is the heart (heat), while at the other, in opposition to it, is the brain (cold). Thus the blending that in the egg takes place between the father’s seed and the mother’s gives rise to a heat that, like an air bubble breaking out of  boiling water, rises in a  straight line in such a  way as to first form the brain and nervous system and then, cooling down progressively as in an alembic, the heart and liver of  the animal.64 The process follows a convective movement which, flowing from bottom to top and from the centre outward and vice versa, mimics the circulatio hypothesized by Cesalpino, and which will also subsequently turn up in Descartes ne varietur.65 The point here, however, is not to identify Tele­sio as a precursor: it is Descartes who belatedly turns to the classical theories so as to develop them in keeping with his own deductive physiology; Tele­sio does no more than radicalize the a quo model of  natural generation, which he ingeniously packages into a lucidly concise statement through which a fundamental idea governing the representation of   the human body will continue to offer interesting suggestions all the way to the mid-seventeenth century.

Eustachio Rudio’s Liber de anima (1611) Another figure to tread the path that leads to naturalism (although apparently independently of   Tele­sio) is  Eustachio Rudio. Unlike the works so far considered, Rudio’s Liber de anima (Padua 1611) does not set out to reform Galenic medibus, vel ab ore, quod a capite defluat, an aridae huiusmodi partes sint quippe ex iis dispositionem ipsam coniecturam consequi poterimus. Quemadmodum in destillatione et gravedine usu venit: siquidem in iis, et qualitas et quantitas excrementorum, atque causarum quae praecesserunt contemplatione, capitis dispositionem declarat: sive calida fuerit, ut in ustione: sive frigida, ut in refrigeratione.’ For a  discussion of   the distillation model in its broader context, see Mothu 2012: 41–82, offering a  reasoned and compelling account of  the repercussions of  what he termed the schème bio-distillatoire, and Kodera 2012: 139–70, analyzing the philosophical and scientific repercussions of   the model in the early modern age. 64  Tele­sio 1586: 232. 65  Descartes, Description du corps humaine, AT XI, 253–54; Excerpta anatomica, AT XI, 613.

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cine but rather holds itself  out as its cultural manifesto, fortified and corrected by drawing on an eclectic blending of   Aristotelian and Democritean doctrines. As with Huarte, this internal development of   Galenism brings into sharper focus the way Renaissance naturalism in many ways grew out of   the classical tradition. Rudio taught practical medicine at the gymnasium in Padua starting in 1599.66 He uninterruptedly maintained an interest 66  There is no recent scholarship on Eustachio Rudio, nor is there a bibliography. He was born in Cividale di Belluno around 1540. Library records often indicate 1551 as his date of  birth, but Jacopo Facen, Facen 1862, has suggested an earlier date, indicating 1548 as the most likely. There is no uncertainty, by contrast, surrounding his date of  death: although in Facciolati 1757: 332–33 his death is placed in 1611, he in fact died the following year in Udine, as specified by Giuseppe Liruti, Liruti 1830: 493–94: ‘[…] logoro da tante letterarie fatiche e dagli anni, andò all’altro mondo, essendo in Udine il primo settembre 1612 alle dieci ore come siamo assicurati da questa memoria ms. di carattere del lodato nobile Udinese Fabio Della Forza, in fronte di un libro stato suo, ch’io possedo; Die Sabbati 1612 prima septembris hora decima, Obiit in Domino in civitate Utini Illustris nominis Physicus, et Eques D. Eustachius Rudius concivis noster Medicus Primarius in Gymnasio Patavino, cujus anima pie quiescat.’ Further, we know from some documents found by Agusto Buzzati, Buzzati 1890: 775, that even though Rudio was a native of  Belluno, it was in Udine that he moved into the nobility (this on 31 July 1609) with all of   his descendants, acquiring the title of  eques. Rudio’s ties to the city of  Udine, however, predated his knighthood, so much so that even before this time he was prompted to change his birthplace in the frontispieces of  his works: if  in the De virtutibus et viciis cordibus (Venice 1587), he still marked himself  down as ‘Bellunensis’, in the De pulsibus libri duo (Padua 1602) he began to adopt the title of  ‘Utinensis’. And in the De peste maligna disputatio cum Theodoro Angelucio (Venice 1593), he identified himself  by the pseudonym Joannes Donatellus Castillionensis. With regard to his training in theoretical medicine in Padua, where he was a pupil of  Antonio Fracanziano, Ortensio Lando, and Bernardino Paterno, while in practical medicine he is said to have studied with Alessandro Massaria and Girolamo Mercuriale, see Facen 1862. Rudio began teaching practical medicine at the Gymnasium Patavinum on 3 September 1599, carrying his appointment to 1611, precisely the year in which he published his Liber de anima, which can accordingly be considered his spiritual testament, as well as the compendium of   his medical and physiological thought. He must in any event have figured prominently in his field if  in Francesco Sansovino’s account of  the city of  Venice (1581), published in a new edition in 1663 with additions by Giustiniano Martinioni, Rudio is listed in the directory of   the city’s physicians (Sansovino 1663: terzo catalogo dei dottori, letter E, 15). As  to the critical historiography, in the nineteenth century, and then again in the early twentieth century, a renewed interest was taken in Rudio owing to the discovery of  blood circulation. This revivification – not unaccompanied by a certain localism, and hence by a certain bias – is owed in the first place to the Paduan physician Giovanni Maria Zecchinelli (1776–1841), who published a work titled Delle dottrine sulla

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in the physiology of  the heart, and in his work, most notably the De  naturali atque morbosa cordis constitutione (Venice 1600), he sought to bring Galenic physiology up to date by drawing on the work of   Andrea Cesalpino (1519–1603) and Realdo Colombo (1515–1559), influencing the early research that William Harvey (1578–1657) was doing on the same topic.67 In light of   these interests, it should not come as a surprise that Rudio appreciated the implications of   innate heat, from whose dynamic he deduced all the functions of   the soul, save for the rational soul, working the findings of   Galenic medicine into a coherent naturalistic psychology. The questions Rudio takes on in the twenty-eight chapters of   his Liber de anima can be grouped into five homogeneous sections: – in the first part (chaps. 1–7) he discusses Galen’s views on the soul, also bringing the anatomy and physiology of   the brain into the picture; – in the second part (chaps. 8–14), having rejected the soul’s identification with temperament, he proposes that the soul be instead identified with innate heat, while taking into account the objections that may be raised against this view; – in the third part (chaps. 15–19), he further problematizes the soul’s identification with innate heat in relation to the question of  the animation of  the foetus, while also addressing some Peripatetic objections; struttura e sulle funzioni del cuore e delle arterie che imparò per la prima volta in Padova Guglielmo Harvey da Eustachio Rudio e come esse lo guidarono direttamente a  studiare, conoscere e dimostrare la circolazione del sangue (Padua 1838), giving Rudio credit for having laid the general premises for Harvey’s discovery. Discounting the provocation implicit in Zecchinelli’s claim that Harvey did not actually discover the circulation of   blood but only demonstrated it, it needs to be recognized that the work is  well sourced and in several respects interesting in its own right. Thus, for example, Zecchinelli deserves credit for having carefully reconstructed the medical literature on the heart available in the latter half  of   the sixteenth century, in which literature Rudio looms large. Rudio’s fame as an eminent cardiologist was already so well established in his own lifetime that Gabriel Naudé could assert: ‘Eustachio Rudio fu professore in Padova di gran nome per le predizioni, a tal che in Italia si dice: Dio ti liberi dal pronostico di Rudio. Io sentiva dire da Simone Pietro, che morì l’anno 1618, che niuno malato guariva di quelli, che Rudio aveva detti spediti’ (quoted by Gabriel Naudé in Liruti 1830: 494). 67  On the relationship between Rudio and Harvey, see Rinaldi 2006: 279–82.

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– in the fourth part (chaps. 20–27) he illustrates the dynamic of  innate heat in relation to the movement, growth, amount, form, and lifespan of  living beings; – finally, in the fifth part (chap. 28), he turns to the question of  the immortality of  the rational soul.

It is precisely from this last point that we have to start if  we are to understand the way the Liber develops. It  is  Rudio’s claim that, since any attempt to arrive at a definition of   the rational soul relying exclusively on the tools of   natural philosophy would be at once rash and useless,68 it is  necessary to restrict the study of  the soul to those of  its parts (the sensitive and vegetable) whose activity is known and can be directly and entirely traced to natural causes.69 The distinction between rational and corporeal soul proceeds under the Galenic criterion of   scientificity, but at the same time it is fleshed out in light of   the Averroistic and Alexandrian interpretations of   Aristotle that were typical of  Venetian Aristotelianism. Rudio’s task is not to set mens and ingenium in opposition or to hypothesize their simultaneous presence in man, but to offer a method of  inquiry that, coherently with natural phenomena, can set aside those metaphysical questions that cannot be resolved and are not essential to medical practice.70 It is on the basis of   this premise that the principles of   Aristotelian physics are turned on their 68  Rudio 1611: 241: ‘Forsitan melius est arbitrari naturale lumen non posse realem responsionem excogitare; et fateri, sicuti superius quoque ostensum a nobis est, Deum Optimum ante primi parentis lapsum, media [scil. vita] ei tradidisse, quorum merito etiam penes corpus poterat immortalis evadere.’ But even before making this argument, Rudio brings in Galen’s authority in laying out the programmatic manifesto of   his own Liber, Ibid., 80: ‘nullam habeo firmam de hac re demonstrationem; imo eos, qui hac de re definire aliquid volunt, existimo nobis temeritate potius, quam sapientia praestare.’ 69 Ibid., 139: ‘Ergo animam esse quid a  nativo calore diversum, nulla ratione philosopho naturali poterit affirmari.’ Later, and with greater emphasis, he remarks, Ibid., 141–42: ‘Si igitur in actionibus viventis nihil omnino est (ratiocinium, et alias ad intellectum attinentes operationes excludimus) quod a calore naturali non administretur, vel, ut clarius, ac melius loquar, nihil plane est, quod non possit ad calorem naturalem reduci, quemadmodum fuse in superioribus capitibus probavimus, cur, quaeso, volumus, praeter hunc, aliam causam agentem inducere, et entia sine aliqua necessitate multiplicare, et otiosa ponere? Istud videtur mihi non philosophari, sed potius divinare, ac somniare.’ 70  Ibid., 113: ‘si anima esset natura quaedam a  naturali calore distincta, absque dubio esset otiosa. Nec enim ullam haberet actionem.’.

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head and the functions of   the soul are in effect resolved into the effects of  innate heat: And what we claim about the soul, following Aristotle, we equally assert about innate heat. Indeed, we should not think that the effective principle of   such operations is  just heat, but the whole that is held together by innate heat and that in the form of  a given temperament, is tied up and involved in the particular conformation, temperament, capacity or aptitude of  an organ.71

In keeping with the Galenic model of   generation, innate heat is  conceived as a  form that from the very beginning contains the totality of   its subsequent development – and out of   which emerge the faculties and structures of   the body.72 As we have already seen, this heat is not an abstract quality but a material body that presents itself  in different species (calidus insitus, influens) and different tempera­mental species depending on the use that is  specific to each part.73 The properties through which innate heat is identified as a body (calor agglutinatus74) can therefore be detected empirically: humidity, airiness, and a minimum percentage of  coldness, so as to condense its volatile substance in a material form. 71   Ibid., 110: ‘[…] Et quod dicimus de anima cum Aristotele, id ipsum de nativo asserimus calore. Tantum enim principium effectivum istarum operationum non debemus arbitrari calorem esse, sed totum et aggregatum ex innato calore sic attemperato, et organi temperamento ac conformatione peculiari, et habilitate, sive aptitudine coniunctum et complicatum.’ 72  Ibid., 113. 73  Ibid. 87–88: ‘Calor autem innatus sive insitus, sive naturalis, vitalisve, sive ingenitus, aut etiam proprius vocetur, formam, et caliditatem quandam tantum in abstracto nobis indicat. […] Cum itaque innatus calor et innatum calidum dupliciter usurpari soleat; ob id, si quis quaerat, an calor naturalis substantia calida et umida dici debeat, eo quia innatum calidum nomen videtur esse concretum, quod substantiam simul significat; sicuti calor nomen est simplex, ac simplicis qualitatis; huic possum respondere, calorem naturalem non ad se trahere notionem substantiae calore naturali, seu vitali praeditae, in eo quod calor est, sed in eo et quatenus naturalis est. Calor enim naturalis, seu vitalis non est nudus ac simplex calor, sed est calor quidam affectus, et in quadam temperie constitutus, quae temperatio tum substantialis est, tum accidentalis: substantialis quidem propter substantias aut elementorum, aut humorum (de quibus post dicetur) quae substantiae miscentur ad temperamentum substantiale calidum et vitale efficiendum: accidentalis vero, quia planum est in mixto cum substantiis miscibilibus accidentia quoque misceri.’ 74  Ibid., 103.

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Fig. 23. Eustachio Rudio, Liber de anima (Padua 1611) Frontispiece. Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale ‘Vittorio Emanuele II’.

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Heat and Life The primary source of   vital heat is  the heart, the organ that oversees the distribution of  heat throughout the body by means of  its systolic-diastolic movements.75 The physiology of  the heart explains not only the dynamic of   innate heat and the make-up of  the various kinds of  heat in the organism but also the ‘circulation’ of   the spirits of   the blood, a circulation that Rudio recognized on the basis of   the arteriovenous anastomoses found throughout the body.76 Similarly, natural generation is  attributed to the powers of   attraction and repulsion proper to heat, which moulds the embryo into shape by compressing and dilating matter.77

  Ibid., 90.   Ibid., 90–91: ‘Cum autem innatus calor duplex sit, ut mox apparebit, et ut Galenus docet, influens nimirum, a  corde manans, et insitum, uterque in corde gignitur; sed influens, post ortum, et foetus efformationem, in proprio foetus corde: insitus qui in semine potissimum, et sanguine menstruo residebat, et post ortum in solidis partibus, et primum, ac principaliter in corde, et humido primigenio, radicalive situs est, penes prima germina in corde parentum. Dixi penes prima germina atque principia, quia postea ab influente calore, et alimentis, et subinde a geniti foetus corde fovetur et conservatur, et augetur.’ And then again, Ibid., 93–94: ‘Ergo natura animantibus, praeter insitum mistis aliis communem, influentem quoque indidit a corde manantem, qui priorem augens et fovens, est veluti sedes ac proximum vitae principium, sine quo vita consistere non valet. Huius vero influentis caloris substantia et natura in sanguine et spiritibus (ut dictum est) consistit […]. Hic autem influens calor una cum spiritu, in quo subsistit, cum ad unamquamque particulam fertur, illi proprius fit, et cum insito illius particulae, qui exiguus est, calore miscetur, et ex ambobus fit unus calor, tanquam ex materia, et forma. Nam influens a corde manans formae rationem habet; insitus ex prima elementorum mistione ortus materiae rationem subit. Ex quibus patet in perfectis animantibus tria esse, quae ad naturam innati caloris pertinent, scilicet spiritum, sanguinem, et calorem, qui solidarum partium est proprius, sive sit ex prima elementorum mistione ortus, sive ex duplici calore conflatus. Influens enim vocatur, qui in spiritibus, et sanguinea massa continetur, et a corde per arterias, et venas, quae cum arteriis per anastomosin connectuntur, in universum corpus diffunditur. Insitus ac innatus, sive etiam primigenius dicitur, qui in solidis est particulis, et una cum animantis natura gignuntur: sicuti tertius ex utriusque mixtus, actuatus nuncupari solet.’ Rudio’s ambiguity on the question of   blood circulation is  aptly pointed out in Zecchinelli 1838: 16–17, underscoring how, starting as early as the De naturali atque morbosa cordis constitutione (Venice 1600), Rudio’s discussion of   the dynamic of   the spiritus foreshadowed the discovery of  the circulation of  the blood itself. 77  Rudio 1611: 101–03. 75 76

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As much as this primordial function of   heat is only hinted at in Rudio, an idea of   the way he understood heat to act on the foetus can be gleaned from the De genitura pro Galenicis adversus Aristotelicos (Venice 1622), written by the Vicentine physician Mondino Mondini (fl. 1573–1625), who was not only a pupil and friend of   Rudio but also his publisher.78 According to Mondini, the action that uterine heat exerts on the semen consists in separating its two main parts, namely, the lean part (pars tenuior) and the fatty part (pars crassa); from the latter part and from menstruation there originate the membranes and the structures of   the foetus, initially resembling breadcrumbs (crustulae).79 Natural generation thus follows the classic fermentation and leavening model, aimed at illustrating the shaping power that innate heat brings to bear on the uterine coagulus. As  we have seen, this theory would attract the criticism of  Cesare Cremonini who, in the De calido innato (1626), equated innate heat with temperament and thereby made both passive accidents of   form-substance. In order to argue for the substantiality of   innate heat and rebut possible Aristotelian objections, Rudio draws a  precise distinction between innate heat as an active component and temperament as a passive component, in such a way that a material/passive quality, located in the seminal body, could interact with an active/diffuse substance distributed by the heart to the whole organism. Heat thus takes on the role of   an organizing form or process that breaks down

78  Not much is  known about Mondino Mondini, and most of    it comes from the account provided in Angiolgabriello 1779: 111–14. He appears to have been active between 1573 and 1625, the year in which the Venetian publisher Giovanni Battista Deuchino brought out the Ad disputationem de genitura additamen­tum apologeticum. In all likelihood, Mondini was born in Vicenza and studied medicine in Padua under Alessandro Massaria, Eustachio Rudio, and Girolamo Fabrici d’Acquapendente. It appears that he practiced medicine in Venice and that for some time he also taught in Padua, even if  the city has no definitive records proving that he did in fact hold a teaching position there. The relationship between Rudio and Mondini can easily be reconstructed from Mondini’s own words as reported in Angiolgabriello 1779: 114, and also from his edition of  Eustachio Rudio’s De morbo Gallico libri quinque. 79  Mondini 1622: 173–74. As can be appreciated from the text, the whole of  animal genesis is deliberately modelled on the leavening of  bread, an analogy that stands on two main points of  comparison, these being the heat of  fire and the humidity of  leaven.

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into the two Aristotelian species of  the material and the formal. This revisitation of  Aristotelian principles on a naturalistic basis makes it possible to also resolve the incoherencies of   Galenic psychology, occasionally also averted by recourse to the principles of   Democritean physics. Rudio’s rereading is  therefore not devoid of   critical considerations of   Galen. Indeed, in the Liber de anima, Rudio rejects the identifi­cation of  the soul with temperament (an identification found to be absurd), at the same time as he both upholds the Aristotelian primacy of  the heart,80 and rejects the Galenic doubt that the formation of  the embryo requires a cause other than a purely material one.81 Since the identification of  the soul with heat and the substantiality ascribed to the latter are open to several lines of  criticism by the philosophi, Rudio offers a  brief  survey. The  first criticism, perhaps the most signifi­cant, is that if  heat is constructed as a property of   bodies, rather than as a freestanding entity, its properties cannot be those distinctive to substance but can only be those of   accident; furthermore, whereas a  substance is  not partible into degrees of  any kind, heat can have both qualitative and quantitative degrees; 82 then, too, it would seem impossible that to mere innate heat can be ascribed functions like sensibility and imagination, which would seem to require an intelligent faculty; 83 lastly, the soul’s identification with innate heat   Rudio 1611: 14–15.  Ibid., 131–32: ‘In superiori autem auctoritate manifeste patet, Galenum artem et potentiam, quae foetuum formationi, sive fabricae adhibita est, anima mundi dignam certe esse existimasse, sed solummodo opinionem hanc suspectam et impiam habuisse, cum videret scorpiones, phalangia, muscas, culices, viperas, vermes, lumbricos, pitylas ab eadem mundi anima formari. Verum quoniam Galenus Platonis sententiam probabilem esse fatetur, huiuscemodi instantia Galeni mihi nunquam alicuius ponderis visa est, et in meo De  venenatis et occultis morbis commentario libro praesertim secundo, satis superque declaravi, huiuscemodi animalia nedum ad mundi ipsius ornatum, verum etiam ad hominem ipsum, cuius gratia haec omnia, quae apud nos sunt, fuere a summo Opifice producta, et ad alia nobiliora animalia, quibus homo vescitur, sustentanda, et conservanda mirum in modum conducere: et quia insuper idem Galenus alibi, ut inferius dicam, hanc eamdem mundi animam probare, amplectique visus est: ea propter haec Platonis de mundi anima opinio si in bonum sensum redigatur, et nostrae sententiae de calore innato favere, et pro vera accipi potest.’ 82  Ibid., 147 ff. 83  Ibid., 107. 80 81

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would not be able to explain the complex dynamic of  muscular movement, which cannot easily be reduced to the rectilinear movement of  the elements, and which, on top of  that, proceeds from the premise that the animal’s voluntary movements can be reduced to involuntary ones.84 Particularly noteworthy is the way Rudio addresses the last of  these questions. By reducing all bodily functions to epiphenomena of  innate heat, Rudio claims that, just as this substance molds all the organs including the brain, so it is also responsible for running all the faculties deriving from them. Thus, just as sense perception and imagination depend on innate heat for their functioning, so directions imparted to the muscles, either as voluntary or involuntary motions, depend on heat as their most general cause.85 All the difficulties that Rudio discussess highlight the broader problem to which the Liber de anima seeks to offer a solution: how the complex operations usually ascribed to the soul can be reduced to simple operations owed entirely to the action of  innate heat. We are presented here with a problem of  reduction similar to that of  Tele­sio, so much so that in the De rerum natura Tele­sio poses and responds to the same kind of   objections.86 This is, once more, a  further testament of   how the spreading of  Galenic sources cut across cultural boundaries and stimulated similar questions and answers. To understand the solutions Rudio offers to these objections we should bear in mind that his conception of  the relation between substance and accident is  antithetical to the Aristotelian one. In keeping with a criticism that Francesco Patrizi (1529–97) previously advanced in the Discussiones Peripa­teticae (Venice 1581), substance is  understood by Rudio as a  cluster of   accidents (i.e. functions and their material substrate), out   Ibid., 112 ff., 154.   Ibid., 111–12: ‘Si itaque calor hic appetentiae animalis effectivum est principium: ergo etiam erit principium et auctor sensationis, et cognitionis indigentiae, quia sensus, et appetitus sensitivus non realiter, sed sola ratione distinguuntur. Si sic, ergo etiam voluntarium motum excitabit, et effective producet. Quia facultas cognoscens, appetens, et movens re et subiecto non discrepant: sed ad appetentiam per quandam concomitantia sequitur motus voluntarios. Ergo calor innatus voluntarii motus organici, et subinde musculis ac tendonibus copulatus, eiusdem motus auctor praecipuus statui poterit.’ 86  See Hirai 2011: 22–33. 84 85

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of  which it is generated. As a consequence, the whole substance of  the body, its soul, ceases to exist when the function of  a single organ is affected so as to be seriously compromised.87 In lieu of   the conceptual Aristotelian couplet of   matter and form, Rudio can thus bring in the corporeal couplet of   natural heat and influent heat, outlining an entirely materialistic explanation of   the natural processes. Indeed, heat acts as both the formal and the efficient cause of   natural generation: it does so by way of  its degrees, corresponding to as many temperaments, whose position rises higher with each increase in the complexity of  the activities carried out by the body’s various organs and apparatuses.88

The Vegetable – Animal Continuum Rudio provides further support for his model with the observation of   some natural phenomena, first among which is that of  spontaneous generation (generatio ex putri), regarded as the most fundamental mode of   generation in nature, and accordingly the ultimate argument on which he rests the thesis of  the substantiality of   heat.89 Not unlike animals conceived by 87 Rudio 1611: 139–40. On  organic forms understood as accidents, see Ibid., 104. 88  Ibid., 92–93: ‘Est et alius modus, sive differentia caloris naturalis, non amplius mistorum communis, sed perfectorum in primis animantium proprius. Cum enim calor prae ceteris qualitatibus sit magis activus, ideo omnes mixtorum formae (quae tamen non diversae, sed eadem sunt cum proprio suo naturali calore) proprias edunt operationes per suum proprium naturalem calorem. Ut enim per eum gignuntur; ita per eundem operantur. Quo vero formae nobiliorem obtinent gradum, eo plures, ac perfectiores (ut fusius in primo nostro libro de occultis et venenatis morbis docuimus) habeant operationes: unumquodque enim est propter operationem propriam. Quanto vero plures, ac perfectiores edunt operationes, tanto illis plus caloris opus fuit. Cum autem nullum mistum corpus animali, praesertimque sanguineo perfectius sit, nec plures, ac perfectiores functiones sit sortitum, ideo natura illi liberaliorem caloris copiam fuit elargita.’ 89  Rudio’s argument warrants a  certain analogy to the one found in the De diluviis, written by Avicenna, who in the Renaissance was followed by Pomponazzi. Avicenna went so far as to hypothesize that extraordinary events such as a devastating cataclysm could give rise to a generatio ex putri of  man, owing to the action of  astral influxes in combination with terrestrial earth. This hypothesis is described in Nardi 1965: 305–19, who on Avicenna’s theory of   cata-

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sexuate generation, Rudio remarks, those that arise out of  putrescent matter seem to be endowed with an admirable knowledge (mira prudentia) that enables them to take care of  themselves.90 The model serves to establish a continuum whose range is not confined to man and animal but also extends to plants, a question that Huarte had also identified but did not examine in any depth.91 Through the model of   spontaneous generation, and proceeding antithetically to Tele­sio’s naturalism, Rudio takes all the characteristics (e.g. movement, sensibility, imagination, and memory) that would seem to presuppose an intentional end or an intelligent cause and reduces them to effects of   the internal organization of   matter, always in keeping with the Galenic model of  consecutio.92 The only intelligence he acknowledges is the motor-God of   the Averroistic tradition, while the Galenic claim that a  Platonic ani­ma mundi would be needed in shaping the embryo and promoting its organization is rejected and identified instead as an effect of   sunlight, whose materiality is demonstrated empirically by the refraction of  sunrays in concave mirrors.93 Finally, reviving the Aristo­telian theory of   the universal causality of  the heavens, Rudio sees in the heat generated by the light of   the heavenly bodies the carrier that holds in potentiality all the forms of   the earthly bodies, which forms translate into actuality when the heavenly heat merges with the heat enclosed in the semen:

clysms writes, Ibid., 309: ‘Such seismic changes seemed to Avicenna to severely test the validity of   the Aristotelian law of   synonymy whereby man is  eternally generated by man, horse by horse, and so on. Because these cataclysms that strike earth (earthquakes), water (floods), air (pestilence), and fire (great droughts and fire) could wipe the entire human race from the earth […], Avicenna – in his treatise De diluviis, growing out of   a commentary on the same chapter in Aristotle’s Meteorologica – thought that if  this were to happen, the human species, by virtue of  the stellar influxes […], could resume life by giving offspring directly from an earth made fecund by those same influxes, in the manner that Aristotle recognized for lower organisms thought to be generated by spontaneous generation, either ex putri or ex putredine.’ My translation. 90  Rudio 1611: 104, 127. 91   Huarte 1594(b): 33 ff. 92  Rudio 1611: 107–08. 93  Ibid., 130–38.

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It must therefore be concluded that if  by ‘soul of  the world’ is meant the heat of  light spread across the universe, we will not stray far from the path of   truth, and as demonstrated a moment ago, we can by rights claim that this kind of  heat, which originates from the light of   the sun and from that of   the celestial bodies, can easily produce and give form to all living bodies: it can do so in conjunction with the force of  the heat residing in the semen or in nature. Indeed, in the light of  the stars are found in potentiality all the inferior and sublunar forms that are brought into actuality when the heat generated by this light is  joined with native heat. Indeed, considering that this heat originates from a light that comes from a  celestial body whose circular, continuous motion is  driven by the very principle of   life and intelligence, it is capable of   engendering and building many beings which the native heat of  living beings would not on its own be able to shape into form.94

This cosmological cause that acts in place of  the soul of  the world (anima mundi) also manifests itself  in the sequence of   movements and their characteristics, in the celestial and terrestrial bodies alike, in a  progression that Rudio previously outlined in the De virtutibus et viciis cordis (Venice 1587).95 Celestial heat is thus conceived as a material tool of  divine intelligence 96 that constantly and continuously unfolds in the world,97 in keeping with a model in which God essentially acts not as a final cause but as an efficient one. In complex animals and in man, that is  in the microcosm, the two areas in which innate heat intervenes co-ordinate through the action of  the heart, an organ  Ibid., 137–38: ‘Concludendum igitur est, quod si per mundi animam lucis calorem per universum diffusum intelligamus, a veritatis tramite non ita recedimus: et tunc, ut superius ostensum est, possumus optimo iure affirmare, huiuscemodi calorem a  solis, coelestiumque corporum lumine promanantem una cum caloris vi aut in semine, aut in natura subsistit, coniunctum, corpora viventia effingere, et efformare facile posse. In  stellarum enim lumine omnes formae inferiores, et sublunares in potentia continentur: ad actum autem perducuntur, cum calor huius luminis cum calore nativo copulatur. Cum enim calor hic a lumine promanet, et lumen a coelesti corpore fluat, quod ab ipso vivente, intelligenteque principio continuo circulari motu movetur, multa gignere et fabricare valet, quae solus nativus viventium calor efformare non valeret.’ 95  Rudio 1587: 18v–19v. 96  Rudio 1611: 145. 97  Ibid., 125. On the way in which innate heat affects phantasia, see Rudio 1611: 128. 94

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that Rudio, retrieving an ancient similitude that had gained wide currency, likened to the sun in a  microcosm and to the ruler of   a city.98 Just as sunrays, coupled with the heat inherent in nature and in the semen, give origin to life, so influent heat, coupled with the temperamental heat proper to each part of  the body, sustains and preserves life for the longest possible time. The last part of   the Liber de anima is  given over to the processes through which life is  engendered, regulated, and preserved. These proces­ses are identified in the dynamic of  oppositions between innate heat (calor innatus) and igneous heat (calor igneus), the former presenting a humid-aerial make-up, the latter, like that of   a  flame, a  hot-dry make-up. These are typologies that Rudio also sets within a general framework that departs from the Galenic tradition on the function of   radical moisture (humidum radicale), holding that it consists not in nurturing innate heat but in preventing its dissipation. Accordingly, longevity consists in preserving innate heat and preventing it from developing into igneous heat, for the latter uses up radical moisture and thus dries the organism, causing it to progressively wilt. Even the general homeostasis of   the organism is explained in the same way, on the basis of   the equilibrium that in maturity becomes established between the opposite complexions of  innate and igneous heat.99 Interestingly, the question of   the contiguity between cosmology and physics is treated in Rudio’s Liber de anima on the model previously set out by Tele­sio. Like Tele­sio and Huarte, Rudio distinguishes the ratio­nal soul, conceived as divine and immortal and descending from the heavens,100 from the material soul, deriving from innate heat. Unlike Tele­sio, however, 98  Rudio 1600: Proemium, 14. This a similitude that, as is known, turns up as well in the proem of   William Harvey’s De motu cordis (Frankfurt 1628), though its use in medical literature was widespread. On  the comparison between Rudio and Harvey, see the previously mentioned Zecchinelli 1838: 18–19, and Rinaldi 2006: 279–82. 99  Rudio 1611: 191 ff. specifies that this is a ‘physical cause’, as distinguished from causes in the metaphysical sphere, where it is  original sin and divine will that act as true limits on human life. 100  Ibid., 86: ‘Multa enim sunt, quae nos impellunt ad credendum innatum calorem cunctis viventibus pro anima (detracta semper rationali, quae divina est, et immortalis, et coelitus in hominem delapsa) sufficere posse.’

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Rudio does not need to frame the two souls as ontologically antithetical: the natural knowledge that can be observed in plants and animals is not a property of  matter but an epiphenomenon resulting from its various alterations. Accordingly, this natural knowledge is not set in opposition to the Aristotelian mens, in that the relation between absolute and natural knowledge transcends the bounds of  what can be explained in physics.

Essence, Quality, and Degree In light of   the authors and texts we have discussed thus far, it should be clear that the relation between mens and ingenium entails a whole series of  tweaks that need to be made to Aristotelian natural philosophy. It is now not only the concept of   the soul that is at stake, as it was with Huarte, but also a redefinition of  nature and the natural, including the body. Indeed, the ability to reduce universal mens to individual ingenium turns on a specific theoretical problem: that of   the materialization of   essence into a corporeal substance (spirit/heat) and its conversion into intensive magnitudes or degrees. Corresponding to each degree of   heat is a change in the effectiveness of   temperament, in the spirit’s capacity for sense perception, and, in the final analysis, in the make-up of   the body. While the source of   heat is to be traced to a cause that is ultimately cosmological, consisting – for Tele­sio as well as for Rudio – in the action the sun’s rays exert on the earth, its realization is always particular, depending on the reiteration of   the principle by which material forms tense up and relax, in a process that comes to completion only in the animal. What in this respect distinguishes human and non human animals is only the degree to which the process advances, a degree that also accounts for intraspecies differences between individual human beings in what concerns their purity of  spirit and their ingenuity. It is  this group of   themes that was to give rise to original developments in the seventeenth century: while the naturalization of   the cognitive process – conceived as analogous to those of   animal cognition, and indeed as inseparable from it  – will be a  driving leitmotif  of   libertinage érudit, the materialization of   essence and its conversion into degrees will be among 183

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the problems inspiring the works of   Santorio, where degree is defined quantitatively and the consecution of   forms is interpreted by way of   mechanical analogies. At the same time, the individuality of   the mind will figure among the chief  motifs of  Cartesian subjectivism. To outline the development of   this intellectual transition through the latter half  of   the sixteenth century with clarity, we need to set it into relief  against the backdrop of  the mainstream trend that defended Aristotelianism fiercely. Even though, at this point, the key motifs that were to lead Santorio and Galileo to convert quality into quantity had already been blocked out in nuce, they were not yet mature. In fact, the philosophical fundations which supported the theory of  heat-cum-substance were still insecure and, especially in the work of   Tele­sio, they easily gave way to the Aristotelian counteroffensive; so much so that even an insipid text like the Pugnaculum Aristotelis adversus principia Bernardini Telesii by Giacomo Antonio Marta (Rome 1587), could effectively challenge their assumptions. Indeed, in the effort to prove Tele­sio’s theses wrong, Marta deployed no less than thirty-two arguments, of   which the first one is surely the most effective: if  we concede that heat and cold are two contrary principles, each tending toward the destruction of  the other, yet each having degrees of  extension, then this opposition can not only be reduced to naught (reducere usque ad non gradum), and thus made idle, but will altogether cease to exist the moment the two contraries will have reached the same temperature – an outcome that contradicts all of  Tele­sio’s assumptions.101 This simple yet powerful objection uncovers two tacit assumptions at work in Tele­sio and other medical naturalists of   the sixteenth century: the first of   these is that heat, just 101  Marta 1587: 9: ‘Et primo si calor et frigus essent principia, tunc non essent contraria, per te ista sunt duo contraria, quae possunt se corrumpere usque ad interitum, et sic fateri cogeris, ergo summa caliditas, et summa frigiditas possunt fere ducere usque ad non gradum, et cum devenissent ad gradus medios totius latitudinis cessaret contrarietas, et ita actio, et cum ultimus gradus frigiditatis non possit corrumpi nisi a summa caliditate, alii enim gradus ei non repugnant, tunc caliditas non posset corrumpere ultimum gradum frigiditatis, et idem est de ultimo caliditatis, ergo essent non contraria, cum unum alterum corrumpere non posset.’ On this point, see also Fiorentino 1874, vol. 2, 29–30.

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like the animal it molds into shape, is also a vital substance not just an active force; the second is that degree figures merely as a theoretical entity needed to explain the dynamics of  an essentially qualitative force. Even so, it is worth reiterating that the idea of  substance as a theoretical constant in a material process finds itself  being gradually discarded and to that extent, where Marta’s criticisms proceed from the opposite assumption, they go wide of  the mark. In the late sixteenth century, however, there will be an attempt by Aristotelians to recover this concept of   substance, which will play a crucial role in determining the tenability of  Aristote­lianism itself  and will equally impact on Descartes’ thought. These aspects will form the subject of  the final section of  this book.

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CHAPTER FIVE – PASSION AND PATHOLOGY: THE RESPONSE OF   ARISTOTELIANISM

CHAPTER FIVE

PASSION AND PATHOLOGY: THE RESPONSE OF  ARISTOTELIANISM

In the two previous sections, we considered how the rediscovery of   Galen’s texts affected the philosophical debate of   the late Renaissance, sparking a renewed interest in the body and setting the theoretical premises on which basis various forms of  naturalism would flourish. As a result of  this debate, a whole range of  questions lying at the intersection between moral philosophy and medicine were reframed and this was especially the case for the concept of   mind, under­stood as relating not only to an abstract entity but also, and more importantly, to the human being in its entirety, especially in the sense of  a selfaware agent responsible for its own actions. Under the powerful influence of   the Galenic tradition, the already vexed question of   the rapport between mind and body, metamorphosed more specifically into that between ingenium and brain. By this time, however, mens and ingenium stood as antipodal opposites that pointed to two different philosophical conceptions of  man and of   knowledge, whereby the universal was being replaced by the particular, the substance by a cluster of   accidents, mental abstraction by sense perception. It  is  in these terms that one of   the most interesting cultural battles of   the early modern age would unfold; a debate that engaged Aristotelianism in an effort to redefine and reformulate its longstanding historical achievements. In this final section, the complex flow of   reactions and consequences arising from this central debate will be discussed on two levels: in this chapter we will be dealing with the theory of   passions and of   mental illness, while in the final one we will 189

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be considering the inversion of  the causal relation between substance and accidents in Santorio and Descartes.

The Individual, Nature, and Character in Francesco Piccolomini’s Universa philosophia de moribus (1583) It fell to Francesco Piccolomini to fire the first salvo in the Aristotelian response to the revival of   Galenic naturalism, with his Universa philosophia de moribus (Venice 1583).1 As an eclectic compendium of  Aristotelian moral philosophy with occasional streaks of   Stoicism,2 the work also takes on the theses set out 1  Francesco Carli Piccolomini was born in Siena in 1523. Having earned a  doctoral degree in arts and medicine in 1546, by his own account he first taught at his native Siena (1546–48) and then in Macerata (1549–50) and Perugia (1550–60). He finally wound up in Padua in 1560, where he was appointed to the chair (cattedra straordinaria) in natural law along with Arcangelo Mercenario. In 1565, in paritate loci with Pendasio, he was awarded the chair (cattedra ordinaria) in natural philosophy. After engaging the same Pendasio in a spirited discussion on Book III of   Aristotle’s De anima, a discussion in consequence of  which Pendasio left Padua, Piccolomini was awarded primitate loci the post of   lecturer in natural philosophy. In  the Paduan years Piccolomini lectured frequently on Aristotle’s natural works (Physica, De generatione et corruptione, De anima, De caelo, Metereologica), often accompanying these lectures with private lessons. Between 1598 and 1599 he retired from his teaching position at Padua and went back to Siena, maintaining close relations with the House of   Medici, for which in his later years he wrote an Istitutione del Prin­ cipe, a vernacular compendium of   his chief  work, the Universa philosophia de moribus. He died in Siena in 1606; see Baldini 1980: 414. Piccolomini devoted extensive study to Galen and the ethico-psychological aspect of  his work, which he discussed at several places; see Piccolomini 1596: chap. 28, 106 ff., and Piccolomini 1628: lib. II, chap. 1, 1776–777. 2 On the Stoic elements in the Universa philosophia de moribus, Kraye 2002: 62: ‘With the best will in the world one cannot regard Piccolomini as an innovative philosopher. Even in his own field of   natural philosophy, he is not known for the originality of  his arguments; and this is a fortiori true in relation to moral philosophy, which was merely a  sideline for him, a  diversion from more serious pursuits. Yet the lacklustre quality of  his ethical thought is partly compensated for by the methodical rigour with he approaches a  wide range of  topics, many of  them not normally treated in such a thoroughgoing fashion within the standardized format of   commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics. Thus, the entire first level of   the Universa philosophia, is devoted to the passions, a subject which Aristotle treats only en passant, in the Ethics. The passions were, however, a  central concern of   Stoic ethics; and this evokes from Piccolomini a lengthy comparison of  their views with those of  Aristotle.’

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in Galen’s Quod animi mores, criticizing them for the consequences they entail on a moral plane. Even though the Universa philosophia de moribus came out immediately after Camillo Camilli had translated Huarte’s Examen into Italian (Venice 1582), we do not know whether the section devoted to Galen was also meant as an indirect response to Huarte’s interpretation. Indeed, Piccolomini never mentions Huarte openly,3 and is preoccupied instead with the determinism that Galen’s ideas entail, especially with regard to the concept of   passion, seen by Piccolomini as an innate, hereditary and unsuppressable disposition that is  ultimately irrational. The  discussion of   the Galenic doctrines is framed within the broader problem of  trying to identify the influence the passions exert on a  person’s self-determination, an inquiry that by rights belongs to natural philosophy but that concerns the moral philosopher as far as the passions contribute to the shaping of   character. Piccolomini’s basic assumption is that the passions of   the soul come in two different forms, sometimes presenting themselves in the individual as an active disposition (actio), other times as a passive one (perpessio).4 Indeed, in keeping with Aristotelian doctrine, Piccolomini states that: The passion is  a  movement of   the appetitive faculty that involves the senses and the spirits of   the heart and is provoked by an object which, through the imaginative faculty, is  made to appear to us as either pleasant or repulsive, in such a  way that we can avoid that which is  repulsive and enjoy that which is pleasant.5 3  Galen’s thesis is discussed by Piccolomini in chapters 28–30 of  the gradus primus; see Piccolomini 1583: 76–81.. 4   Piccolomini 1583: 42. The phenomenology of   the passions is reduced to three specific conditions or motus: the passion manifests itself  in the first condition when its object, such as an offence received, is  assessed on a  rational basis; in the second condition, when it is assessed morally (as either good or bad) and hence as a source of  happiness or sadness; and in the third one when it is  assessed circumstantially, as something to be either pursued or avoided. In this last instance passion arises as an immediate consequence of   the assessment made, and this is the only instance in which, according to Piccolomini, the causal consecution nexus proper to Galenic physiology can be effective. 5  Ibid., 44: ‘[perturbatio] est motio appetentis sensuum facultatis, necnon spirituum cordis, ab obiecto, quod per vim imaginandi vel iucudum nobis, vel molestum apparet, pro molestia vitanda, fruendaque iucunditate.’

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As we have seen in Chapter 1, imagination and reason are understood by Piccolomini to lie on a  continuum, so much so that he sometimes refers to the mind as an imaginative faculty; as a result, there is a special emphasis that in the Universa philosophia de moribus is devoted to the question as to whether the passions have a  role in shaping the deliberation taken by the rational part of   the soul or are simply limited to the sensitive part.6 This problem requires an analysis of   the meaning of  the term ‘passion’, which Piccolomini pursues with Scholastic precision. The appetitive faculty (i.e. desire) breaks down into ‘passions proper’ (perturbationes), understood as ‘tools of   the appetitive faculty’, and ‘passions broadly or metaphorically construed’ (late et per metaphoram), which in a  modern vocabulary we may refer to as ‘mental states’ (e.g. joy, happiness, love, hate, and suchlike), and which accordingly belong to the mind (mens or facultas rationalis).7 Accordingly, there are two distinct sets of   objects that the sensitive and rational faculties turn to: ‘passions’ belong to the former, ‘mental states’ to the latter. Aimed at preventing the mens from being concerned in the dynamics of   the passions, Piccolomini specifies that such a  distinction is merely logical (sola ratione) and does not map onto any set of  anatomical places.8 Against this backdrop, Piccolomini takes on the Galenic question of   whether the passions and the mores follow the bodily temperaments (an perturbationes et mores sequantur corporis temperamentum). The  Latin verb sequor (to follow) is interpreted by Piccolomini in its most radical sense of  causal consecution: Galen wanted to underscore that the character

  Ibid., 49.   Ibid., 49–50. 8  Ibid., 76–81: ‘Dicamus igitur cum Aristotele; appetitum sensus destingui re ab eo mentis; appetitus vero duos mentis, ac eos duos sensuum, inter se sola ratione secerni. Ex quo constat, minus recte sensisse Galenum, dum in eo libro, quod animi mores sequantur corporis temperamenum, dixit facultatem cupiendi esse temperamentum epatis: eam vero irascendi, cordis, quod dici minime potest, cum re et substantia a virtute sentiendi non distinguantur. Duo itaque sentientis facultatis appetitus, cum a facultate cognoscente, tum inter se, nec sede, nec substantia, sed sola ratione distinguuntur.’ 6 7

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Fig. 24. Francesco Piccolomini, Universa philosophia de moribus (Venice 1583). Frontispiece. Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale ‘Vittorio Emanuele II’.

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depends directly on the temperament, a thesis that Piccolomini denounces as ‘absolutely false and pernicious’ (absolute falsa et perniciosa) as well as contentless.9 The counter-argument hinges on a threefold approach which rests on the authority of  the philosophers (auctoritate), on the witness of   the senses (experientia), and on the rigorous conclusions of   logic (rationibus).10 Piccolomini points out that, by claiming that the character originates in nature rather than out of  the choices one makes, Galen ends up denying the autonomy of   ethics from physics, a view that is rejected on the grounds that the mores are shaped not by natural inclinations, but by the actions human beings perform and as a consequence of  their conscious decisions: Moreover, Galen’s sentence contrasts the nature and condition of   mores. Indeed, mores are such, and are so termed, as far as they belong to us, not by virtue of   any natural condition, but by virtue of   our behaviours and habits […]. If  they instead derived from the temperaments, they would belong to us, not by habit, but by nature, just like all the other things that originate from the temperaments. Indeed, by conferring the form, these things are also said to confer what derives from the form, so that mores would no longer be mores.11

Moreover, the reduction of  character to temperament contrasts with the data provided by experience and common sense, as everybody experiences the constant opposition between innate inclinations and will. From the tension between these opposing forces emerges either the control of  one’s own self  and passions or, conversely, the eruption of   intemperance; a moral dialectic that would not make sense in the context of   the Quod animi mores. In  contrast to Galen’s statement, Piccolomini stresses that things are not good or evil in themselves, but according to   Ibid., 77.   Ibid., 76. 11 Ibidem: ‘Praetera eadem sententia adversatur naturae et conditioni morum: mores enim propterea sunt, et nuncupantur mores, quia non natura, sed more et assuetudine nobis competunt, […]. At si temperamentum sequerentur, non more, sed natura nobis competerent, ut etiam competunt caetera, quae temperamentum sequuntur: dans enim formam, dicitur dare ea, quae formam sequuntur, ac ita mores non essent mores.’ 9

10

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the effects they have on us. For example, a viper must be killed not because it is evil per se, but because it can provoke damage to us. The endeavour to oppose Galen in this particular aspect of   his doctrine is so radical and so stark that, as it was the case with his pupil Chiaramonti, Piccolomini is tempted to reject the entire medical system on which Galen built his conclusions: [H]ad he not taught to heal the bodies differently than the souls, even the Art of   healing bequeathed by him would be dangerous: in taking care of  the bodies, he actually remained blind in front of  the things transcending them.12

However, in order to refute the Galenic statement effectively, Piccolomini is  compelled to analyse its principles in greater detail. The project is brought to completion in the thirtieth chapter of  the gradus primus of  the Universa philosophia de moribus where concepts such as ‘external’ and ‘internal character’, the meaning of  the expression temperamentum sequi and the power of   temperaments in determining the conditions and the limits of  free choice, are carefully examined. The discussion begins with an analysis of   the relationship between passion and character. Characters derive from the passions; characters are indeed modes of   them (modi), being nothing more than passions of   the soul correctly formed and directed toward an end (perturbationes recte formatae). As with the objects of   the appetitive faculty, the character also features two species, i.e. ‘internal’ and ‘external’, the latter (externus) results from a  series of   actions stemming from the subject’s own decision to act; this is what Piccolomini defines as ‘internal character’ (internus). In this sense, it is clear that the ‘external character’ depends upon the internal one. Furthermore, the internal character can be categorized according to its origin, that is to say, as a character inherited from nature or acquired by custom, and can be even classified on the basis of  the degree of   perseverance in its actuation, as labile (dispositio) or stable

12  Ibid., 78: ‘[Haec Galeni evasio potius erroris confirmatio, quam ab eo expurgatio], et si ipse non secus doceret curare corpora, quam animos, perniciosa esset Ars medendi ab eo tradita: verum ipse corporibus intentus, erga ea, quae sunt supra corpus, se caecum manifestavit.’

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Table 7. Qualification of  Character and Division of  its Species According to Piccolomini (1583).

(habitus) (Tab. 7).13 On these grounds, Piccolomini emphasizes the strong continuity of   perception, corporeality, and rationality lying at the very core of   Aristotelian ethics, a  continuity which leads him – not unlike Cremonini and Persona later on – to reaffirm the premises of  Galen’s causal consecution, however much on a different level.

Causal Consecution Piccolomini rests his discussion of   the Galenic link of   causal consecution (temperamentum sequi) on two conditions of  causality, that are:   Ibid., 79–80.

13

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a. causal asymmetry, in which the cause determines the effect totally and necessarily, and b. causal instrumentality, in which an instrumental relation subsists between cause and effect: whereby the former and the latter relate to each other as the ‘sufficient’ and ‘necessary’ condition.14

Through this conceptual scheme, Piccolomini states that the portion of   character completely determined by temperament can only be the one inherited from nature. This inherited portion, however, does not emerge as due to a  straightforward causal equivalence between inclination and mores; it rather functions in that the temperamental inclinations determine the degree of   ease or difficulty with which the virtuous habits are acquired. Hence, it is true that attitudes and moral inclinations follow the temperaments of   the bodies, but such a dependence does not imply that the former are wholly determined by the latter; philosophical activity, indeed, can educate the innate inclination and lead us to obtain virtue. More generally, a character ‘follows the temperaments’ (temperamenta sequuntur) via the second condition of  causality, i.e., using temperament as an instrument, so that character becomes a  superordinate cause or a ‘sufficient’ condition. At the same time, the first condition of  causality, causal asymmetry, applies itself  to primary qualities that are the direct consequence of  temperament (e.g. tastes and odours).15 This redefinition of  the causal relation between temperament and character implies a  reversal of   the Galenic thesis, which is especially evident in the occurrence of   ailments affecting the psycho-emotional realm of   an individual. In  this regard, Piccolomini points out that, although a temperamental imbalance is the direct cause of  mental pathologies such as insania, amentia and furor, nonetheless such disorders do not twist the faculties of   the rational soul qua faculties (i.e. judgment, memory, and analysis), but only hinder their execution into the bodily parts, which can no longer act as proper instruments. Likewise in the case of   the passions of   the soul, their force is  a  conse  Ibid., 80.  Ibidem.

14 15

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quence of  their dependence on the bodily temperaments so that their effect is the more direct and strong the weaker is the use of  reason by the individual. As such, passions are more visible in animals and simple men, whose behaviour is completely determined by their innate temperament (omnino temperamentum sequuntur). The only difference between the two is that animals need an external domestication or the administering of  the right food in order to be educated, while human beings can tame passions by the use of   their internal reason. Subtly but effectively, Piccolomini has therefore flipped over the causal consecution between internal and external as implied by the Quod animi mores: while the ‘innate character’ is associated with the ‘external character’, the ‘habitual character’ has come to coincide with the ‘internal character’ whose development is up to the individual free will.

Natural Inclination and Pathology Nevertheless, this solution poses some difficulties. If   character comes from habit and reason matures with the progress of  time, it is possible that during adolescence one’s own rationality is not strong enough to control and address the impulses of   the passions, especially if  they are violent.16 Being unable to control their natural instincts, individuals will blindly follow them in adult life. Thus, the theoretical frame Piccolomini has set for the relation between temperaments and characters seems not to apply here; as instruments of   character, the temperaments should not hinder but help the activity of   reason, while in this case they seem to determine the upsurge of   desires and passions, so that, in the end, the animal component of   the human soul cannot be removed. Piccolomini solves this conundrum by stating that temperaments are not connected to reason like limbs to the body, but they only concur with the development of   passions; in other words, the passions are rooted wholly inside the mind, which generates each of  them by the use of  the imaginative and appeti Ibidem.

16

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tive faculties. As a conclusion, the ‘external character’ displays the attitudes of   individuals which can be dominated with help from moral philosophy, and for this reason, physiognomics, a  science whose direction proceeds from the outside to the inside, can be useful in the realm of   morals as it will help the philosopher to recognize the natural inclinations of   each individual and to correct them wherever needed.17 In conclusion, Piccolomini’s criticism of  Galenic psychology aims at reinstating the primacy of   ethics as a properly human discipline, free from physical or otherwise irrational preconditions. In so doing, some themes at the core of  the Galenic revival resurface: first of   all, the impact of   the doctrine of   elements on moral and political philosophy, then the accusation of  materialism and immorality, both of  which are undesirable consequences of   the strict Galenic consecution between temperamenta and mores. Piccolomini finds on this subject a very interesting solution to explain the relations between mental illness, individual behaviour and the mens: the latter emerges and distinguishes itself  from the soul, rather than from the body, because Piccolomini has to some degree accepted the Galenic idea that the soul is completely reduced to the dynamics of  humors and bodily temperaments. As a mediator between body and soul, only phantasy (vis imaginandi) remains, a faculty which is proper to the individual insofar as it produces conscious mental states. The mind is therefore turned back into a universal and abstract substance to the extent that Piccolomini makes the mens an entity completely detached from its manifestation in each individual. In this sense, a madman could be considered mentally healthy, because the imbalances visible in the body would not affect the mind, which remains the formal and ultimate cause of  all the passions, understood as mental states. It is  difficult to establish whether Piccolomini realised that his solution, even if  it followed the Aristotelian plan formally, actually led to a  complete reversal of   it. The  attempt was to mediate between two irreconcilable visions: the eternal salvation granted to mankind by Christ and the Aristotelian immanent Ibidem.

17

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ism, which had no need to conceive it. The solution Piccolomini envisaged was to reduce man to a  purely mental activity, the only aspect of   consciousness which was considered immortal in Aristotelian philosophy. And yet, according to Aristotle, this activity represented only ‘the best part of  the human being’, not its entire psychological and physical identity.18 This revision was to emerge in all its clarity only with Descartes, but it shows its first sprouts in the late Scholasticism, especially dealing with an edgy concept like mental illness.

18  We will return to this topic at the conclusion of   this chapter. It is anyway noteworthy to highlight that, differently from some Scholastic authors compelled to intellectualize the body in order to neutralize its power over the mind, Aristotelian ethic gives clear limits to the contemplative activity, which Aristotle calls the ‘life according to the intellect.’ This activity, while remaining the ultimate aim of   any human beings, does not complete their being. Unlike the God of   Metaphysica  XII, the human being lives and owns a  body which hinders the perfect coincidence between the subject of  activity and ‘the thinking of thought’ (νόησις νοήσεως), which also prevents the total continuity of   the intellectual performance; on which see Aristotle, MPh, 1072b,20–27. In  this direction must be read the statement according to which the ‘life according to intellect’ is the best life, but not the only possible; a human being is indeed a  combination of   thought and desire, see EN,  1139b,4–5; 1177b,31–1178a,8. Particular attention should also be devoted to the statement (An., 408b, 27–29) that: ‘thinking, loving, and hating are affections not of   thought, but of   that which has thought, so far as it has it.’ If  correctly interpreted, in fact, this statement specifies that if  the ‘productive intellect’ is the activity by virtue of  which all the notions gathered from the senses are then organized in one intuition, the individual in which this process is realised brings to completion this very activity in a variety of   ways. Individuals, in fact, ‘think, love and hate’ because they accomplish the process of   thought through sensations, images, and thus also experiences and emotions. Hence, the ‘productive intellect’ is  also and necessarily ‘external’ to the individual (see GA, 736b,27–29) because it doesn’t realize the individual’s being (which is  that one of   a  living-being whose end is  survival), but its well-being (the accomplishment of   the desire for wisdom which the individual is inclined to, but that does not always reach the summit of  philosophical knowledge). The supervening of  the ‘productive intellect’ does not imply therefore the coexistence in the individual of   two different entities – or two individuals: one eternal, the other mortal – but implies the activation of   a latent ability: accustomed to the comparison of   sensorial representations as separate entities referring to empirical objects, the individual acquiring a scientific knowledge of  reality finally grasps each representation as having a cause in the intellect which produces the definition. This way the multitude of  representations becomes the articulation, by deduction, of  a single act, an act having ‘thinking’ as its most primordial and essential feature, on which see Aristotle, An., 407a,2–10.

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Cesare Cremonini’s Quaestio: utrum animi mores sequantur corporis temperamentum Different in tone, yet not in content, is  Cesare Cremonini’s (1550–1631) approach to the subject. Indeed, Cremonini shows awareness of   the fact that an excessively ‘intellectual’ solution to the Galenic quaestio would imply negative consequences for Aristotelian philosophy itself, which, to some extent, shared and promoted similar theses. Cremonini was Piccolomini’s successor in Padua in primitate loci (1601), but he had been active in the same University for ten years at least as a  professor in secundo loco, and had studied the Galenic thesis especially and its significance in the realm of   natural philosophy.19 His strenuous defence of   the essential principles and values of  Aristotelian philosophy made him one of  the late great theorists of  the Paduan School. As the large number of   works written pro Aristotele adversus Galenum shows, especially the already mentioned De calido innato (Vene­zia 1626) and the De principatu partium (Venezia 1627), his scholarship aimed at preserving the purity of   Aristotelian philosophy from the Galenic and materialistic contaminations toward which the cultural context of  the Veneto, and that of  Padua in particular, were increasingly inclining. Besides the published works, a series of   Cremonini’s manuscripts about the De anima and related questions survive, and we should consider in particular the seven lessons entitled [Quaestio] utrum animi mores sequantur corporis temperamentum.20 In these lessons the rapport between temperaments and 19 Cesare Cremonini was born in Cento in 1550. He  had been a  pupil of  Federico Pendasio in philosophy and he taught this discipline for seventeen years at the University of   Ferrara. In 1591 he gave his inaugural lecture at the University of   Padua, succeeding to Francesco Piccolomini. Notwithstanding the accusation of  heterodoxy coming from the Inquisition, which inquired into his works several times, Cremonini was considered a ‘new Aristotle’ and gathered many pupils, among which Gabriel Naudé, Guy Patin and Justus Lipsius. For an account on Cremonini’s biography and his production both published and manuscript, see Della Torre 1968, 15–31 and Schmitt 1980, 9–13. For his philosophical works, summatim, see Della Torre 1983. 20  The text of  the lectures published by Kuhn 1996: 622–68 is based on two sources: one from the Marciana Library in Venice (M, MS Lat. Cl. VI, codd. 190– 92) the other from Padua (P, S.  Giovanni in Verdara Library, cod.  2075).

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characters is framed as part of  the wider problem as to whether the soul shoul be considered a sort of  ‘harmony’ or ‘proportion of  elements’ (mixis), a thesis discussed and refuted by Aristotle in the first book of   the De anima.21 More precisely, the whole quaestio focuses on the so-called ‘appetitive faculty’, upon which Cremonini reminds us that he had already lectured elsewhere.22 Unlike Piccolomini, Cremonini’s attitude toward Galen is generally positive, and the thesis of   the Quod animi mores is often praised with adjectives such as subtilis et ingeniosa;23 this attitude suggests that the quaestio is  more recent than De calido innato, where Galen is much more harshly criticized.24 Overall, Cremonini’s lessons can usefully be regrouped into three thematically homogeneous sections: – Exposition of  Galen’s theses (lessons i–iii); – Objections moved by Aristotle (lessons iv–v); – Conclusion of   the quaestio and correct interpretation of  Galen’s thesis (lessons vi–vii).

However, Kuhn does not consider a third source which I discovered in the University Library of   Palermo (UP, MS  VI C 12, cc. 284r–296v). As  M is  more accurate and avoids several errors to be found in P, it is preferred by Kuhn, but I  will correct some remaining imperfections according to UP. Although the manuscript of  the lectures has no date, the quotation of  the treatise on appetitive faculty, mentioned in the first lectures and to be dated ante 1611 (see Kuhn 1996: 623, n. 11), would make a dating in that year or immediately later very plausible. This dating is in any case inconclusive and it is probable that Cremonini had started to discuss the subject some time before, starting perhaps in 1591, when he competed with Piccolomini in the lecture of   the natural works of   Aristotle, including among this the De anima. Several indications support this idea, including the status of   the sources. The Paduan codex that contains the lectures on the Quaestio utrum animi mores, contains also the Lectiones in libros Aristotelis de logica, dated 1600, in addition to works on psychology (Tractatus de facultate appetitiva sive de affectibus, Tractatus de sensibus externis, Quaestio pulcherrima de sensu communi, de sensibus internis et externis, Discursus exquisitus de intelligentiis seu sensibus abstractis dated 1597– 98). Therefore it looks probable that Cremonini’s quaestio follows his interests on Galenic materialism already manifested by Piccolomini starting from the Universa philosophia de moribus. 21 Cremonini, Quaestio utrum animi mores sequantur corporis temperamenta (= Quaestio), fol. 168r, Kuhn 1996: 628. 22  Ibid., fol. 166r, Kuhn 1996: 623. 23  Ibid., fol. 168r, Kuhn 1996: 629. 24  On Cremonini’s polemic against Galen, see Kuhn 1996: 244 ff.

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The general aim of  the quaestio is to determine precisely the way in which the temperaments act on the character and, through this analysis, to rearticulate Galen’s ideas within the framework of   orthodox Aristotelianism, whose main principles are briefly restated in the conclusions.

Lectures i–iii Exposition of    Galen’s theses (fols  166r–176v). The  quaestio begins with a general enumeration of   the four causes predetermining human action according to the ancient philosophers: these are the gods, the stars, fate and the temperaments.25 After a brief  discussion concerning the first three, Cremonini argues in favour of   the last and goes on to say that, in order to understand how the temperaments influence human actions, it is necessary to explain how temperaments can produce the innate faculties of   the soul (ingenium) so as to pin down their specific nature. According to Galen, ingenium is produced when a hotdry temperament prevails in the brain.26 From this it is  clear that, notwithstanding his cautious and dubitative manner of   expression (dixit suspensive et dubitanter), Galen identified the rational soul with a specific temperament of   the brain, and he regarded it as a material and mortal substance.27 His opinion is similar in this respect to that of  Alexander of  Aphrodisia, but slightly different from the one of   Hippocrates; while the latter had identified the soul with the innate heat, Galen maintained the identification of  the soul with the temperament of  the three main organs of  the body (i.e. liver, heart and brain).28 Galen’s thesis certainly arouses some concerns in Cremo­ nini. The  most important is  probably that it endangers the psychophysical unity of   the human being: if  a  human being is  uniquely identified by his soul but the temperaments point each to a specific soul, then the human being will cease to exist

 Cremonini, Quaestio, fols 166v–168r, Kuhn 1996: 624–27.   Ibid., fol. 168v, Kuhn 1996: 629. 27  Ibid., fols 168v–169v, Kuhn 1996: 630–31. 28  Ibid., fol. 168v; Kuhn 1996: 630: ‘[…] in nulla sententia est magis constans Galenus quam quod anima sit temperamentum.’ 25 26

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as a single individual. A possible solution to this dilemma, which Cremonini believes to be consistent with Galen’s principles and actually upheld by him, is to consider the temperaments found in each of   the three main organs not as independent of   each other, but as all participating in the vital faculty, that is, in the general mixture of   the body. The  consensus among the three principal organs can also be demonstrated by analysing the effects that diseases have on the body: when an organ is damaged its malfunctioning affects per consensum the other ones, because the main organs form a system of   reciprocal exchange (mutua retributione) whereby the liver provides food and blood to the heart and the latter in turn distributes them to the liver and the brain, with both receiving protection and safeguarding from the brain, by virtue of  the directions this organ imparts to the whole body. In his attempt to clarify Galen’s statement that ‘the passions of   the soul follow the temperament of   the bodies’, Cremonini takes issue with the meaning of   the word faculty (facultas). Galen, in fact, seems to identify ‘faculty’ sometimes as the ‘principle of   action’, but at others as ‘the relation between the principle and the operations proceeding from it’.29 The faculties of  the soul, moreover, are considered by Galen as an immediate expression of  the temperament, so that the relationship between soul and temperament seems to be the same that exists between simple drugs and their respective qualities.30 These remarks confirm for Cremonini that the Galenic faculties act individually, each one in relation to its own temperament. The  three 29  Ibid., fols 170v–171r, Kuhn 1996: 633–34: ‘[…] videtis quod stante vera suppositione animam esse temperamentum, nullum est dubium, de veritate conclusionis, quod mores, et facultates temperamentum insequantur, verumtamen particularia quae hic dicitur a  viro doctissimo, sunt intelligenda ut potissimum postea videre quomodo Aristotele in singulis ipsi consentiat; unum primo advertite quod facultatis nomen aliquando significat Galeno principium agendi; aliquando ei significat relationem quam habet hoc principium ad operationes ipsas et tamen Galenus assimilat animae facultates illis facultatibus, quas in simplicibus medicamentis esse dicimus ut quod habent vim abstergendi, et corroborandi, et alia id genus, est enim idem semper principium sed pro varia relatione ad alia varia opera, dicitur esse distinctum in illas varia facultates; quando nunc proponit facultates animae sequi temperamentum, intelligit facultatem pro fine et praecipue quatenus dicit principium agendi […].’ 30  Ibid., fol. 170v, Kuhn 1996: 634.

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conclusions of   the Quod animi mores are thus summarized in relation to the different meaning of  each faculty Cremonini has identified and analysed in detail. The conclusions are: 1. the passions of  the soul follow the temperament of  the body; 2. passions and faculties do not change by deliberation or choice, but as consequence of  the administration of  drugs; 3. there is no contradiction in defending the previous conclusions and proclaiming civic virtues or the validity of  the precepts of  moral philosophy.

At first, Cremonini distinguishes the faculties of   the soul that Galen considered confuse et indistincte, into two sorts, i.e. as ‘cognitive faculties’ (facultates cognoscitivae) and as ‘emotional faculties’ (facultates affectuosae).31 Moreover, Cremonini highlights that the arguments used by Galen to inscribe the cognitive faculties in the realm of  temperaments are of  three sorts: related to nature (ex natura), to ailments (ex morbis), and to the authority of  wise men (ex auctoritatibus sapientium).32 With the first conclusion (1), Galen seeks to demonstrate that the early development of  children’s personality proves that temperaments are responsible for the differences in character. With the second conclusion (2), he highlights that the surge of   phlegmatic illnesses in the brain causes forgetfulness and dullness, and that when the alteration affects the parts of   the brain where cognitive and memory faculties reside, both are suppressed. With the third conclusion (3), Galen seeks to demonstrate that the authorities of  Hippocrates, Plato and Aristotle and their interpretation of  physiognomic signs agree in accepting the causal relation between temperament and character.33 The choice of   Aristotle as Galen’s authority strikes Cremonini as odd, but he justifies it on the grounds of   it being consistent with other materialistic interpretations of  Aristotle, particularly with those of   Alexander of   Aphrodisia and Averroes. The former had in fact identified the soul as the faculty emerging from the temperament, while the latter had denied the presence of  the

  Ibid., fol. 171r, Kuhn 1996: 634.   Ibid., fol. 171v, Kuhn 1996: 635. 33  Ibid., fols 171v–172v, Kuhn 1996: 635–37. 31 32

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intellect in animals insofar as they are unable to produce a hotdry temperament in their brain.34 In considering the appetitive virtues (virtutes appetitivae), Cremonini claims that Galen’s expression mores et facultates is  equivalent to Aristotle’s propensiones. In  keeping with this semantic reduction, Galen’s second conclusion (2) is converted from positive to negative, as the impossibility for the soul to modify its inclinations ‘independently of’ the temperaments. The third conclusion (3) is left unchanged, and Cremonini even strives to find some arguments to confirm it. As he claims, in fact, legislators prescribe practices for the citizens that aimed at preserving or improving their temperament (e.g. baths, training, abstaining from food or drinks).35 From this standpoint, Galen’s stance is declared as not conflicting with moral and civil sentiment, because it admits that good men should be rewarded, and bad men punished. According to Galen, the fact that the character depends on the temperament of  the body does not excuse bad men for the harm they cause to others; if  these individuals are punished for their behaviour this might actually provide a good example to others not to incur the same punishment.36

Lectures iv–v Aristotle’s Objections (fols  176v–186r). Since in Galen’s thesis the concept of   form is of   primary import, Cremonini’s discussion focuses now on the composition of   elements and on the role of  matter and form in Aristotle’s De anima. According to Aristotle, the temperament is not synonymous with form, but with matter insofar as it is the result of  the merging of  the four elements according to their qualities. Therefore, the soul is the form not of   the homogeneous body – as Galen wants – but of  the organic one, namely of  the whole organism.37 Moreover, between form and matter there is a relation of   subordination in which the temperament behaves as a passive substrate. Hence, the variety of  forms assumed by matter is not an   Ibid., fols 172v–173r, Kuhn 1996: 637–38.   Ibid., fols 174v–175r, Kuhn 1996: 641–42. 36  Ibid., fols 175v–176r, Kuhn 1996: 642–44. 37  Ibid., fols 176v–177r, Kuhn 1996: 646–47. 34 35

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intrinsic property of  it, but is determined by the external action (extrinsecus) of   the soul-form.38 Likewise determined by the soul (causatur) are all species temperamentales, as the soul must be considered as a principle in the triple sense of  ‘formal’, ‘final’, and ‘efficient cause’, with matter acting exclusively as a causa sine qua non.39 The temperament, therefore, is not an efficient cause, because is not able to produce any change other than the local motions (high–low) resulting from the elements it is made of, and only the soul can preside over all movements of  an animate body.40 In the conclusion of   the lectio quinta, Cre­monini comments on a section of   the De memoria et reminescentia in which Aristotle claims that memory consists of   repeated acts of   cognition. He  remarks that, if  memory depended solely upon the brain’s temperament, it should be denied that what we remember could come from what we thought. Being immaterial, in fact, thoughts would produce no effect on memory (nihil facerent).41

Lectures vi–vii Conclusions (fols  181r–189v). The  main difference between Aristotle’s position and that of   Galen is  said to lie in the fact that, according to Aristotle, the form is present in mixed bodies also as ‘end for the sake of   which’ (finis gratia cui) and therefore it requires a body fit for its operations (suarum operationum perficiendarum indiget corpore instrumentario), while for Galen, the form exists only as ‘end of   something’ (finis gratia cuius), coincinding with the final composition of   qualities.42   Ibid., fols 177r–178r, Kuhn 1996: 648–49.   Ibid., fol. 179r, Kuhn 1996: 651. 40   Ibid., fols 177r–181r, Kuhn 1996: 651–54. 41  Ibid., fol. 182r, Kuhn 1996: 653–54. 42  Ibid., fols 182r–v, Kuhn 1996: 656–57. The distinction between finem cuius and finem cui is posited and discussed in detail in the lectio sexta, fols 180r–v, Kuhn 1996: 652–54, and it is worthwhile to trascribe it in full. The text edited by Kuhn shows some confusion not only in transcribing the Latin text but also in choosing the variants. Here we will integrate the Venetian version, which is the main one, with the Paduan and Palermitan versions in some key passages, highlighting the integrations with square brackets: ‘est etiam certum et clarum, quod duplex est finis, alius est [M: finis] gratia cuius, et alius est finis cui, duos enim hos fines evidentia manifestat, in exemplo aedificator agens pro aedifica38 39

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Thus the faculties’ dependence on the soul is  articulated by Cremonini in two modes: ‘absolute dependence’ (absolute) and ‘dependence according to the gradation from easy to difficult’ (ad facilius et difficilius).43 These two modes are actually the same, because the only dependence that stems ‘absolutely’ from the temperament is  the easiness or difficulty with which we apply our faculties, for example when we imagine or remember something. Thus, faculties depend on the temperament of   the body as far as their use is concerned, not their essence. As a consequence, all examples used by Galen to show the equivalence between soul and temperament must be reinterpreted as a case of  ‘ease or difficulty of  use’ in the engagement of  the appetitive and mental faculties.44 In keeping with these tenets, Galen’s second conclusion (2) is also refuted. The temperament does not contribute to the building of  the elective habit (habitus electivus), or of  personality (mos) directly, but only helping or hindering an already given behaviour. Temperaments change when the character determined by habit changes, for instance, through deliberation and action.45 Cremonini ends by refuting the main premise of   Galen’s stance according to which not everybody is  naturally inclined to virtue, and he interprets it as a  case in which legislators would be unable to change the innate temperament of  an individual. In keeping with Aristotle, Cremonini argues that, even if  extreme degrees both in the scale of   temperaments (excess/ lack) and in ethics (aberra­tion/perfection) can be admitted, tione domus, habet finem gratia cuius operatur, et est forma domus, facit enim fundamenta et parietes ad hoc solum, ut introducat formam domus; habet hoc finem, cessat aedificator ab actione; sed ad hunc finem sequitur alius finis, quod appellatur finis cui, fit enim talis forma gratia cui, scilicet ad usum hominis, fit enim gratia conservandi et se ipsum, et [UP: suppellectilia], unde finis gratia cuius, et finis gratia cui ita distinguuntur, finis gratia cuius respicit agens, quatenus transmutat materiam, finis cui respicit usum rei factae; unde homo dicitur finis cui omnium artificialium, quia omnibus utitur; hoc stante observandum est, quod [M: in aliquibus finis gratia cuius et finis gratia cui distinguitur], quia finis gratia cuius est quidquid intrinsecum [UP: et est forma rei, finis autem cui est quidquid extrinsecum ut] patet in exemplo domo allato […].’ Italics added. 43  This solution, already accepted by Piccolomini, will be appropriated also by Giovanni Battista Persona, see Persona 1602: 94. 44 Cremonini, Quaestio, fols 184r–v, Kuhn 1996: 658–59. 45  Ibid., fol. 186r, Kuhn 1996: 662.

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there exists a continui­ty from the servant to the woman to the free man, each of   which participates in and proceeds toward virtue his own way. Legislators build on this common ground the promotion of  virtue and civil society.46 Therefore, the genuine Aristotelian position on the existence of   innate virtues and vices is that, while they are natural as to their origin, inclinations (propensiones) can be changed through practices and habits.47 This is, therefore, the right lens through which Galen’s Quod animi mores must be read, as Galen himself  states; in fact, the dependence of  the soul on the temperament is such that it only helps or hinders the acquisition of   honours, the compliance with laws or the ambition for rightful prizes. In conclusion, the doctrine of  the Quod animi mores is internally consistent and, if  correctly interpreted, might be useful. To those who object that, according to Galen, the punishment of   the bad men would be useless because their example could not suffice to change the innate temperament of  other individuals, Cremonini responds that, although the temperament can be changed mainly by diet and regimen, it can be also altered by other factors and, in this sense, moral examples will not be useless, allowing some people to be addressed to a regimen which will be able to heal their bad natural inclination.48

Forms of  Causality: The Model of  Intrinsic Finality Cremonini’s quaestio offers several aspects worth of  analysis; at the present we will be focusing on the relation between the local motion of   the elements and the soul, and, more generally, on the philosophical principles implied by Cremonini in addressing the questions posed by the Quod animi mores. In the Lectio quinta the discussion of   the different forms of   causality aims at excluding the temperament from the role 46  Ibid., fols 188v–189r, Kuhn 1996: 666–67: ‘[…] modo negat Aristoteles posse omnes virtutem et disciplinam perfectam habere, sed ait, quod est etiam quaedam virtus proportionata servo et mulieri servo quidem virtus oboedientiae, mulieri honestas et similia, et vult unum quoque in specie humana esse particeps virtutis et disciplinae secundum hanc proportionem, quamvis non simpliciter […].’ 47  Ibid., fol. 189r, Kuhn 1996: 667. 48  Ibid., fol. 189v, Kuhn 1996: 668.

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of   efficient cause. Galen’s finalism is regarded by Cremonini as a materialistic process in which the idea of   organism gets lost and is replaced by a causal action by the temperament (motus a quo), at times so direct as to be almost mechanic. As misplaced as it may appear with respect to Galen’s original ideas, this concern has its roots in the Paduan milieu of   the end of   the sixteenth century. As seen in chapter 4, in fact, a derivation of  the movement of  muscles from the bodily temperaments and natural heat had been upheld by physicians like Rudio,49 while in 1603 Santorio had described the origin of   elemental qualities from prime matter as a  clock-like mechanism, proposing an even more explicit comparison in his Commentaria in Artem medicinalem Galeni (Venice 1612), where the development of   spirits in the heart and the brain is compared to the movement of   clock gears, with the heart acting as the spira chalybea or spring of  the whole mechanism.50 Unlike Rudio and Santorio, the body is for Cremonini an integral unity, whose organization is continuously supervised by the form, and not a machine in which complex movements originate from a composition of  the simpler ones. Once the role of   form in the process of   natural generation has been reaffirmed, Cremonini restates another fundamental criterion of   Aristotelian ethics, namely that temperaments act on personality by determining the degree not the essence of  the operations of  the soul. Here Cremonini takes for granted some logical principles, especially the Aristotelian distinction between the different forms of   opposition, which are worthy of  a more detailed account. On the basis of   the logical articulation provided by Aristotle in the Categoriae, the extreme degrees of   a  quality (e.g., being virtuous) cannot coincide with the presence/absence of   the quality itself. As  a quantitative articulation of   a  property, in fact, degrees cannot determine the possession/privation of   the very quality which they are subdivisions of. Possession and privation represent contra­ry predi­ca­tes that are ontologically distinct entities, while maximum and minimum are only   For Rudio see Chapter 4, n. 85.   Santorio 1603: fol. 155r, col. D; fol. 160r coll. A–B; Santorio 1612: pars II, quaest. 37, col. 267 e Santorio 1614: sect. I, aphor. 126, 17v–18r. 49 50

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the extreme degrees of  a certain quality. The difference between these two forms of   opposition is the presence or less of   a middle term, which is  possible in contraries (between maximum and minimum there is a middle state) but not in contradictories (‘presence’ / ‘absence’).51 The temperament can therefore be distributed in degrees whose extremes will be the greatest or smallest difficulties in acting or in acquiring a certain virtue, but these degrees will not determine the presence or absence of  any moral virtues or cognitive abilities. As was the case with Piccolomini, Cremonini’s quaestio presumes the independence of  the mind from its organic substrate as well as its immateriality, although the distinction between degree and essence is  better articulated here than in Piccolomini; Cremonini is indeed aware that, to some extent, materialism is  a  trend proper to many of   Aristotle’s commentators. Thus, the overall value of   Cremonini’s quaestio lies in its clear articulation of   the conceptual differences between Aristotle’s and Galen’s model of   causality, and especially in highlighting the materialism of   the latter as he perceived it in relation to the intellectual milieu of   the late sixteenth-century Padua. This very perception, however, soon became apparent to physicians themselves, as Persona’s commentary to the Quod animi mores shows.

Giovanni Battista Persona’s Commentary on the Quod animi mores (1602) The themes of  academic debate started by Piccolomini and continued by Cremonini, can be found also in the work In Galeni librum cui titulus est Quod animi mores corporis temperiem sequantur commentarius singularis (Bergamo 1602) by the physician Giovanni Battista Persona (1575–1620), the first and the only commentary written on Galen’s treatise in the early modern period.52 Persona shares with Piccolomini, whose pupil he  Aristotle, Cat., 9a,33–13a,36.   Giovanni Battista Persona, also called Personè or Personeni, was born in Albino near Bergamo (from which the title of  Albinensis) in 1575. He studied philosophy in Milan with the Jesuit Bernardino Salino and then followed the studies of   theology and medicine. From Milan he came to Padua where 51 52

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had been, the same eclectic positions at the border between Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy. In the eleven chapters of  his Commentarius, which faithfully follows the Gadaldini’s edition of  the Quod animi mores,53 Persona comments on, corrects and criticizes Galen, trying at the same time to provide a more coherent framework for the latter’s psychology. Persona opposes especially the undue identification of  formal and material cause, and the ensuing identification of   the soul with the temperament, reclaiming instead the role of  education and medical art in shaping the mores of  individuals. Time and again, he accuses Galen of  paying more attention to auctoritates than to medical evidence, which could have sufficiently proven the interaction of  personality and education: Therefore if  the abilities and mores of   the soul are dependent on the temperament of   the body, they can change by means of   medical art (as Galen teaches us in his book De sanitate tuenda), and it will be practically (propemodo) in our power to mold human mores and make them, instead of  bad, good, and sometimes even better. I said ‘practically’, because everything we will say later always implies as a precondition that education can have a great force in molding the mores of  the soul. Indeed medical art can make possible that the temperament of   the body, from which characters arise and from whose diversity the variety in behaviours originates, changes and alters itself.54

in 1593 he started his studies with Francesco Piccolomini, obtaining the title of   Doctor in medicine and philosophy three years later (1595) at the University of   Padua. A marginal annotation in the Allgemeines Gelehrten-Lexicon by Gottlieb Christian Jöcher (ed. 1751) tells us that he died in Bergamo in 1620. A portrait of  him is preserved in the Angelo Mai library in Bergamo. About the life, education and diffusion of  Persona’s works see Bigotti 2010: 81–85. 53  Savino 2011: 59. 54  Persona 1602: 10: ‘Equidem si vires, moresque animi corporis temperiem consequuntur, cum artis medicae beneficio possint temperamenta mutari, sicut nos docuit Galenus in libro De sanitate tuenda, erit propemodum in manu nostra hominum mores componere, eosque e malis bonos efficere, aut saltem meliores reddere. Dixi propemodum, nam hoc ad omnia ea, quae posterius dicenda sunt, semper est subintelligendum educationem maximam vim obtinere ad animi mores immutandos. Ars vero medica id praestare potest, ut corporis temperiem, ad quam mores ipsi naturaliter consequuntur, et ex cuius varietate, morum varietas emergit, mutet, et alteret.’

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Fig. 25. Giovanni Battista Persona, In Galeni librum cui titulus est Quod animi mores (Bergamo 1602). Frontispiece. Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale ‘Vittorio Emanuele II’.

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The Ambiguous Relation between Mind and Brain Although Persona’s reasoning tends to stick to the same arguments in the following chapters, his argumentation does occasionally show moments of   vitality. A good example can be found in the third chapter of   the Commentarius, where the principle of   medical localizationism is applied to passions and mental illnesses, and revisited according to Aristotelian precepts to avoid the identification between symptoms and affected organs. To  that end, Persona recalls five questions that Galen poses to those who admit the separate and incorporeal nature of   the soul and that he claims are impossible for them to be addressed: 55    Galen’s Questions Why

Affected Faculty

a) are we delirious, when yellow bile gathers in the brain? b) is melancholy generated when black bile fills the brain? c) do the phlegm and cold substances provoke lethargos and produce loss of  memory and intelligence? d) does hemlock, taken as a  drink, generate dullness? e) does the drinking of    wine set someone free from pain and anguish, making the soul milder and more daring?

} }

}

}

Intellect Imagination Memory

Vital Faculty

The aim of   Galen’s questioning is, according to Persona, to highlight the inseparability of   body and soul, so as to deny the immortality of   the latter. As we have seen in Chapter 2, on the basis of  the principle of  localization, each question is concerned with a  faculty and a  specific anatomic place: in the first three 55  Ibid., Chap. 3, 108: ‘His inquam quaestionibus nulla ratione videbatur Galeno satisfieri posse, si incorporea statuatur anima, quemadmodum neque, tribus antea propositis, propterea ipsi visum est temperamentum ipsam esse, et caducam. Quoniam autem non ignoramus Galenum harum quaestionum diversis in locis tradidisse solutiones, propterea nos infra ipsas asseremus, ac explicabimus, ubi prius iuxta nostram doctrinam ostenderimus, ipsas non carere solutione.’

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questions the higher mental faculties (intellect, imagination and memory) are involved, while the other two regard the vital faculty as a whole.56 Persona stresses from the outset that the localization he is  concerned with is  that of   the temperaments, the various organs being for him nothing but bodily supports of  physiological activities; in other words, it is the temperamental make-up of  the organ to be altered, rather than its structure.57 As a result, Galen’s questions are reframed and articulated as a case of   the relationship between instrument and agent: whether dealing with objects that are ‘external’ and real, or ‘internal’ and illusory, the mind will always play the role of  the agent operating on a material instrument (i.e. the brain/the heart), with the latter’s responsiveness to directions imparted by the mind determining the capability of   the individual to get access to the external world. Mental diseases are so considered by Persona as ‘defects of   the instruments’ and so as ‘interferences’ within the aforementioned relationship.58 With this proviso in mind, Persona considers the first case. He reminds us of  the effects determined by the gathering of  the yellow bile in the brain, that are ailments of   the imagination (with the production of   unreal and/or confused images) and dysfunctions in language. These symptoms describe the overall conditions of  the delirious person. The aetiology of  the delirium is  connected to the dynamic of   innate heat which, generating motion and inconstancy in the animal spirits, accelerates and increases the production of   images by the faculty of   imagination. Especially in those cases when brain matter is fat and torpid (materia crassa), the excessive intensity of   heat hinders the soul’s capacity to abstract the intelligible components of   the object, therefore causing imagination to produce images unre Ibidem.   Ibid., 109. 58  Ibid., 122–23: ‘Irritata igitur eo quo diximus modo irascibili facultate, vigilante homine, anima, quae irritationem animadvertit, et cognovit si quid sibi sub ulla ratione contemptus obiiciatur, id ea ratione recipit valde videatur contempsisse, fortiterque irritasse ad iram propterea tunc homo fit iracundior, vindictaque aggreditur maiori cum conatu quam iniuria requirat, idque propterea quod existimat externum obiectum id fecisse quod ab internis causis factum est.’ 56 57

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lated to external reality (insensatae imagines) and thus hallucinations. While the various forms and degrees of  hallucinations are explained by Persona in connection to different quality of  brain matter (i.e. in relation with its degrees of   tenuitas/crassities) as well as the different places affected and the specific quality of   peccant humors gathering in the brain, the main cause lies always in the disconnect between the ‘instrumental’/‘bodily’ cause (the  brain) and the ‘essential’/‘incorporeal’ cause (reason). Indeed it is the incorporeal and rational faculty that, unable to operate with appropriate instruments, makes erroneous judgment and considers real confused or otherwise inexistent images. In the second question, Persona describes the effects of  black bile on the brain as a ‘sort of   hallucination without fever, produced by the melancholic humor occupying the mind’.59 The symptoms are connected especially to the dark colour of   the humor (similar to the lees of  wine or blood, faex sanguinis/vini) that renders the brain opaque and fearful, and the patient shy and distrustful.60 Once again, the upsurges of   passions such as sadness, hate, shyness and so forth, are explained as disturbances of  the imaginative faculty, not of  the rational one.61 59  Ibid., 136: ‘Melancholiam: delirium quoddam esse citra febrem ex atrabilioso humore, qui mentem occupavit, maxime oriens.’ 60  Ibid., 142–43: ‘Porro haec spectra, haeque imagines, ubi ad ratiocinatricem facultatem commigraverint, multo maiorem induunt malitia, ac contrarietatis speciem. Ratio enim ipsa cuius est obiecta, quae ipsi exhibet imaginatio iudicare, et aestimare, non modo illa ut mala, et inimica iudicabit, qualia ab imaginatione sunt oblata, sed cum et ipsa ratio cogatur sui temperamenti, in quo residet exprimere pravitatem, ipsas oblatas species magis iudicabit, ut inimicas, vitaeque adversas, aliaque ex ipsis eliciet cum iudicando, tum prave discurrendo, qua vario modo videbuntur vitae hominis insidiari. Nam et quae recipt ratio, recipit per modum recipientis, et quae iudicat iudiucat per modum iudicantis. Nihil itaque mirum est, si illis, quibus tale inest cerebrum, natura timidi sunt, et tristes, ac uno verbo melancholici. Nam omnia quae recipiunt, recipiunt ut tristia, ut mala, et inimica, taliaque etiam illa iudicant, quae non sunt ullo modo. Praeterea eadem de causa fit, ut isti sint natura suspiciosi. Etenim in omnibus quae tractant, et quibuscum versantur existimant latere dolos, et insidias, neque ulli fidem adhibent, eo quod omnes putant malos esse, ac inimicos, plus vel minus, iuxta aliorum accidentium differentiam.’ 61  Ibid., 145: ‘Cum igitur anima eximiam hanc mutationem animadvertat, decipitur, ac mutationis causam refert in obiecta externa, ob dictam ante rationem. Atque adeo vehemens est, et cita haec transmutatio, ut ipsi soli intenta anima, ne quidem quae sunt ante oculos, saepe videat homo, sed alia fingit,

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Analysing the effects of   phlegma (pituita) Persona recognizes the existence of   faculties such as the aestimativa and the cogitativa that are in a sense corporeal and which are affected when an excess of  phlegma gathers in the brain.62 Yet he specifies that the excess of   phlegma cannot actually ‘suppress’ the memory and cognitive faculties, as Galen claims. Indeed, phlegma causes not a ‘suppression of  the faculties’ (that remain separated and latent), but a ‘suppression of  the operations’ performed by them through corporeal instruments (i.e. the various temperaments of   the brain), which therefore explains how the symptoms such as the loss of   memory and other affections of   intellect are induced.63 It is clear, in fact, that memory operates by using heat as a corporeal instrument and since it requires heat to a high degree, this faculty is the first to be altered by an excess of  phlegma in the brain: heat is indeed the opifex or first instrument of  all brain operations.64 The same argument is adopted for the solution to the fourth Galenic question, about the effects of   hemlock, whose symptoms are akin to those generated by phlegma.65 Finally, Persona applies the same structure of   the preceding demonstrations to quae videntur tot mala fecisse. Propterea tunc aegri exsistimans se videre terribilia, quaedam et horrenda, talia scilicet qua videantur velle hominem, suas necare potentias, aut alia auferre bona, inferreque mala. Nam et dum facultates ita mutantur, trahuntur ad illam naturam, ad illumque terminum, et statum, qui omnium pessimus est, et pravus.’ 62  Ibid., 152. 63   Ibid., 153: ‘Velim tamen, ut recte intelligas, cum dicimus imaginationem, vel rationem aboleri in talibus affectionibus, neque enim, dico, ipsam facultatis essentiam penitus perire, sed solum ipsius operationem. Pereunt autem facultatum operationes manente ipsarum natura, quando substantiale temperamentum, quod difficulter mutatur, nondum corruptum est, ita ut mutaverit speciem, vel facultatem: accidentale autem adeo alteratum est, ut non amplius ipsi inservire possit facultati, pro instrumento. Sic in lethargo licet cerebrum valde sit refrigeratum, vivente tamen homine, non potest ipsa rationis, aut alterius principis facultatis essentia omnino deficere, sicuti neque modus substantia cerebri penitus corrumpi; cessat tamen ab actione penitus ipsa facultas, eo quod cerebri accidentale temperamentum, quod ipsius est instrumentum, adeo est immutatum a frigida pituita, ut nullo modo possit facultati inservire.’ 64  Ibid., 154: ‘Nam illud constat evidentissime calorem omnium operationum vel primum opificem esse, vel saltem primi opificis instrumentum.’ 65  In accord with Dioscorides, Persona highlights that the term stultitia for the effect of   hemlock does not mean a  ‘cognitive impairment’ but rather ‘a sort of  vertigo’, see Ibid., 156–57.

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explain the effects of  wine on mood. To be affected in these cases are the operations proper to the animal faculties; however, with regard to the passions of   the soul, the effects originate in the heart, the seat of  emotions. In this sense, Persona explains that, if  an excess of  the hot vapours produced by wine hits the brain (to be noted that the overall physiological model is always the Aristotelian antiperistasis discussed in Chapter  4), the higher faculties are perturbated and accordingly produce representations inconsistent with reality.66 These conclusions constitute, for Persona, a  satisfactory answer to Galen’s assumption that, relying upon bodily instruments, all the faculties of  the soul must be inseparable from the body and perishable: Because forces and operations of  the soul change in so many ways when the temperament changes, Galen at the end of  the [third] chapter concludes that ‘also those who believe that the soul is  composed of   a  substance on its own, and make it separable from the body, are compelled to admit that it is  enslaved to the temperament of   the body’. From what we have said before it is clear how we must consider this assumption. The soul is not enslaved by the temperament so as to be altered in its substance when the tempera66  Ibid., 163–64: ‘At vero ebrii diversa ratione hos affectus incidunt. Talibus enim passio­­nibus afficiuntur ob ea, quae neque vident, neque adsunt, sed imaginantur ipsa videre, sicut et delirantes faciunt. Ea quae ante oculos habent non vident, aut si vident errant in iudicando affecta ratione […]. Cum enim hi vino se repleverint, multa etiam ex vino vaporum copia elevatur. Qui vapores confertim cor, cerebrumque petentes, vehementissime ipsum, eiusque facultates alterant, et movent. Quia itaque haec facultatum alteratio, et mutatio valde vehemens est, et ingens ob multam moventium, et alterantium vaporum copiam, ideo fit cum evidenti animae animadversione. Adeo inquam evidenti, et manifesta, ut ipsi soli facultatum affectioni, intenta anima, ab illaque distracta ob vehementiam, ne quidem; ea quae ante oculos habent videant ebrii, sed alia sibi fingit anima, quae possint talem, tamque vehementem in facultatibus fecisse mutationem. Unde si talis alteratio, quae intrinsecus facta est cogitatrices affecerit facultates laetitia ingenti, dum ita afficiuntur anima ipsa, qua animadvertit mutationem, nescit autem causam cogitur exsistimare aliquod valde laetum advenisse extrinsecus. Ideo fingit ipsum. Tunc ergo ipsis ebriis visa obversantur laetitiae plena, quae non adsunt, eo quod, quae adsunt, non vident, necesse autem est, ut putent aliquid adesse, quod laetitia affecerit animam, et facultates. Quod si fortasse imaginatio a vini vaporibus non laedatur, ipsaque obiecta externa videant, tunc necesse est rationem falli in iudicando, anima referente mutationis intrinsecae causam in ea, quae obiiciuntur.’

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ment changes: the soul is indeed inalterable in itself. The soul depends on the temperament only insofar as it performs its operations as the form of   man; so that, when the temperament alters, the soul also changes the way it performs its operations. These operations, indeed, are performed by the soul using the faculties lying in the composite [of   soul and matter]. These faculties follow the temperament of   their substrate, and their essence and nature change, therefore, in rapport to the different variations occurring in the temperament itself.67

As  we have seen, Persona’s solution represents only a  clarification of   positions already present in earlier authors, and its logic consists in repeating that mental illness is comprised of  an interference in the normal relation between mens and vis imaginandi. Interestingly enough, Persona takes a step backward in respect of  this subject, as he refers his consideration to the soul (anima) instead of  the mind (mens). And yet, even for Persona – and especially around the time he wrote the Commentarius – the subject of  mental illness has become a genre in itself. This is evident in works such as the Praxeos seu de cognoscendis, praedicendis et curandi affectus (Basel 1602) by Felix Plater or the De  morbis nobilioris animae facultatibus obsidentibus (Venice 1615) by Curzio Marinelli (c. 1570–1630), both of  which devote much space to the articulation of   the rapport between mind and imagination, with Platter’s book drawing up a meticulous classification system based upon the symptoms of   each illness. Particularly noteworthy, in Marinelli’s description, is the conception of   the intellect as a judging faculty separated from the

67  Ibid., 170: ‘Cum igitur tam variis modiis animae vires, et operationes mutentur ob temperamenti mutationem colligit in calce capitis Galenus eos etiam, qui animam ex propria quadam substantia conflare volunt cogi fateri ipsam, quamvis separabilem faciant, corporis temperamentis inservire. Quae sententia, quomodo sit iuxta nostram doctrinam intelligenda satis clarum est ex iis, quae dicta sunt antea. Non enim anima ita inservit temperamento, ut ipsam in sui substantia mutetur, ob illius mutationem, est enim ipsa immutabilis. Sed solum ita temperamentum sequitur, ut ipso varie mutato, vario etiam modo ipsa illas agat actiones, quas exercet, ut hominis forma. Has enim ipsa efficit, utens facultatibus illis, quae sunt in coniucto, quaeque ita sui subiecti sequuntur temperiem, et ipsarum essentia, atque natura varie mutetur, iuxta mutationis varietatem, quae in ipsa facta fuerint temperie.’

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body, yet not from its bodily functions, such as the senses and imagination: There still remains a question worthy of  consideration and absolutely not to be neglected, that is, how the intellect, not being mixed with the body and lacking an organ to act, follows the temperament of   the brain. In Galen’s own words, [the intellect follows] not only the temperament of   the brain, but also its soft and hard texture. To  answer this question I shall say in short that the intellect does not need the temperament in order to think, but it needs the temperament as far as the intellect depends on something different from itself  in order to operate. This is something that resides inside the temperament, that is  imagination and the senses: it is  necessary in fact that the intellectual faculty speculates by means of  images, for nihil sit in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in sensu. Thus the intellect makes use of   the temperament as far as it makes use of   the sensitive faculties. If  these faculties receive the appearance of  things inappropriately, and the appearances are represented by the intellect in a disorderly and confused way, they induce the intellect to be mistaken, not because its nature is flawed, but because of   the representations of   the object provided by the sensitive faculties. This often happens if  the temperaments of  the bodily parts are badly arranged, so that sensitive faculties are damaged and, because of   them, also the intellect.68

Santorio Santori will be even more severe on this point, deleting at once the sensus communis and ascribing the faculty to coor68  Marinelli 1615: 21–22: ‘Sed manet unum consideratione dignum minime praetermittendum, quod est, quomodo intellectus, cum sit immistus, et sine organo agens, sequatur cerebri temperamentum, ut verbis Galeni utar, et non tantum temperamentum, sed etiam eius mollities, et duritiem: huic dubitationis dicam paucis intellectum non indigere temperamento ad intelligendum, sed illo indigere quoniam dependet quoad operari ab aliquo existente in temperamento, nempe phantasia, et sensu: oportet enim intelligentem phantasmata speculari, cum nihil sit in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in sensu […] igitur intellectum temperamento uti, quatenus sensitivis potentiis indiget; quae si male rerum species suscipiunt, et inordinate, et confuse eas intellectu representent, ille oberrabit non propria natura vitiata, sed merito obiecti a potentiis sensitivis repraesentato; haec autem facile contigunt, si temperamentum partis incommodum fuerit: consequenter enim sensitivae facultates vitiantur, et ab his intellectus […].’

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dinate sensorial impressions directly to the mind, through the so-called imaginativa.69

‘Removing the Animal’ Hence  I think that these tastes, odors, colors,  etc., on the side of   the object in which they seem to exist, are nothing else than mere names, but hold their residence solely in the sensitive body; so that if  the animal were removed, every such quality would be abolished and annihilated. Nevertheless, as soon as we have imposed names on them, particular and different from those of  the other primary and real accidents, we induce ourselves to believe that they also exist just as truly and really as the latter.70 (Galileo, The Essayer, § 48)

The arguments of   Piccolomini, Cremonini and Persona make visible the outline of   a  new, more ambiguous relationship between the individual and the mind. What emerges through the network of   the contrasts between an organicist view of   the intellect and the Scholastic reaction to it in the years of   transition between the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, is what we could define as the problem of  the subjectivity of  the mind. Although the debate has its roots in antiquity, it was radicalized precisely within the topics of   passions and mental disease, despite the fact that the latter lacked a specific thematisation in the work of  Galen himself. This can be easily understood comparing the original model of  Aristotelian psychology with its versions in these authors, the final chapter of  a long history of   transformations and shiftings and, for this very reason, perhaps, the beginning of  a new chapter. In Aristotle the νοῦς ‘does not think, love or hate’ because these functions are not proper to it, but to the individual; a living and corporeal being in which such activities are inseparably linked to images, sensations, and desires.71 Thus, the functions of   the ‘productive intellect’ (νοῦς ποιητικός) are different from   Santorio 1612: Pars II, Quaest. XLIV, coll. 300–02.   Galilei 1623: 197; translation by Burtt 1954: 85. To  be noted that the original reads rimesso instead of   rimosso, a  blunder corrected in all modern editions. 71  Aristotle, An., 408b,24–29. 69 70

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the individual intellect: the former recognizes the inherent cause of  the events and grasps the truth of  scientific statements, but it is not immediately involved in the process of  the abstraction of   the universal. This is  the task of   the properly human intellect of   which Aristotle speaks in De  anima III  4 as form of   forms, that is  the apex of   a  scale of   approximations whose beginning lies in the animal realm. To be sure, the ‘human intellect’ (ἀνθροπίνους νοῦς) is unmixed with the bodily substance (ἀμιγής), but is  such because of   its function in making judgments of   corporeal impressions and extracting their universal form, not because it is actually separated from the body like the productive intellect is.72 As a consequence, the functions of   the productive intellect are very limited: it ‘produces’ scientific knowledge because it enlightens the inherent cause and the real principle of   each phenomenon, which hence cease to exist as distinct series of   sensorial experiences (tied to the ‘where’ and ‘when’ of   the sense perception) to become necessary consequences of  real and universal assertions. It is therefore clear that the human being participates in such an activity only for a short period of   time, for this activity is  not indispensible to human beings but perfects them by revealing the ultimate aim of   their actions. Thus, the greater part of   our actions as human beings is confined to the present, domain of   probability, contingency and uncertainty, when not of  error and falsehood. In the attempt to preserve individuals from their mortal and passing destiny, that is the animal component of  humanity, late Renaissance Aristotelianism ends up identifying the essence with the rational soul. The solution Thomas Aquinas had found in the De unitate intellectus is proposed again, but with totally different outcomes; rather than faith, it is  now the animality of   the passions, the illness and the mortality of   the body that require a break with Aristotelian anthropology, a break somehow acknowledged also by philosophers. The soul is no longer a system of   forms informing the various bodily functions, but 72  Is is worthwhile to recall that, according to Aristotle’s theory, as developed especially in the Posterior Analytics, the universal is not as such immediately true, and even a consistent and cogent argumentation like the syllogism does not necessarily lead to true conclusions. To recognize their veracity a different faculty is needed, that is the productive intellect (νοῦς ποιητικός).

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is wholly defined by the dynamic of  humors and temperaments. And this is  the moment in which the mind, last stronghold of   the spirit, detaches itself  from the soul and lays claim to its autonomy. As illness no longer concerns itself  with the mind, but is located in the body, it does not concern the nature of  man either: it is  the instrument that becomes ill, not the self. This transition takes place in a series of   theoretical shifts, complications and suppressions of  animality which start to outline what will become the Cartesian distinction between res extensa and res cogitans. This act of   supremacy, however, carries with it all the contradictions surrounding its ripening. In its Scholastic remaking into the mind, the ingenium brings with it an organic seat, the brain, together with its peculiarity, the individual. Unlike the universal Aristotelian νοῦς, this mens is an ‘I’ without a body, and without body it has neither goals nor immediate aims, because these cannot contribute in any way to its worldly realization. With the loss of   the body comes the loss of   the animal, and this is the reason why in a phase of  modern thought – from Descartes to Kant – not only does the subject not have a body, but the analysis of   perception as a  natural phenomenon has been rejected as either impossible or illusory: to use a Galilean expression, the animal has been removed. And yet, there is also another removal that is noteworthy to be highlighted here. In both Aristotelian and Galenic traditions, the mind thinks through images. These act as bodily substrates and as referents of   perceivable reality; they represent a  sort of  bridge between the moral and the natural dimensions of  man. In reducing the mind to a judging faculty, the mental image gets lost and so too does the connection with the body. This deletion is an important difference between Galen’s naturalistic approach and the Cartesian one, especially in the Meditationes de prima philosophia (Paris 1641), where the mental image is not necessary anymore to build the cogito. If  anything, a common ground between the emerging dimension of  the cogito and the ingenium can be found in the innatism of  both perspectives, as Descartes’ juvenile research shows, in its focus upon themes such as lumen naturale and ingenium. Indeed, like natural faculties, the ideas of   the mind are inherent, innate and primordial; the only dif223

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ference is  to be found in the transformation of   the criterion of   certainty, which with Descartes becomes intellectual instead of   sensorial. It is therefore clear how both for the Renaissance followers of  Galenic materialism and for Descartes the problem of  the origin of  concepts and their relation with external stimuli neither has, nor can have any relevance: as given to the intellect, concepts are like instincts, as they do not result from an abstraction process.

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CHAPTER SIX

BEYOND TRADITION: SANTORIO AND DESCARTES

As we have seen in the previous chapters, one of   the essential outcomes of   the Galenic revival in the late Renaissance was the redefinition of   the concept of   causality, particularly with regard to the rapport between substance and accident. From a general point of  view, this is indeed the inner conceptual core from which originate, and upon which converge, all the topics heretofore analysed. In its redefinition of   a series of   theoretical constants, such as the Aristotelian concepts of   form, soul, and matter, Galenism deeply influenced the methods of   scientific research and was therefore the subject of   a long reflection well beyond the sixteenth century, especially with regard to the key role Galen and the medici had entrusted to induction. A detailed account of   this problem and its reprocessing at the end of   the Renaissance is  unfortunately beyond the scope of   this book, but the intellectual background has been carefully analyzed in the classical works by Duhem, Randall, Crombie, Gilbert, Poppi, Wallace, and MacLean.1 Here we will only highlight that the convergence of   the late Renaissance debate around problems and methods of   knowledge led to consequences which, even if  consistent with the mainstream of   Aristotelianism and Galenism, generated a  deep transformation in the meaning of   terms such as quality, temperament, and equilibrium. Especially with Santorio and Harvey, the ‘moment of   proof ’ pecu-

1 Duhem 1913–1956, Randall 1940 and 1961, Crombie 1953 and 1961, Gilbert 1963, Poppi 2004, Wallace 1988 and 1992, MacLean 2002.

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liar to Renaissance anatomy was transferred to physiology, with an outcome which meant both the ending and the fulfillment of   Renaissance Galenism, which remained in its spirit but no longer in its letter. In order to understand this transformation, in this last chapter we will be focusing on several moments, that include the birth of   quantitative research with Santorio, the relationship quantity–quality, the role of   the machine and the mechanism, as well as the definition of  the passions of  the soul in Descartes’ early physiology. These are indeed the beacons between which, at the beginning of   the seventeenth century, the new horizons of  medical research extend themselves and the context in which the discovery of  blood circulation also occurs.

The Concept of  Equilibrium Transformed: Santorio Santorio Santori (Sanctorius, 1561–1636) is one of  the less known, and yet one of  the most complex and interesting personalities in early modern medicine.2 As a  Galenic physician and a  distin  Four hundred years after his death, none of   Santorio’s work has been the subject of   a  fully-fledged scientific investigation. Save for Modestino del Gaizo’s pioneering contributions, Del Gaizo 1889, 1891, 1900, and the partial investigations by Raffaello Caverni, Caverni 1891–1900, from the eighteenth century onwards there have been only biographies which are often short, like Capello 1750, or merely informative, as it is  the case with Castiglioni 1920. The  only biography that can be qualified as scientific in a  modern sense has been provided more than fifty years ago by Maria Stella Ettari and Marco Procopio, see Ettari and Procopio 1968, and yet this is also a work that is extremely difficult to find. A partial and mostly descriptive account of  Santorio’s method can be found in Siraisi 1987, passim, while Mirko D. Grmek’s work on quantification in medicine, Grmek 1990 also discussed in the final remarks, is useful but must be read very cautiously. Indeed, Grmek draws on assumptions and concepts of  nineteenth-century Italian scholars (esp. Favaro 18832: 268 ff.) who overlooked the historical and theoretical background of   Santorio’s works and considered both Santorio’s experiments and instruments as the result of   the influence, if  not of  the plagiarism of  Galileo’s works. The most recent scholarship is much more cautious on the subject (see Lèfevre 2001: 20–22 n. 20 and Büttner 2008: 228 n. 15), not least because there is no direct evidence of   this influence, which, if  anything, should be reversed. The  connection between these two giants of  early modern science, who lived in close proximity, remains difficult to reconstruct – although decisive documents are emerging from my research in European and American archives. Especially important for the reconstruction of  the rapport between Galileo and Santorio is one letter, dated 2

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guished representative of  the Paduan school of  anatomy, Santorio must be given credit for the introduction of  the experimental method in medicine, through the elaboration and systematic application of  the quantitative indication.3 In his main work, the Ars de statica medicina (Venice 1614) – a book that, in a century and a  half, was published 54 times and translated into all the main European languages – Santorio proves how the metabolic equilibrium can be successfully evaluated through a quantitative parameter, i.e. weight, whose measure is systematically repeated 9  February 1615, sent by the latter to his former colleague in Padua. In  this letter Santorio makes clear, in an earnest and dry tone, his independence from Galileo, emphasising that Galileo had been one of   the more than 25,000 subjects of   his statical experiments. As a final point it is noteworty that the name of  Galileo does not appear – even indirectly – in any of  Santorio’s works; on the contrary, many of  the discoveries that Galileo attributes to himself  through his pupils appear in his epistolary exchanges (e.g. as the one with Giovanni Fran­ cesco Sagredo) as ascribed to Santorio. 3   For the use of   indication as the main theoretical framework of   Santorio’s instruments and exepriments see Santorio 1625, Ad lectorem, [c.  1 not numbered]: ‘Theorici celebres tum antiqui, tum moderni, qui ante me omnem studium in theorica posuerunt, conati sunt in suis commentariis rationibus, et auctoritatibus Hippocratis, et Galeni hanc medicinae partem explicare, et recte quidem: sed de ipsa confirmanda a  posteriori per ipsam practicam vel nihil, vel parum dixerunt, ut propterea reprehensionem vix effugere possint. Hippocrates enim 2. Aphorismo­rum 17. vult, quod sanatio indicet morbum: ego quoque divini senis imitatione dico, quod et sanatio, et experimenta, necnon etiam instrumenta, et statica ars; quae omnia longo usu, et periclitatione adinveni, hanc medicam philosophiam reddere possint claram, et manifestam.’ Italics added. On  ‘indication’ (ἔνδειξις, indicatio), with which Galen designates the logical procedure of  rational medicine, as opposed both to induction and to mere analogy, see Galen, MM, K X,127. Indication consists in a logical implication structured in two signs, the indicans and the indicatus, which relate as antecedent and consequent but always as opposed terms; see Barnes 1991: 98–102 and Kudlien 1991: 103–11. An example is provided by Galen in MM, K X,173–86 about hollow wounds. As it is hollow, the wound represents the ‘antecedent’ (indicans) from which it can be deduced that the remedy, as ‘consequent’ (indicatus), must consist in the filling of   the cavity, choosing among the different remedies the one allowing the surrounding flesh to grow and heal the wound. Although the procedure can be further improved in determining the sort of   remedies to be chosen for an effective healing, Galen’s argument is rather generic and not subject to quantification. This impasse is well-known to Santorio, who clearly identifies it in the Methodus vitandorum as an impossibility to pass from general/unspecific to specific indications. According to Santorio, the logical grounds of   indication must be therefore corrected and revised in the light of   Aristotelian axiomatics – especially Zabarella’s demonstratio potissima – and more and more refined to become a specific inference, converted into a quantitative parameter with the use of  adequate instruments.

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in relation to variants such as age, climate, environmental factors, physical and sexual activity, that is the so-called sex res non naturales. This radical change in perspective is made possible by the adoption of   a simple but very effective principle of   analysis: the redefinition of   the concept of   equilibrium, which with Santorio ceases to be considered in terms of   an abstract geometric proportion, to be converted into an actual measurement. More specifically, the problem that Santorio dealt with since his very first work, the Methodi vitandorum errorum omnium qui in arte medica contingunt libri XV (Venice 1603) consists in translating abstract degrees into numbers. Reference to this problem is to be found again in the first aphorism of  Santorio’s Medicina statica, as the necessity to measure undefined parameters such as ‘lack’ and ‘excess’: If  there daily be an addition (additio) of   what is  wanting, and a subtraction (ablatio) of   what abounds, in due quantity and quality, lost health may be restor’d, and the present preserved.4

Addition and subtraction: the challenge is to balance the books of   the bodily economy.5 And yet, this sounds all but new: the principle inspiring Santorio had already been established by Hippocrates in the De flatibus.6 Despite its ancient roots, however, this quotation should not mislead us: the humoral equilibrium of    Hippocratic-Galenic medicine is  something completely different from Santorio’s concept of   quantitative balance. The  former rests on a  series of   ideal proportions on 4  Santorio 1614: I.1: ‘Si quanta, et qualis oporteat, quotidie fieret additio eorum quae deficiunt, et ablatio eorum quae excedunt, sanitas amissa recupererentur, et praesens semper conservaretur.’ Translation by Quincy 1712. 5  Although James Kaye, Kaye 2004, has emphasised that the transformation of   the concept of   equilibrium in a system of   economical exchanges dates as early as the thirteenth century, it is relevant that this transformation would not come to full bloom prior the seventeenth century. It was indeed during this period that the concept of   equilibrium as a proportion between two constant but unknown variables was transformed into the balance of   two measurable quantities. 6 Hippocrates, FL, chap. 1 (= Littré VI, 92), the Hippocratic grounds of  his theory are openly acknowledged by Santorio in his letter to Galileo (9 February 1615).

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a  scale whose extremes, conditioned by individual peculiarities, are variable and thus not quantifiable.7 As the knowledge of  quantities is vital in medicine, particularly in the preparation of  medicaments, Galen had already tried to frame the intensity of   the so-called ‘simple drugs’ in a scale of   degrees.8 Although Galen’s theory envisages four different degrees for the action of   each drug, his classification does not imply any quantitative parameter, but results from the simple comparison of  substances whose intensity is comprehended between the extremes of   two opposite qualities (extremely hot/cold).9 The same observation can be made –  a  fortiori  – about temperaments, for which, in at least one case, Galen took care to specify some quantitative parameters. In the De temperamentis, for example, he suggests pouring in a container the same quantity of   boiling water and snow in order to obtain a perfect equilibrium of  opposite qualities allowing one, by immersing a hand in it, to measure all temperaments, not only those regarding human health (Table 5).10 From Medieval to Renaissance medicine this sort of   temperament was called temperamentum aequale ad pondus, to distinguish it from the temperamentum aequale ad iustitiam, meaning the realisation of   a  right temperament according to the optimal constitution of   an individual.11 Santorio takes issue with the concept of  temperamentum ad pondus because, as a perfect and indivisible point between two extremes, its existence has no bearing upon individual temperaments and should be regarded as a  mere, if  useful, abstraction. Medicine is  concerned with individuals and individual conditions are those that Santorio seeks to subject to quantitative analysis. Thus, making recourse to the idea that the physician is a sensatus philosophus, San­to­ rio refuses as fruitless any attempt to bring the discussion about measuring back to the realm of   abstract quantities (dogma 7 Hippocrates actually denies that medicine can be quantified directly, a denial that includes also weight, which is the fundamental parameter of  Santorio’s experiments; see Hippocrates, VM, chap. 9 (= Littré i, 588). On the subject of  measure in ancient medicine, Grmek 1990: 17–43. 8 Galen, SMTF, K XI, 571,13–572,6. 9   For the Galenic theory of  degrees of  drugs, Harig 1974. 10 Galen, T, K I, 560,13–561,13. 11  Ibid., 547,15–548,3.

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insensibile).12 In order to measure, he contends, it is necessary to define the degree of   variability of   a phenomenon (be it temperature, pulse, air humidity or body weight), and to do so with certainty it is  necessary to devise instruments able to extract regularity and number from this variability. With the rigor and clarity typical of  his style, Santorio himself  provides key indications that led to the invention of  such instruments: Galen  […] teaches us how we can measure the quantity and strength of   hot and cold in intemperate mixtures. He states that the quantity or the strength of  the intemperate mixture will be as much as its distance from the natural state (quantus est recessus a statu naturali) […]. I make use of   four instruments by means of   which I ascertain the quantity of   this distance (de quantitate recessus). The first one is  an instrument that I  invented and is  called pulsilogium, through which we grasp how much in each day each individual departs (recedat) from their best condi-

12 Santorio states clearly that if  the temperamentum aequale ad pondus actually existed, it would be a pointlike condition, not susceptible to physical extension (ἄτμητον, insectile) , see Santorio 1612: Pars I, col. 105A–C, and Santorio 1625: coll. 241C–D. For the same reason, this temperament would not only be ‘insensible’ but also ‘unmeasurable’ by the physician, who is always a sensatus philosophus or sensatus artifex; see Santorio 1612, col. 117A: ‘[…] medicus qui est sensatus artifex non debet admittere differentias, quae per insensibilia inter se differunt, nisi velle etiam dogma perpetuae passionis admittere’; Ibid., coll. 120E–121A: ‘Statuamus igitur cum Galeno octo esse intemperantias, quattuor simplices  […], quattuor compositas  […]: et unicam esse temperaturam exacte aequalem, quae tamen est cum aliqua latitudine: quia illa quae consistit in puncto non datur, et quando datur, non pertineret ad medicum, qui sensibilia et non insensibilia contemplatur’; Ibid., coll. 140D–141A: ‘I dubitatio oritur ex verbis Galeni, dum inquit, hoc neutrum esse exquisite medium, an scilicet sit punctuale, et sine aliqua latitudine. Argenterius, et Altimarus censent, hoc neutrum primi significati, quod videlicet est per negationem extremorum esse punctuale. Quae opinio superius est a nobis reiecta: nam neque ad medicum, immo neque ad philosophum naturalem pertinet consideratio eorum quae imaginamur esse in puncto indivisibili; quia nihil est in rerum natura tam punctuale, quod non habeat latitudinem divisibilem in semper divisibilia. Hinc puncta quae sunt minima naturalia, quaeque pertinent ad physicum sunt apud mathematicos divisibilia ad infinitum: nulla mihi videtur difficultas magis puerilis, quam haec, an detur temperamentum quod sit in medio exquisite, et sit punctum sine latitudine, quia in iis quae constant ex elementis haec dari non possunt’; finally, Santorio 1625: col. 62E: ‘[…] sed medicus quae est sensatus philosophus, non tractat, nisi quae sensibus subiiciuntur: medicus enim semper despicit dogma insensibile […].’

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tion. The same result is provided by the second instrument, by means of   which, by putting in movement a leaden ball attached to a suspended thread and, from its movement on the thread, and from the greater or smaller lengthening, anyone will be able to observe the natural motion of   the pulse and its distance from the natural condition (recessum a  naturali). By  means of   the pulsilogium I  measure with great diligence the motion and rest of   the artery and I can also compare this measure with the pulse of  the previous days. With the third instrument I measure, by means of   statical experiments, the various distances (varios recessus) in respect to the natural state. It is not useful to give here further information on the secrets of   statics, as in a short time I will publish four hundred aphorisms on statical experiments [scil. medicina statica]; the fourth instrument, which is wonderfully advantageous, is a sort of  glass ampulla, with which we can measure (metiri) not only the temperament of   the air, but also of   any part of   the body, and how is for every day the distance from the natural state (recessus a statu naturali).13

Once more the challenge is to assign a numeric value (dimetior) to the ‘excess’ or ‘lack’ as expressed in terms of  distance (quantitas recessus) from the natural state. The same problem is put forward later in the Commentaria in primam Fen primi libri 13   Santorio 1612: Pars III, coll. 374B–375B: ‘[T]ertio ‹Galenus› nos docet, quomodo dimetiri possimus quantitatem, et vehementiam caliditatis, vel frigiditatis intemperaturarum; dicitque tantam fore intemperiei quantitatem, seu vehementiam, quantus est recessus a statu naturali […]. Qui vult distincte in omni morbo pernoscere quantitatem recessus, debet summa industria conditiones partium affectaur, et aegrotantium perpendere. […] Nos utimur quattuor instrumentis, quibus reddimur certi de quantitate recessus; quorum primum est pulsilogium a  nobis inventum, quo quotidie quantum quis recedat ab optimo suo statu cognoscimus; secundum, idem cognoscimus per motum pilae plumbeae pensilis filo, qua quisque filo commota, et magis, vel minus elongata observare poterit naturalem pulsus motionem, et recessum a naturali; verum nos mira industria ex pulsilogio dimetimur motus, et quietes arteriae, collationemque facere possumus cum pulsibus praeteritorum dierum; tertium instrumentum est quo per staticas observationes varios recessus a statu naturali penetramus. Hic tunc non est locus, ut de staticae artis arcanis aliquid dicamus, quia vel brevi in lucem quadringentos aphorismos de staticis experimentis promemus; quartum, quae mirifice quoque iuvat, est quoddam vas vitreum, quo possumus metiri non solum aeris, sed cuiuslibet partis corporis temperaturam, et quantum quotidie fiat recessus a statu naturali […].’

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Canonis Avicennae (Venice 1625) with reference not only to the sort of  measurement, but especially to the precision allowed by the new instruments: Medical art is  conjectural because of   the quantity of   the diseases, of   the remedies, and of   the faculties; because of  idiosyncrasies or proprieties of  nature, as well as because of  the individuating conditions. […] With respect to quantity, Galen (De methodo medendi, IX.15) says indeed that to administer a  remedy it is  necessary to know not only the species, but also the quantity of   the disease (quantitas morbi), which – according to Galen De methodo medendi IX.14  – is  the certain measure of   the distance from the natural state, and can be determined only by conjecture. We  have for a  long time thought of   how to measure this quantity, even though this is possible sometimes and only in given conditions, and we have invented four instruments.14

In the Medicina statica the translation from degree to number is obtained by re-arranging the classification of   the sex res non naturales so as to subtract from their number the quantifiable factors, inanitio–repletio, which, incidentally, can be subject to a  mechanical account. These very factors turn into criteria to evaluate the dynamics of   the so-called perspiratio insensibilis, that is the quantity of  invisible excrements expelled through the skin and respiratory system during the day.15 Santorio chooses weight as an indicator of   such quantity and its variation inside the body is  measured with a  special scale (steelyard chair or sella Sanctorii, Fig. 29), and deduced by subtracting the weight of  excrements (urine, sweat, faeces) from the total weight of  the 14  Santorio 1625: col. 21B–C: ‘Ars medica est coniecturalis ratione quantitatis morborum, remediorum, virtutis, ratione idiosyncrisiae, vel proprietatis naturae, et ratione conditionum individuantium. […]  Ratione quantitatis morborum: Galenus enim 9. Methodi 15. dicit, ut verum exhibeatur remedium, non solum oportet cognoscere morbi speciem, sed etiam eius quantitatem, quae ex Galeno 9. Methodi 14 est certa mensura quantitatis recessus a naturali statu, quae quantitas solum coniectura haberi potest. Nos diu cogitavimus, quomodo illud quantum morborum aliqua ex parte aliquando cognosci possit. Excogitavimus quattuor instrumenta.’ 15  For the concept of  perspiratio as an excrement, Santorio 1614: I.8, II.29, III.27.

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body. The  remaining factors (air and water, motion and rest, passions of   the soul, sexual activity,  etc.) are considered as conditions under which the experimental trial should be replicated. The same method is adopted for measuring the pulse, which is evaluated by adopting the regular motion of  the artery (i.e. frequency) as a quantitative parameter whose variations are registered with the pulsilogium, a  pendulum-regulated instrument (Fig.  26); the same for temperature, measured with the thermometer (Fig.  27), and for the variations of   environmental humidity, which Santorio evaluated by adopting a  double parameter (i.e. weight and elasticity of   materials) using precision scales and hygrometers specifically devised for this purpose (Fig. 28). Each instrument aims at translating into numbers the alteration of  the natural state with regard to pulse, body and environmental temperature, air humidity, and weight; and it is exactly in the preparation of   the theoretical and technical instruments to measure these variations, that Santorio’s scientific stature, even more perhaps than his medical one, emerges in all its greatness. As we have seen, the inspiration comes from Galen, but the problem is  to understand the meaning of   expressions such as gradus/recessus dimetiri –  which can be translated as a measure of the degree or a measure of the distance [from the natural state] – because it is precisely this definition that solves the problem of  obtaining a reliable measure in medicine.

From Degree to Quantity To address this problem, it is  necessary to dwell upon the Galenic concept of   ‘latitude’ (latitudo). Several times in his works Santorio refers to the latitudo sanitatis as the extension of  a perceptible quality (i.e. sanitas) on a theoretically determinable numeric scale.16 The latitudo or ‘extension of   a  quality’ presupposes the Aristotelian theory of   continuous change and, especially in medicine, the Galenic theory of   latitude and the correspond  Santorio 1612: Pars I, Quaest. XX, coll. 102B–107B.

16

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Fig. 28

Fig. 26

Fig. 27

Fig. 29

Figs. 26–29. Santorio Santori, ‘Pulsilogium’, ‘Thermometer’, ‘Hygrometer’, and ‘Steelyard Chair’, from Commentaria in Primam Fen Primi Libri Canonis Avincennae (Venice 1625). London, Wellcome Library.

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ing theory of  degrees of  drugs, from which it originates.17 These latter approaches continued to develop from the thirteenth century onward in the work of   Oxonian calculatores, especially in the form of   the quaestio de intensione et remissione formarum. The  theory elaborated by calculatores distinguishes between abstract, non-measurable qualities (i.e. logical predicates or categories) and perceptible qualities, which act in time according to their degree of  intensity and are therefore measurable, at least in principle. The visual representation of  this measurement was essentially geometric, with intensity (intensio) represented by a vertical line and extension (latitudo), or duration of   time, by a horizontal line.18 This tradition, kept alive in medicine through the commentaries on Galen’s Ars medica and on his treatises on innate heat,19 did not produce any specifically quantifiable result, since the degrees in each temperament were deduced from the temperamentum aequale ad pondus as many proportions and therefore were not applicable to individual instances. Santorio refers to this approach to qualities when he criticises those who take the temperamentum aequale ad pondus as their reference in judging of   individual temperaments and explains his own instruments as aiming at measuring the ‘distance in degree’ (gradus recessus), i.e. the numeric distance from a middle point. In order to measure this distance, it is necessary to define where the middle lies in terms of   latitudo, because from its definition the region of  health in each patient can be determined, and San17 Santorio 1603: fol.  82rB: ‘[…] etenim natura non transit ab extremo ad extremum nisi per media.’ On the Galenic origin of   the medieval theory of  quantification of  qualities, see Sylla 1973: 226–28. On the problem of  intension of   qualities, Galen, T, K I, 552,13–554,3. A  reconstruction of   the preGalenic debates on the concept of   ‘extension of   a  quality’ (πλάτος) can be found in Sorabji 2002. 18  For this reason, in Nichole Oresme (1323–82) uniform qualities are represented with quadrilaterals, while the non-uniform, or better ‘uniformly difform qualities’ (whose intensity changes in time along a constant progression) with triangles, see Clagett 1968: 68 ff. 19 Important references to the concept of    latitudo as developed in the commentaries to Galen’s Ars medica can be found in the pioneering works by Joutsivuo 1999: 115, and Maclean 2002: 172–83. No comprehensive study has been devoted so far to the early modern commentaries on innate heat (de calido innato), where concepts such as extension and degree play nevertheless an essential role.

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torio knows that this region tends to remain stable even when other conditions of  the individual change. The second step is to measure this distance, which can be done by defining the ‘extension’ or, in modern and (intentionally) anachronistic terms, the ‘variability’ of  the phenomenon. To reach his goal Santorio overturns the classical relation between substance and accident; as a Galenist, he applies the typical approach of   Galenic naturalism but at the same time he develops the consequences to extreme lengths. Accepting the Aristotelian principle according to which quantitative measures can be referred only to accidental properties of  a being – and never to substantial properties – in the Methodus vitandorum Santorio distinguishes between an ‘original and substantial’ and a ‘present and accidental’ state of   health.20 The original state (also called status primigenius) should represent the condition of   possibility for all the subsequent states occurring in an individual’s life, but its nature does not allow the physician to intervene in any way. A physician, in fact, can only try to reinstate those conditions that precede the upsurging of  a disease, the primigenial conditions of  health remaining unknown to him: in this sense, a physician is a sensatus artifex, and medicine is an ars factiva.21 Moreover, Santorio highlights that the ‘original state’ does not remain intact over time, but it changes with age and other factors. As  a result, the very idea of  health is deeply modified: it no longer stands for an invariable state (habitus, actus), but turns into an ‘ability to resist’ (potentia resistendi) external influences and therefore to maintain inner conditions in a  dynamic order.22 Likewise, the direct knowledge of   the status primigenius or actus becomes both inaccessible and useless, and it can be replaced by the knowledge of  the   Santorio 1603: fols 81vA–82rC; Santorio 1612: Pars I, coll. 118E–119A.   Santorio 1612: coll. 117A, 123B; Santorio 1625: col. 99D: ‘[…] medicina vero est ars factiva, resarcitiva inferioris conditionis, quam fabrilis, quia nihil facit de novo: utinam medicina posset brachium, oculum, vel aliud membrum vivum de novo facere.’ 22 Santorio 1612: Pars  I, col.  119A: ‘[…] salubritatem vero, quae dicit potentiam resistendi, ut ex Aristotele, et Galeno probavimus, in tantum dicamus perseverare posse cum aegritudine, in quantum eius resistendi potentia conservatur.’ 20 21

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determining factors of  the present state, whose variability is not independent, but can be controlled by monitoring the six nonnatural factors and is  always limited by the parameters defining the ‘latitude of   health’ (latitudo sanitatis). Therefore, even if  accidental, the present state of  health represents the terminus a quo, that is to say the reference point from which every measurement has to be made, so that the greater the distance from this point, the more acute the illness is in terms of  severity/intensity.23 The ontological uniformity between the properties measured and their method of  measurement is guaranteed by the fact that the properties considered by Santorio, although accidental in an absolute sense, are indeed essential in terms of  the specific information they provide to the physician. As  a consequence, all Santorio’s instruments for quantification in medicine aim at circumscribing and translating into figures (metior, dimetior) the dynamic parameters of  the normal state and, as a difference from it, of  the pathologic one; in other words, they all measure distances (recessus) from the natural state and from this standpoint, Santorio’s studies lay the foundations not just for the quantitative research on metabolism but on homeostasis, and Santorio rightfully deserves the title of  father of  modern experimental physiology.

23  Santorio 1603: fol.  81vA–B: ‘[…] relinquitur solum, antequam extremam manum imponamus huic contemplationi de affectuum prater naturam ideis; ut in hoc 4 libro cognoscamus, qualis sit hic status salubris, a quo, dum recedunt partes, consurgant morbi; quae cognitio est valde necessaria, quoniam ex Galeno primo ad Glauc[onem] cap[ite] primo tantus est morbus, quantus est hic recessus a statu salubri. Quare nisi expendamus et cognoscamus hunc statum salubrem, qui est terminus a  quo partes affectae recedunt, numquam sciemus metiri recessus, et numquam ultimam differentiam morbificam attingemus; quo circa, ne in aequivoco laboremus, singularis est animadvertenda distinctio, quae est in omnibus affectibus praeter naturam dupliciter considerari possit recessus a statu salubri, alter enim consideratur recessus a statu salubri primigenio, qui ab exordiis generationis comparatur, alter vero consideratur recessus ab adventitio statu partium salubri, qui adventitius status in viventia corpora non illico, sed tractu temporis sensim a  consuetudine sex rerum non naturalium intromittitur, quippe qui non solum est diversus a primigenio, verum etiam saepe contrarius; et de hoc praecipue agere debemus, quoniam status salubris, quo nuper aegrotantes, dum erant sani, fruebantur, non potest esse primigenius, sed novus et adventitius; ideo ab ipso metimur recessus, et ad ipsos pro viribus reducimus aegros, ut ipsos sanus reddamus […].’ Italics added.

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Differences and Analogies: Santorio, Galileo, and Alexandrian Science An essential difference between the theoretical structure of  late Alexandrian science and its Santorian revival at the end of   sixteenth century lies in the question behind the recourse to experiment; Santorio refers no more to the ‘what’ of   a  process but to the ‘how’. The  insensible perspiration represented indeed a  phenomenon whose existence was sensed since Antiquity. Evidence of  this can be found in the text of  the Iatrica Menonis, which is part of  the so-called Anonymus Londinensis, a papyrus kept in the British Library in London and discovered in 1892. The text gives us a glimpse of   what experimental medicine was before Galen, as we learn from it that the followers of  Erasistratus (304–250  bc) proved the existence of   insensible perspiration by observing the gradual weight loss of  a bird kept in a cage and left without food for several days.24 It is noteworthy, however, that not only was the weight loss not expressed in numbers, but the entire experiment was aimed at ascertaining the existence of   the phenomenon, rather than its conditions. With Santorio, conversely, the existence of  the phenomenon is taken for granted, while the focus is  on how the body maintains its economy. Another meaningful difference that is  worth focusing on is that one between Santorio and Galileo. These twin figures in the history of   science express their independence and complementarity in the research and selection of  measurable parameters in qualitative and complex phenomena. While Galileo makes use of   experiment to support an essentially theoretical research path, aimed at finding the mathematical conditions within which phenomena occur, Santorio seeks to determine the range of  variability of   the phenomena so as to minimize the impact of   possible anomalies and to define a  constant parameter on which grounding his theories. Repeated experimentation becomes a must of   such an approach and we are informed by Santorio that, in the case of   the Medicina statica it was to be protracted for more than 25 years. As a consequence, while the degree as a mathematical yet not quantifiable entity was still a basic refer  Grmek 1990: 37–38; Jones 2011: 101.

24

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ence in Galileo, it was progressively ceasing to be such in San­to­ rio. The key example is the thermoscope, which both men were aware of, but that only Santorio was able to use and transform into a  thermometer, placing behind it a  numeric scale which allowed the quantitative determination of   an intensive magnitude. Another meaningful example is that of  the pendulum, which Santorio knew and had adopted in his research before 1602, when Galileo made use of   it to understand by way of   analogy the motion of   objects over an inclined plane.25 Furthermore, San­to­rio fully understood a  problem to which Galileo seemingly did not devote sufficient attention, namely that the adoption of   quantitative parameters must be cautious and selective in order to be valuable: in other words, without a  previous qualitative analysis, the quantitative analysis of   phenomena is  useless. Thus, Santorio’s goal was neither the replacement of   a metaphysics of   qualities with a metaphysics of   quantities, nor the substitution of   Aristotelian essence with mathematics, but instead the determination of   the conditions in which the use of   measuring instruments could define with certainty the essence of   phenomena. It  was the matter of   ‘quantifying’ before ‘measuring’, not least because, especially in medicine, a  measurement is  scarcely a  reliable parameter, insofar there are individual variations. To  obtain a  reliable measurement it was necessary to build a theory in which both individuals, on the one hand, and qualities, on the other, could be quantified. In both cases, Santorio drew from Galenism and Aristotelianism adopting logical principles and instruments which led him to progressively reject the primacy of  the individual-substance.

Substance and Quality in the Methodus vitandorum errorum omnium (1603) With all its implications, this transformation is already at work in the Methodus vitandorum, where Santorio takes a  stand against those physicians who contend the existence of   ‘occult qualities’. 25  On the invention of    the earliest pendulum-regulated devices see now Bigotti and Taylor 2017.

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Fig. 30. Santorio Santori, Methodus vitandorum errorum omnium qui in arte medica contingunt libri XV (Venice 1603). Frontispiece. London, Wellcome Library.

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Revived by Fernel, the debate on ‘occult qualities’ (qualitates occultae) focused on the properties of   compound bodies (corpora mixta) and particular diseases (such as syphilis or morbus Gallicus) whose effects could not be ascribed to the four qualities of   the Aristotelian tradition and were related to other causes, first of   all the action of   the substance as a whole (actio a tota substantia).26 The debate was especially lively in the pharmaco­ lo­gi­cal field, where Galen himself  seemed to have admitted such an action.27 In direct opposition to Fernel and some later authors such as Giovanni Argenterio and Gerolamo Cardano –  the latter openly charged with being credulous  – Santorio rejects the explanation a tota substantia, accepting at the same time the inadequacy of  the Aristotelian pattern. Santorio’s criticism is grounded in two specific theoretical premises, the one diagnostic, the other methodological. For the former, Santorio highlights the necessity for the physician to be able to determine for each case the empirical factors underpinning the correct diagnosis, which is impossible when diseases have an unknown or hidden cause. Furthermore, when a  substance is  separated from its material attributes it becomes unknowable exactly as does the soul, when it does not manifest itself  through corporeal functions.28 And yet, the fundamental principle of   Santorio’s criticism, the methodological one, is even simpler: if  we admit that a  substance may act regardless of   its material attributes, then every effect becomes possible.29   For an introduction to the topic of   occult qualities in Fernel, see Fernel 2005: 3–65, Bianchi 1982 and Hirai 2011: 46–79. On the concept of  actio a tota substantia, see Deer Richardson 2009. 27 Galen, SMTF, K XI, 705,10–16; CMSG, K XIII, 435,14–18. 28  Santorio 1603: fols  155vD–156rA: ‘[…] sic nos non recedentes a  vestigiis Philosophi dicimus, si oculus esset animal totum, potentia visiva esset anima, expendendo scilicet animam, non absolute, sed prout est principium videndi: quaenam vero sit natura animae absolute considerata omnino latet; quia remota consideratione animae cum relatione ad operationes, et quatenus est principium operationum, est omnino nobis occulta, et incognoscibilis.’ Ibid., fol. 160vB: ‘Qui putant occultas potentias esse substantias operantes, sunt quoque faciles ad credendum infinitas alias vanitates: substantia enim cum non subiaceat sensibus nostris, sitque incognoscibilis, posito ab illis, quod operetur, malunt eam vocare opificem occultarum qualitatum, quam fateri, se abditarum rerum principia nescire […].’ 29  Ibid., fol. 160v B–C: ‘[…] qui est ille qui poterit virtutem incognoscibilem coarctare et limitare?’ 26

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Despite these critical remarks, Santorio openly acknowledges that the traditional pattern of   qualities is  inadequate to explain the emergence of   what his contemporaries define as occult qualities. To  confirm this point he makes recourse to some experiments, spanning from pharmaceutical compounds, whose final action depends on the actual quantity of  their ingredients, to the generation of   colours, obtained superposing different glasses, to the transparency of  crystals, that gets lost when they are shattered and cut into small parts, to the distillation of   urine that, through the action of   heat, changes from turbid to perfectly transparent.30 These properties –  Santorio points out – come out not from the quality of  their elements, but from mere juxtaposition (iuxtapositio) of   their parts, called elsewhere by him also corpuscula, particulae minimae, partes and, in one occasion, atomi.31 Therefore, occult qualities are not the unexplainable consequence of   the action resulting from an unknowable cause, but emerge from the multiplication and macroscopic complication of  effects connected to specific quantitative-geometric features of   the elements, such as ‘position’ (situs), ‘figure’ (figura) and ‘number’ (numerus); 32 from these in turn rarity and density arise followed by the more common perceptible qualities. These properties, as primary and irreduci30  Ibid., fols  155rA–156vB. For the distillation of    urine, see fols  158rD– 158vA. 31  Santorio adopts the term particulae minimae, partes and minima [scil. naturalia] more often than atomi, even if  both expressions can be found in his texts; see Santorio 1603: fols 158rD–158rA: ‘[…] exemplum est lotium torpidum, quod ab igne rarefaciente crassas parte et mutante particularum minimarum situ reddi potest splendidum et perspicuum […]’; again fols 158vD–159A: ‘Si vero figurae internae, numeri et positiones multarum particularum ita variatur ut causae ignoretur, dicitur tunc occulta, quae tamen ex Galeni sententia non prodi a substantia, sed a qualitatibus totius substantiae.’ Italics added. On  the same topic also Santorio 1625: coll. 167A–168E, 270E, 559B, 561B, 690E–691A. For the cautious use of   the term atomi, Santorio 1625: col. 762B: ‘Nec mirum est, quod vitreus ex se transparens in oculi profunditate gerat vicem cubiculi umbrosi: quia etiam aër ipse in sua immensitate diminuit transparentiam, vel fiat hoc propter atomos, vel propter alias causas.’ Italics added. Santorio’s relationship with corpuscularism has never been studied. He seems to admit a  divisibility of   matter in minima provided with an extension, but these minima are divided only in the moment when substances undergo an alteration (in fieri), prior and after which moment, that is in their present state (in facto esse) they exist as part of the continuous. 32  Santorio 1603: fols 157rD–157vA, 160vA.

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ble, must be placed before the elemental qualities of  Aristotelian philosophy, precisely for not being reducible to them. Hence, according to Santorio, the difference between occult and manifest does not lie in the sort of  cause producing the phenomenon (i.e.  substantial vs. not substantial), but in the level of   depth we are committed to reach in our explanation of   natural phenomena. Occult qualities are thus determined by the number of   intermediate passages between one level of   organisation of   matter and the other, so the higher the number, the greater will be the degree of   separation between the sensation and the ultimate cause of  the perceived object.

Situs, Figura, Numerus As we shall see later, this reduction from the complex to the simple is  consistent with the seventeenth-century concept of   machina, where the division of   the forces allows the progressive reduction of   the complex machine to the simple one, the lever, from which the final result will be then reconstructed through the opposite procedure of   the superposition, multiplication and complication of   the mechanism.33 In  this sense, Santorio’s concept of   matter hinges on the necessary identification of   first matter with the three-dimensionality of   space (trina dimensio quae est ipsamet materia prima).34 Supporting 33  As for the difference between machina, as a function through which the force is profitably converted into work, and machinatio, as an artificial waste of  it, see Stabile 2005: 324–25. 34 Santorio 1603: fol.  157vC–D: ‘[S]ubstantia igitur quatenus corporea, octo iis differentiis positionis faciet tam varium situm: a situ orietur raritas, et densitas; a raritate et densitate calidum, et frigidum, durum, molle: ab iis tertia species qualitatis, quae est passio, et passibilis qualitas, et quarta, quae est figura: a tertia et quarta specie oriuntur potentiae, ut a primo ad postremum corpus, vel trina dimensio, quae est ipsamet materia, quaeque causare potest omnes differentias positionis estque prima omnium accidentium radix: neque obiciat trinam dimensionem esse accidens; quia cum Philopono sustinebimus corpus, vel trinam dimensionem esse ipsammet materiam primam, quae statim dum terminatur a forma differentias positionis efficit, unde situs, unde raritates, et densitates fiunt, unde calidum, frigidum, humidum, et siccum, unde durum, et molle, passiones, passibiles qualitates, figurae, et demum potentiae, quae ab accidentium serie, per inde ac ab una cathena omnes tam manifestae, quam occultae oriuntur: manifestae fiunt ex paucis alterationibus praecedentibus: occultae ab innumerabilibus pregressis, quae solus Esculapius posset explicare.’

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this assumption, Santorio revises the causal frame lying at the base of   the Aristotelian relation between substance and accident: accidents no longer inhere in substance, nor do they derive from it by emanation, but are connected effects of   a clock-like mechanism (ab accidentium serie, per inde ac ab una cathena). Following the same analytical procedure already adopted to deny the existence of   temperamentum aequale ad pondus as an indivisible and unquantifiable minimum, not subject to examination by the senses, Santorio fragments the ostensible simplicity of   the Aristotelian qualities, decomposing them into their geometrical-mechanical properties: As a  final point, we can bring the most evident of   all the examples, that is  the clockwork moving power (potentia motrix horologii); none in his right senses would argue that the clockwork moving power originates from the temperatness (temperatura), but that it comes from the ‘number’ (numerus), ‘position’ (situs) and ‘conformation’ (figura) of  its gears, circles and springs while, conversely, the impossibility of   moving comes from their being defective; […] if  a human artifex is able to impart many moving virtues by changing the ‘conformation’, ‘position’ and ‘number’ of  the gears, how much more the benevolent Mother Nature, forging the mechanisms and, so to speak, the living springs with greater artifice, will be able to put the moving virtues inside these substances! […]. Nothing then prevents us from saying that, in analogy to a clockwork, the power that puts in motion [the entire mechanism] is  not a  simple substance but a  power that arises from the ‘number’, ‘position’ and ‘conformation’ of   the bodily substance and that in these substances there is  a  first mover (primum mobile) which moves as the spring does […].35 35  Ibid., fol. 160r A–D: ‘Demum afferri potest exemplum omnium evidentissimum, estque potentia motrix horologii: nemo sanae mentis dicet horologii potentiam a temperatura prodire, sed a numero, situ, figura rotarum, orbiculorum, et spirae chalibeae; impotentia vero ab iis vitiatis; […] si humanus artifex varias dat virtutes motrices metallo mutando figuram, situm, et numerum rotarum: quanto facilius alma parens natura, quae rotas, et (ut ita dicam) spiras viventes diviniori artificio efficere potest, potentias motrices in iis collocabit  […] quid prohibet, quin nos quoque horologii similitudine dicamus, potentiam movendi non esse substantiam simplicissimam? Sed potentiam ortam a  numero, situ, et figura corporeae substantiae; et in iis esse primum mobile, quod catetera moveat ad spirae chalibeae similitudinem […].’ See also,

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One of   the medical texts in which the idea of   the world as a machine appears is Galen’s De foetuum formatione, and probably Santorio had it in mind when discussing these arguments; and yet, the application of   this idea to the theory of   matter is different in the two authors: Galen indeed refuses the analogy, deeming it unable to explain the formation of  the foetus.36 Particular attention should be given to the last passage of  the text quoted above, in which the primum mobile is  identified with a spring. Coming in the context of   a discussion about the composition of   mixed bodies, Santorio’s analogy follows the path of   the correspondences between microcosm and macrocosm. It  nevertheless provides a  noteworthy indication of   the great theoretical transition on which it is based: the Aristotelian primum mobile moves the celestial spheres by means of  a local, mechanic motion, not purposely, further evidence of   the fact that the Aristotelian motus ad quem has been transformed into a  motus a  quo. Yet, there is  another significant aspect to be considered in Santorio’s theory. The  idea of   space as the place (ubi) of   a  body, or rather as an essentially anisotropic coordinate, is  abandoned in favour of   a  proto-geometrization according to which the positions (situs) of   Aristotelian physics (internal–external, above–below, before–behind, left–right) are deduced from the action of   the form on a  three-dimensional, if  abstract matter, which is basically isotropic. The mechanism of  the qualities, however, has peculiar applications and limitations. Whereas number, position and form are parameters that, acting on the qualitative make-up of   natural fol.  155r  C–D: ‘[…] quoniam omnia, quae immediatione causae prodeunt a substantia, praedicantur de substantia in primo modo, et sunt in cathegoria substantiae, ut animal rationale praedicatur de homine, et est actus, et non aptitudo: risibile mediate, quia inter hominem et risibile mediat rationale; hinc est, quod aptitudines, et potentiae sunt in accidentium, actus in substantiae praedicamento. Amplius infra cum Aristotele probabimus, potentias, vel aptitudines immediate pendere non a substantia, sed a quarta, et a tertia specie qualitatis, scilicet a figura, a passione; et passibili qualitate, et ratio est, quia posse agere requirit talem figuram, talem situm, et talem numerum, quae conditiones non pertinent ad substantiam; nisi enim in horologio esset talis orbiculorum vel rotarum situs, numerus, et figura, quamvis substantia esset aurea, nihil ad usum magis, quam alia substantia conferret  […] ecce igitur, quod aptitudines non pendent a substantia, sed a numero, situ et figura.’ 36 Galen, FF, K IV, 688.

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bodies, determine their greater or lesser density, this is not a reason for Santorio to declare himself  an atomist. On the contrary, in taking his distance from Democritean atomism, he states that the movements of   his particles follow the law of   a natural ingenium 37 and that sometimes rarity and density might act also as effects rather than as causes of   primary qualities.38 Another important limitation admitted by Santorio concerns the diagnostic value of  rarity and density, which turns out to be scarce or useless insofar as they act on a remote causal level with respect to that from which diseases emerge. As  a result, these two properties are unable to provide an exact indication about the specific nature of  a disease or its therapy. Applications, however, are no less important than limitations. In the tradition of   late Scholastic physics, raritas et densitas determine the body weight, and thus is clear why inanitio and repletio (i.e. emptying and filling the body) are privileged by Santorio in his quantitative account of   the insensible perspiration: the abnormal increase or decrease of body weight depends in fact on the accumulation of perspired matter as due to the occlusion or dilatation of the pores of the skin. Rarity and density are also used by Santorio to explain the functioning of  the thermometer, insofar as the instrument is able to provide a  quantitative indication of   heat by relying on the rarefaction of  the air contained inside the glass tube.39 These brief  outlines are probably enough to shed new light on the medical turn given by Santorio to the late-Renaissance natural philosophy, which – regardless of   Galileo, and rather before him – opens itself  up to the realm of  quantitative experimentation. Equally important for the evaluation of   this impact is the attention devoted by Santorio to the measurable aspects of   vital phenomena (i.e. geometric and quantitative), which he constantly applied to diagnosis and therapy. An example of   this is  his attitude in reducing the causes of   illnesses to morphological and/or kinetic factors. In the fifth book of  the Methodus vitandorum, for example, Santorio denies   Santorio 1603: fol. 160vC: ‘[…] retusum habent ingenium […].’   Ibid., fol. 158vB–C. 39  Santorio 1625: coll. 23A–24A and Bigotti 2018. 37 38

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that the properties of   humors have any influence on the origin of   intermittent fevers, and reduces the cause of   their periodic occurrence (periodicatio) to the arrangement of   organs and their proximity or distance from the heart.40 In the eighth book, after expounding his theory of   qualities, Santorio explains that the action of   poisons does not consist in the cooling of   the body, but in the condensation and immobilisation of   its vital spirits, whose movement produces heat and therefore life.41 This latter example highlights that qualities as heat and cold have actually become secondary qualities, all the more so as the idea that heat is generated by movement and cold by its interruption is repeated several times in Santorio’s texts with regard to the mechanical function of  the heart.42 This reversal of  the classical diagnostic rationale from qualitative to quantitative pinpoints a  noteworthy change of   perspective about the role assigned to the concept of  essence, which Santorio re-reads in a nominalistic key. It is no longer the case of   inquiring into the causes of   phenomena to find their immaterial form (essentia), but of   individuating the whole of   their determining properties (potentiae), so as to allow the physician to establish a symmetrical nexus between the nominal definition of   essence and its empirical references.43 The certainty of   this nexus can be obtained through differential diagnosis, which sustains the whole structure of   the Methodus vitandorum, insofar as it allows the physician to avoid the empirical mistake of   the fallacia consequentis. Analogously, in the study of   the body the challenge is no longer – or not only – to research the function of   an organ, but to establish all of   the factors helping or hindering that function; factors that, for Santorio, are now essentially quantitative. Thus, the Aristotelian hierarchy of  individual substances has been interrupted, and the search for the essence   Santorio 1603: fol. 105rA–D.   Ibid., 159vC–160rA. 42  Ibid., 69vB: ‘[…] quare nulla erit consequentia, cor est fons caloris, ergo partes solidae sunt calidae, quia cor est dissimilare, cuius munus per motum systolis, et dyastolis est gignere spiritum vitalem, neque potuisset gigni calor ob motum, nisi partes continentes fuissent durae, et fibrosae, et per consequens frigidae, quoniam calor, qui a motu pendet, sit ob collisionem corporum durorum.’ 43  Santorio 1612: col. 187B–188C. 40 41

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of   phenomena has been transformed into the study of   compound of   features (accidentes) the number of   which can be determined with certainty and necessity (sufficiens enumeratio). As Descartes was to do later, Santorio promotes an idea of  science founded on certainty rather than on the truth of  fundamental propositions (certae, infallibiles rationes) and gladly associates accidentality and falseness, finding certainty in the convertibility of  true propositions and therefore in the Aristotelian dicto de omni.44 In contrast to Descartes, however, he claims that certainty does not stem from a mental path which ignores empirical trial and attributes substantiality to the nominal definitions of   mathematics (by virtue of   their being conceptually ‘clear’ and ‘simple’), but from the application of   logical-hypothetic procedures. Indeed Santorio calls his statical aphorisms theoremata,45 highlighting the fact that his hypotheses are tested a posteriori with the help of  the instruments he invented.

The Body and the Machine However, the comparison between Santorio and Descartes is useful not only in terms of  philosophy, but also on a broader cultural level, as it shows how late Renaissance European medicine considers and revises some key Galenic assumptions. Among them, the concept of  organism is paramount: it begins to be not only measured by, but also made equivalent to a machine, or more precisely to a clock. For Santorio this metaphor has a  double meaning. At a microscopic level, as seen above, it is used to explain the origin of   qualities that allegedly are a tota substantia, but conversely 44 Santorio 1603: 84rA–B: ‘[…] quia si effectus non semper est in sua causa, sed aliquando tantum, causa illa non praedicabitur de illo effectu de omni de ratione cuius predicationis duae requiruntur conditiones, altera est alternitas, altera vero, quod ille effectus sit in omnibus individuis illius speciei, veluti (ut exemplis notissimis illustremus) si homo esset prior risibilitate horae momento, sequeretur quod homo non esset risibilis, quia haec propositio, quae dicit, hominem esse risibilem, non esset semper vera, et ratio est, quia non esset de omni, illud enim quod non est semper non est de omni, et quod non est de omni, non est per se, et quod non est per se est accidentale, et quod est accidentale, ut sustinet Averroes, est falsum […].’ Italics added. 45  Santorio 1612: Pars III, col. 71C–D.

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derive from the mere action of  accidents. In Santorio’s interpretation of  the metaphor, the vertical Aristotelian model for which accidents exist because of   the substance and are hierarchically referred to it, is replaced with a horizontal model whereby the relation of   priority between subsets of   properties is no longer ontological, but logical. From the simpler to the more complex level, each stage in the organisation of   matter does no longer require the intervention of   a  form supervising it; everything derives from the material arrangement of   simple qualities. This assumption is  based, in turn, on two fundamental tenets of   late Renaissance Galenism, which we should now revisit: on the one hand, the idea that the soul, as an immaterial essence, is  not perceivable by the senses and is  therefore unknowable; on the other hand, the concept that everything that is material and perceptible is  so because of   a  certain degree of   intensity. From this standpoint, the relation between essentia and gradum stands in comparison with the dialectic between mens and ingenium; as ingenia represent the individual and corporeal multiplication, by way of  opposition, of  the single universal mens, so degrees represent the materialisation and multiplication of   the single immaterial essence. And so it is that the same metaphor adopted by Santorio to explain the origin of  qualities, the clockwork, is soon retransferred to its original seat, the body. The clock incarnates the idea that the body is the result not only of  the function of  its organs, but above all of  the harmonic arrangement of  its structures: The living body can be adequately compared to a  clock and to a zither: to a clock, because even if  the spring (spira chalybea) and the gear wheels are correctly arranged, it suffices that a  single tooth of   any wheel is  broken for which all the operations of    the clock are interrupted; analogously, if  only one of  the animal’s natural or vital functions is interrupted, all of   them are hindered or greatly affected. The living body is also compared to a zither, because if  only one of  the many strings is stretched more or less than necessary, the whole harmony is destroyed.46 46  Santorio 1625: col. 91D: ‘Merito corpus vivens assimilatur horologio, et testudini instrumento musicali: horologio, quia licet spira chalybea, et rotae sint

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The meaning of   this similitude is  to avoid the arrangement of   bodily functions into an organic hierarchy, so the fact that is adopted to articulate the Galenic tripartition of  the soul is not fortuitous. Indeed, it aims to explain why, even if  it is simultaneous with the systole and diastole of   the arteries, the movement of   the brain does not derive from the action of   the heart, but is the result of  a mechanic motion of  different parts: Hence, it is  safer to state that the movement of   the brain originates from its own substance, following of   the necessity the brain has to purify the excrements in the generation of   animal spirits, than to state that that movement comes about from the arteries. […]  In the generation of   the spirits many moving parts concur, like in a  clock in which all parts move simultaneously: the first wheel or spira chalybea is  the heart, from whose motion the vital spirit is  generated: at the same time the movement of   the vital spirit toward the brain generates the movement of   its anterior part, that is the second wheel, because the generation of   animal spirits is the task of   the anterior ventricles. The third wheel is represented by the entering of  the inhaled air to generate the spirits – which certainly do not enter through the arteries but through the mammillary tubercles (tubercula mammarum), similar to nipples, that are the smelling organs. This is how and why all the parts move at the same time.47

recte dispositae, tamen si unicus alicuius rotulae dens deficiat, omnes horologii operationes deficiunt: similiter unica operatione animali, aut vitali vel naturali ablata, omnes operationes vel cadunt, vel maxime patiuntur. Comparatur similiter corpus vivens testudini, in qua, si unica ex multis cordis tensior, vel laxior evadat tota perit harmonia.’ 47  Santorio 1612: Pars  II, col.  267A–D: ‘[…] ideo tutius est, ut dicamus motum cerebri prodire a propria eius substantia ob necessitatem, quam habet in generatione spirituum animalium, eventandi et expurgandi excrementa, quam quod ille motus ab arteriis fiat. […] Ad generationem spirituum animalium concurrunt multa mobilia, perinde ac in horologio, in quo eodem tempore omnia moventur: prima rota seu spira chalybea est cor, ex cuius motu generatur spiritus vitalis: ex motus spiritus vitalis ad cerebrum eodem tempore pars anterior, quae est secunda rota movetur, quia generatio spirituum animalium pertinet ad ventriculos partis anterioris. Tertia rota est ingressus aeris inspirati pro generatione spirituum: quippe qui non ingreditur per arterias, sed per tubercula mammarum papillis simillima, quae sunt organa odoratus: ecce quomodo, et qua de causa omnia moveantur eodem tempore […].’

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As a Galenist, Santorio considers the debate on the essence of  the soul as a metaphysical speculation devoid of   any empirical significance, a  philosophical stance which makes sense of   his substituting the idea of   organism by an interaction of   moving parts. It also justifies the often repeated claim that Santorio could be recognized as the initiator of   the seventeenth-century iatromechanism: his writings do provide solid grounds and valuable insights in that direction. Unlike many seventeenthcentury iatromechanicists, however, Santorio is  all too aware that the interaction of   the mechanic-geometric model and the organic one comes with great epistemological limitations, as it reduces the whole complexity of   the diagnostic rationale to only two sorts of   causes, that are ‘constriction’ and ‘laxity’ (strictus et laxus). He  denounces this hazard outspokenly by defining as ‘truly idiotic’ (stupidissimi) those who pursue this line of  enquiry.48 The risk of  replacing the diagnostic inspection of  the patient with a useless, conceited and aprioristic approach, which makes medicine nearer to physics but also reduces it to a  book-based science should be enough to discourage any physician to indulge in such a  tendency. Thus, Santorio’s aim was not the substitution of   the body with the machine, but the promotion of   the interaction between these two models, so that, wherever possible –  Santorio writes aliquando et aliqua ex  parte 49  –, the comparison suggested solution to problems that did not have a clear one, because they were built on false, too general or vague premises. On the other hand, this implied the acknowledgement that Galen’s therapeutic rationale was not without flaws and needed improvement and revision, a precondition from which Santorio’s interest in the construction of  new medical instruments also arose.

Sources and Problems in Descartes’ Medicine Given these premises and considering the appli­ca­tion of  a bodymachine model, a comparison with René Descartes (1596–1650) 48  Santorio 1629: De remediorum inventione, 2 drawing from Galen, MM, K X, 206,6–8. 49  Santorio 1625: col. 21C.

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is historically una­voida­ble. Here we will not deal with Descartes’ medi­ci­ne as a whole, because this task would involve an analysis of   his philo­so­phy that is  not possi­ble in these pages; we shall only dwell upon some aspects of   the relation between animal heat, sensation and passions, which can be fruitfully compared with the problems detailed in this book and that were seemingly developed by Descartes some time through the 1630s. One of   the main issues in writing about Descartes’ medicine concerns its sources, because, except for some very scarce and peculiar examples, we do not know which medical works Descartes read, although it is clear that he had some knowledge of   the classics.50 Usually unsympathetic toward Galen and all the authors whom he drew from, Descartes is  not willing to acknowledge any intellectual debt. Thus, his relation to Galenism should be contextualised within a more general interest in medicine. Such an interest had an early onset and was far from being marginal, eventually leading Descartes to the perilous statement that, had he committed a  single error in describing the movement of   the heart or in the dioptrics, then the entire methodological structure of   his philosophy would have proved to be groundless.51 Unfortunate as it might have been, this state-

50  Descartes quotes Vesalius and other authors, but often without mentioning their works. Among the authors whose works he was familiar with, we can certainly list the De formatu foetu (1600) by Girolamo Fabrici da Acquapendente, and the De lactibus sive de lacteis veneis (1627) by Gaspare Aselli (1581–1625), see Descartes, AT XI, 591–592, 267. Drawing on an assumption in L’Homme about the existence of   two ducts for the intrauterine respiration of  the foetus, we can infer as probable Descartes’ reading of  the De humano foeto by Giulio Cesare Aranzi (1530–1589), especially the first version (1564: 72–79), because in the second (1571) Aranzi will correct an observation Descartes used to support his studies; see AT XI, 124, 8–19. As far as the late Renaissance naturalism is  concerned, Descartes knew also Telesio’s and Campanella’s theses, see Descartes, Descartes to Beckam, 16 October, 1636, AT I, 156, 158. On the problem of   Descartes’ medical sources see Aucant 2006: 52–58 and BitbolHespériès 1990: 31–47, presenting a  good overall picture, even though the conclusions these scholars draw about the originality of   Descartes’ medicine are too bold to carry conviction. 51 Descartes, Descartes to Mersenne (9 February, 1639), AT II, 501: ‘Cependant je veux bien qu’on pense que, si ce que j’ay escrit de cela [he is referring to his explanation of  the movement of  the heart], ou des refractions, ou de quelque autre matière que j’aye traitée en plus de 3 lignes dans ce que j’ay fait imprimer, se trouve faux, tout le reste de ma Philosophie ne vaut rien.’

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ment highlights the fact that Descartes was not seeking to make any original contributions to medicine – that in fact he did not give – but that he turned to this discipline to gain a series of  confirmations of  his a priori method, as elaborated in the Regulae ad directionem ingenii (1628, Latin edition 1701) and, most of   all, in the Discourse de la Méthode (Leiden 1637). The author himself  emphasises this aspect, confirming that he admitted in his system only the notions most commonly held among the physicians of  his time.52 Hence, as was the case for Telesio, Descartes limits his efforts to an interpretation of   some key medical doctrines: his main contribution rests in the synthesis of   early seventeenth-century medical instances and issues, from the mechanism of   heat to the opposition between mind and body, which are then set in opposition to the traditional medical and philosophical knowledge. Experiment and quantification are absent in Descartes’ medicine – which is quite baffling for such a  skilled mathematician  – thus making any attempt to compare his findings with those of   Santorio or Harvey historically groundless.53 Although terms such as experien­tia and ex­peri­ men­tum occur many times in Descartes’ writings, we should refrain from ascribing to him any awareness of   the experiment as repeated and controlled experimentation made according to hypotheses that can be revised on the grounds of   the empirical findings. This meaning is  necessarily alien to him, since, where mathematics dictates a  priori conditions to experience and this latter acts only as a  slavish confirmation of   theory, the experiment itself  can only be regarded as a  useless frill. 52 Descartes, Descartes to Mersenne, June 1637, AT I, 837: ‘Je n’ai supposé aucune chose de l’anatomie, qui soit aucunement en controverse entre ceux qui en écrivent.’ 53  On Descartes’ biology, the judgment given more than sixty years ago by Jean Rostand is still compelling, see Rostand 1950: 17: ‘S’il est relativement facile d’assigner à Descartes le rang qui lui revient en mathématique et en physique, il n’en va pas de même pour la biologie, car son œuvre, en ce domaine, est si mêlée, si inégale, si emplie d’assertions gratuites et d’hypothèses fantaisistes, que, pour tâcher de l’estimer à sa juste valeur, il convient de faire le départ entre les résultats obtenus et l’inspiration qui a présidé à leur recherche, entre le contenu brut de l’œuvre et l’esprit qui l’anime […]. On n’y trouve aucune découverte positive de quelque importance. La seule observation valable, peutêtre, qu’on doive à Descartes en physiologie, nous la rencontrons dans sa Dioptrique; elle concerne la formation des images sur la rétine.’

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It  is  therefore replaced by observation, as a  repeated practice, however deprived of   any theoretical implication. This can be clearly noticed in the epistolary exchange about the mechanism of  the heart that Descartes exchanged with the Dutch physician Vopiscus Fortunatus Plempius (1601–71).

Experiment or Observation? Descartes on the Movement of  the Heart and the Arteries It is  well known that, as early as the fifth part of   his Discours de la méthode, Descartes maintains that the movement of   the heart is  a  consequence of   the heat produced by the fermentation of   the blood.54 This thesis is  consistent with Descartes’ general idea of   the body-mechanism: a  chemical-hydraulical machine govern­ed by heat (feu sans lumiere), which acts as a  cause of   the movement of   the particles of   the blood. As  we have seen in Chapter  4, this mechanism follows the classical model of   the generation of   the organs, with its polarities cold– hot along the line of   the ascending aorta, and it was accepted as valid by Descartes since his juvenile fragments on anatomy (Figs. 31–32).55 Being similar, as Plempius notices, to Aristo­tle’s conception in the De respira­tio­ne,56 Descartes’ hypothesis envisages as a  corollary that every contraction of   the heart keeps in it a  small drop of   blood able to restart the process of   dilatation of  the tunics. Plempius, who affirmed with Harvey the presence of  a pulsating faculty in the heart (vis pulsatilis), opposes to this hypothesis an observation drawn from vivisection; dividing into small parts the muscles of   a  freshly extracted heart, they keep pulsating even though there is no blood in any of   them.57 Descartes retorts that he had repeated the same experiment many times, especially in fishes, but had always noticed that  Descartes, AT VI, 45–50.  Descartes, AT XI, 566. 56  Aristotle, ISVMR, 479b,30–180a,15. 57 Descartes, AT I, 497: ‘Cor e corpore exemptum pulsat adhuc aliquandiu; imo eo in partes minutas dissecto, singulae particule diu tute pulsant, atque ibi nullus fanguis influit vel effluit.’ 54 55

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Figs. 31–32. René Descartes, Anatomica quaedam ex manuscripto Cartesii (MS LH IV, 1, 04B, fol. 5r = AT XL, 566). Diagram illustrating the formation of  the heart: a) vena cava, bcd) mole cordis, e) pectus. Hannover, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek.

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a  small quantity of   blood continued flowing from the higher to the lower parts of   the heart.58 The debate goes on at length and in a rather barren way, with a series of   hypotheses ad hoc requested especially by Descartes to save a  theory that had no anatomical verification and that could be easily refuted by immersing the freshly extracted heart in lukewarm water, in order to disperse the possible remaining blood and avoid thermic shock.59 Very clearly, what Descartes defines as ‘repeated experience’ does not constitute an experiment at all: the theory is  never challenged and the empirical approach does not imply manipulation, except in very rare situations that all relate to the traditional practice of   the ligature of   arteries and veins. Another striking example concerns an experiment proposed by Galen in the An in arteriis sanguis contineatur to ascertain the cause of  the pulse. The experiment, an actual experimentum crucis at least in its general architecture, consists in cutting longitudinally a big artery to introduce in it a small, thin and resistant canula, able to impede the external blood spill. If   the pulse comes from the heart and is transmitted by the blood flow, it will also continue after the section of  the artery; its interruption, on the contrary, would show that the pulse is transmitted through the tunics.60 Galen maintains that he had noticed the interruption of  the movement and deduces that the pulse is transmitted by the arteries simultaneously with the movement of  the heart, not because of  it. The relevant technical difficulties and the risk of   formation of  blood clots certainly discouraged both Harvey and Descartes from replicating this experiment. In contrast to Harvey, however, Descartes’ attitude reveals a  totally aprioristic approach. Descartes believes himself  able to deduce from the law of   his mechanics that the inserting of  the canula in the artery will stop the movement of   the artery. But this claim was never verified: if  correctly performed, in fact, the experiment would have probably led Descartes to contradict Galen’s results.  Descartes, AT XI, 123, 228, 333.  Descartes, AT I, 521–34; AT II, 52–54, 62–69. 60 Galen, ASC, K IV, 733–34. 58 59

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On the few occasions when we are presented with some sort of   experimentation – in works such as La description du corps humaine, Primae cogitationes circa generatione animalium or Excerpta anatomica – ‘experiment’ means for Descartes, first of  all, ‘anatomical observation’ whose datum is then transferred into a theoretical context and conveniently reinterpreted. In this regard, Cartesian mechanicism is substantiated not with experimental trials but with assumptions, and the machine becomes a  dummy composed of   disconnected parts, whose movement is  then recreated according to the law of   mechanics; a  model to display, rather than to manipulate. Descartes himself  seems to be aware of   the main features of   his analysis when, debating with Harvey, he maintains the primacy of   the ‘ordinary judgment of   the sight’.61 However, it is precisely this idea, in which the body loses its natural movement and acquires a mechanical one, that reveals one of   the fundamental reasons for Descartes’ interest in medicine: the fact that organic nature obstinately disobeys the laws of   mechanics. One of   the moments in which this preoccupation is more clearly perceived is the well-known problem of  the soul of  brutes.

Unsettling Similarities Descartes concedes that animals have a  body whose motions generate reactions that are akin to humans’ passions and so induce in us the belief  of   their similarity to mental states.62 From this similarity a dangerous prejudice arises: the assimilation of   the soul to a natural element because of   the underlying continuity between man and animal. It is exactly this prejudice Descartes is committed to eradicate in his ‘method’: I dwelt a little at this point on the subject of  the soul, because it is of  the greatest importance. For, after the error of  those who deny the existence of   God, which I  believe I  have adequately refuted above, there is none which causes weak minds to stray more readily from the narrow path of  virtue than that of   imagining that the souls of   animals are of   the same nature as our own, and that, as a consequence, we have  Descartes, AT XI, 241.  Descartes, AT XI, 341–42.

61 62

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nothing more to fear or to hope for after this present life, any more than flies and ants. But when we know how different flies and ants are, we can understand much better the arguments which prove that our soul is of  a nature entirely independent of   the body, and that, as a  consequence, it is not subject to death as the body is. And given that we cannot see any other causes which may destroy the soul, we are naturally led to conclude that it is immortal.63

The concern expressed in these lines is  apparent, and can be found as such in the epistolary exchange with Plempius. However broad it might seem, this concern has a  specific historical reference to the re-reading of   Galen’s works on nature by Huarte and the Italian naturalists, and, as seen in Chapter  2, it was shared by others, like the French physician Nicholas de Nancel, who had held Galen accountable for the diffusion of  libertinism and atheism among young physicians. Reading the bold statements of  the Dutchman Florent Schuyl (1619–69), in his Latin edition of  L’Homme (1662), this concern was apparently at some point overcome: It is certain that, in posing this sound foundation of   piety – or to say better of   all virtues – aimed at destroying atheism once and for all, [Descartes] wanted to destroy also that dire opinion which, proclaiming a too strong affinity with animals, profanes the incorporeal mind thanks to which man is said being made in the image of   God, and aims at changing men into beasts and beasts into men with a sort of  abominable metamorphosis and metempsychosis.64 63 Descartes, AT VI, 59, 18–60, 3: ‘Au reste, Je me suis icy un peu estendu sur le sujet de l’ame, a cause qu’il est des plus importants; car, aprés l’erreur de ceus qui nient Dieu, laquelle Je pense avoir cy dessus assez refutée, il n’y en point qui esloigne plutost les esprits foibles du droit chemin de la vertu, que d’imaginer que l’ame des bestes soit de mesme nature que la nostre, et que, par consequent, nous n’avons rien a craindre, ny a esperer, aprés cete vie, non plus que les mousches et les furmis; au lieu que, lorqu’on sçait combien elles different, on comprent becaup mieux les raisons, qui prouvent que la nostre est d’une nature entierement independente du cors, et par consequent, qu’elle n’est point suiette a mourir avec luy; puis, d’autant qu’on ne voit point d’autres qui la destruisent on est naturellement porté a iuger de là qu’elle est immortelle.’ English translation by Ian Maclean, MacLean 2006: 48–49. 64  Descartes 1662: Ad lectorem: ‘[V]erum enim vero, iacto hoc solidissimo pietatis, id est, omnium virtutum fundamento, ut atheismus funditus dirueret,

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However, a closer look at this passage lays bare a series of inconsistencies. Schuyl quotes Aristotle in Historia animalium as one of  the defenders of  the anthropological continuity between man and animal, while in the text of   L’Homme and in the first part of  Les passions de l’âme Descartes establishes a direct correlation between animal soul and heat that was never accepted by Aristotle and was actually denied by him. According to Aristotle, heat is the instrument and efficient cause of   the body temperament, not of   the soul; and, in any case, is a quality rather than a  substance.65 Schuyl’s reading somewhat overestimates the contrast between Cartesians and Aristotelians with regard to the human–animal continuity, a  topic which, while present, does not seem to be the core question in this case. On the other hand, a more subtle and co-operative conceptual relation appears very clearly if  we compare Descartes’ position with that of   Nancel with regard to the same concern. In Nancel’s De immortalitate animae the soul-form, or rather the mens, is necessarily entailed in any phase of  the constitution of   the body, because the idea that bodily functions are autonomously coordinated by blind agents like the various temperaments and faculties of   the human body, not only renders the organism into a useless aggregate of  parts, but also makes it unfit to host a mens. By accepting this very assumption – i.e. that the body does not need a mens to operate – Descartes accepts the late-scholastic idea of  the motus a quo as opposed to the motus ad quem, and follows the path of   the tradition promoting  it; a tradition that was not only naturalistic, but – as Plempius and Descartes perceived it – also atheist, or at least not Christian.

profligare voluit teterrimam illam opinionem, quae incorpoream atque incorruptibilem mentem, cuius ratione homo speciali praerogativa dicitur imago Dei, nimia brutorum affinitate profanando, hominum in bruta, brutaque in homines, nefanda quadam metamorphosi et metempsychosi commutare satigit. […Q]ua profecto haeresis, omnes prorsus pietatis nervos incidens, tanto exactius refellenda, quanto proclivior in illam lapsus. Imprudentibus enim facile contingit, quod tenellae aetati, quae tremulis puppis vitam tribuit, quia membra, suis utcumque similia, simili motu concitari observans, putat motum illum, fallax vitae indicium, ab anima pariter ac in hominibus determinari.’ 65 Aristotle, ISVMR, 469b,1–470b,5; 474a,25; 479a,30–479b,5.

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Descartes and Naturalism: A Project in Common The ideal continuity between the Cartesian project and the one put forward by the authors of   Renaissance naturalism that we dealt with hitherto is far from accidental: Descartes shared with them not only a psychological manifesto, but also a conception of   the body included in a more general vision of   matter and cosmos. From this vision only the mens is  set apart, because it transcends in nature, ends, and method the application of   the principles of   physics.66 Denying to animals the consciousness of  sensory stimului, Descartes contends that heat can account for every aspect of   physiology. We shall see later how this removal of  consciousness in animals is replaced – as it was in Galenic naturalism – by a form of   self-preservation and innate knowledge. The continuity with the naturalistic tradition is  therefore no less important than the anthropological break Descartes enacts. In order to understand how deeply Descartes was drawing on the medical-philosophical debate of   the late Renaissance, it is  worthwhile to reconsider the very first sentence of   the Discours de la méthode, which aims at contrasting the identification between mens and ingenium through the recovery of   the universal notion of   ‘good sense’ (bon sense). This notion is regarded by Descartes as a stable prerequisite for any judgment; a  prerequisite out of   which opinions arise as different applications of   the same criterium.67 In this very approach we can witness a Descartes who keeps the distance from his early attempts to rectify the ingenium by means of   Regulae (1626– 1628) or to obtain truth par le lumière naturale (1630–31). In the same years, the discussion around the post-Vesalian anatomy, its consequences and implicantions for natural as well as for moral philosophy, was brought to his attention through his correspondence with Marin Mersenne (1588–1648) and Isaac Beeckman (1588–1637) who were indeed attentive readers of  the Italian medical writings. From this literature Descartes

66  On the continuity between Descartes, Telesio and Renaissance naturalism, see Hatfield 1992. 67 Descartes, AT VI, 1–2.

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inherited the idea of   a  clear-cut distinction between soul and body; whereas the soul that the man has in common with animals performs its functions according to natural laws, the human mind is independent of  them, and can, therefore, direct itself  to higher ends. As for the Galenists, so also for Descartes: heat is able to produce in animals sensations and actions, with the difference that such phenomena are unconscious in the animal. In this sense, it is clear that the naturalistic tradition offers a  more credible historical background to Descartes’ accounts of   animal mechanism than the Scholastic-Aristotelian one. This above all because in Scholastic philosophy the soul as a τέλος supervises every aspect of  animal organisation, and there are innumerable intermediate degrees of   adaptation between the νοῦς and the σῶμα.68 However, this attempt to read Cartesian mechanicism inside the coordinates of   the late Renaissance naturalism may raise some objections. Indeed, whereas heat operates in the Renaissance naturalists as a quality, in Descartes the description is completely machine-driven. It  is  easy to respond to this objection by considering that the difference between the mechanicist and the organicist conception of   the body lies in the causal model; in the first case, complex motions are a composition of   simple ones and are theoretically reducible to them; in the second, each movement, even if  generated by one or more simple motions, presents in comparison features of   unicity and irreductibility. In other words, the difference is the one between movement and process, where the second implies an aim or, at least, a direction for its realisation. As we have seen, the first model is precisely the model of  the Renaissance naturalists, where even the voluntary action of  muscles is reduced – for example in Rudio’s Liber de anima 69 – to an epiphenomenon of  the blood flow, of  spirits and, finally, of  innate heat. Moreover, it is useful to bear in mind that the conversion of   the Aristotelian substance into a corporeal body can no longer be designated as qualitative, especially if  this term is understood in its original Aristotelian sense, according to which qualities are accidents of  the substance.   Cf. Gilson 1925: 89, 209, 271, 416, 430.   See Chapter 4, n. 85.

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Adopting the naturalistic model, Descartes operates a decisive anthropological break, overturning the meaning of   the man–animal continuity, not least because the cogito provides him with a strong proof  – yet far from definitive – against the theses of  atheists and libertines: From this sentence – wrote Descartes to Plempius on October 3rd, 1637 – it follows that there is so great a difference between the souls of  animals and ours, that no better argument has been found, to my knowledge, to contradict atheists, and to persuade that human minds cannot be drawn out from the potentiality of  matter.70

Animal is no longer analogous to human, because between the one and the other there are differences of   essence, not merely of   degree. If   for both animals and men the body is an automaton, the presence or absence of  the rational soul distinguishes the destiny of  men from the transient one of  animals. Beneath this reassuring metaphysical guarantee, however, unsolved ambiguities are concealed: the animal, in contrast to the automaton, aims at self-preservation and the passions of   its soul (or better, the effects of   heat that we read prejudicially as passions) are directed to this aim; an aim that the automaton could not and should not have. Overall, Descartes is betrayed by his recourse to the uncontroversial notions of   his time: the continuum animal–man is grounded in the anatomical-physiological criterion of   ‘compatibility’, for which organs of   different position and form are compatible when they perform the same function. The criterion of   compatibility cannot be used by Descartes, because the distinction between man and animal is in essence, not degree, so he uses the concept of   ‘resemblance’ (rassemblement) but this turns out to be misleading, because form and position are not crucial criteria in comparative physiology. Important methodological consequences come out of   this methodological error: in 70 Descartes, AT I, 414: ‘Ex qua sententia sequitur tantam esse differentiam inter animas brutorum et nostras, ut nullum, quod sciam, validius argumentum fuerit hactenus ab ullo excogitatum ad contradicendum atheis, et persuadendum mentes humanas ex materiae potentia non educi.’

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Descartes’ physiology, anatomically ‘compatible’ structures perform different functions. This is the case with the pineal gland, present both in animals and humans, but acting in the former as a mere Cardan joint, while in the latter as a medium between the rational soul and the body. If   the function of   the pineal gland were to allow the communication between the rational soul and the body, animals – void of  mens – would be provided with a useless organ. Conversely, if  the function of   the pineal gland is  acting only as a  passive Cardan joint, that is  transmitting stimuli without decoding them, it is therefore useless in supplying the addition of  a rational soul to man. It is also noteworthy that sensation in animals is expressed ambiguously according to Descartes: he contends that animals perceive ‘like us’ (comme nous) when we are absent-minded, which suggests that animals have no sense perception, despite having all the instruments for it. It is clear that the criterion of   rassemblance simply conceals a fundamental inability to handle the relation between humans and animals. But the implications are above all epistemological: if  the body is not an instrument of   the soul anymore, the morphological complexity of   animals has neither significance nor utility, and there is not any relevant difference between higher and lower organisms, between insects and mammals: complexity has no place in Descartes’s system of   nature. As  a matter of   fact, the concept of   scala naturae is nowhere to be found in his works, where all animals were to represent similar replicas of  a sole ideal automaton.

Vestiges of  Animality Dispelled from the natural world, however, complexity resurfaces in Descartes’ dissertation about the passions of   the soul. In  order to eradicate the old prejudice attributing to animals passions and sentiments similar to ours, Descartes wonders: what judgment would be given on this matter by a  man who had been nourished all his life long in a  place where he had not seen any other animals than men, and, having committed himself  to the study of   mechanics, would have built or helped to build many automata, some with the

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features of   a man, other of   a horse, a dog, a bird etc. […]. Now it is doubtless that this man, seeing animals which live among us, and noticing in their action the same two things that make them different from ours, and getting the habit of   noticing them in his automata, would judge that there is in animals neither real sentiment nor real passion, like in us (comme en nous), but only that these automata, having been composed by nature, were therefore much more perfect than the ones he had composed himself  before.71

Besides the striking similarity between Descartes’ last sentence and Santorio’s account twenty years earlier, it is  all too easy to see in this description Descartes himself, for whom the laws of   mechanics necessarily regulated the movement and the actions of   the body. This fable du corps – which is the reduced and simplified version of  the fable du monde – justifies the Cartesian treatment of  the passions of  the soul en physicien, showing once again that the boundary between animals and humans must be traced with decision, precisely because it is weak: the motions of   the body which animals have in common with us are something unsettling and ambiguous. This is  the reason why – save for some specific passages of   the third and last section of  Les passions de l’âme (1649) – the dissertation on the passions of   the soul is  not and cannot be a  moral treatise: it does not teach and cannot predict how to educate our sentiments but explains, if  anything, how the motions of  the body-machine are connected to the self-aware passions of   the rational soul. As a consequence of  this, the dissertation has not even a psychologi71 Descartes, Descartes to ***, AT II, 39–41 ‘[…Et pour sçavoir ce que l’on doit croire de celle-cy, on doit, ce me semble, considerer] quel iugement en feroit un homme, qui auroit esté nourry toute sa vie en quelque lieu où il n’auroit iamais veu aucuns autres animaux que des hommes, et où, s’estant fort adonné à  l’estude des Mechaniques, il auroit fabriqué ou aidé à fabriquer plusieurs automates, dont les uns auoient la figure d’un homme, les autres d’un cheual, les autres d’un chien, les autres d’un oyseau, etc. […] Or il n’y a point de doute que cét homme, voyant les animaux qui sont parmy nous, et remarquant en leurs actions les deux mesmes choses qui les rendent différentes des nostres, qu’il auroit accoustumé de remarquer dans ses automates, ne iugeroit pas qu’il y eust en eux aucun vray sentiment, ny aucune vraye passion, comme en nous, mais seulement que ce seroient des automates, qui, estant composez par la nature, seroient incomparablement plus accomplis qu’aucun de ceux qu’il auroit fait luy-mesme auparauant.’ Italics added.

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cal interest. To be sure, according to Descartes an individual can take advantage of   passions for positive aims, but passions are not sources of   a better knowledge of   ourselves or of   the world, they are only instruments with which nature facilitates the preservation of  the body; the same preservation which, once denied to the animal, resurfaces now in humans. A little known side of   the ambiguous connection between human and animal passions, which we have hinted at earlier, is the fact that, according to Descartes, passions are not always rational judgments, or not all are associated with a  conscious attention by the human subject: there is  a  sort of   sensation acting without the intervention of   the consciousness and that comes from an innate knowledge, typical of  animals. This argument is  again indebted to the Galenic tradition and emphasises the direct connection between the naturalists’ project and L’Homme, even regardless of   any direct readings: Descartes evokes it above all to deny the existence of  true passions in animals. Responding to the criticisms of  these central issues, Descartes expands on this point in a letter to William Cavendish (1592– 1676), Marquis of  Newcastle: It often happens that we walk and eat without thinking in any way to what we do; and it is without making use of  reason that we reject noxious things, and we block the blows struck to us, so that, even if  we wanted not to put our hands on the head when we fall, we could not avoid it. I  think we would eat as beasts, and ‘not by learning’ (sans l’avoir appris), if  we did not think about it […].72

Not by learning is  an interesting theoretical borrowing, above all for the absence of   the substantive expressing this innate  Descartes, Descartes to the Marquis of   Newcastle, 23  November, 1646, AT IV, 573: ‘[…] car il arrive souvent que nous marchons et que nous mangeons, sans penser en aucune façon à ce que nous faisons; et c’est tellement sans user de nostre raison que nous repoussons les choses qui nous nuisent, et parons les coups que l’on nous porte, qu’encore que nous voulussions expressement ne point mettre nos mains devant nostre teste, lors qu’il arrive que nous tombons, nous ne pourrions nous en empescher. Je croy aussi que nous mangerions comme les bestes, sans l’avoir appris, si nous n’avions aucune pensée […].’ Italics added. 72

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knowledge, i.e., ingenium. Descartes prefers speaking of   a natural impulse (une certaine impulsion de la nature) and will write to Mersenne that lures of   it must be avoided at all cost.73 The reference to the Hippocratic-Galenic theme is  therefore removed, but the suppression of   ingenium implies, in this case, the inability to give a cause for a phenomenon such as the instinct of   preservation of   life, which is  the same in animals and humans, a  trait d’union quite embarrassing to Descartes, who tries to exorcise it once more, by recourse to the criterion of  similarity: […] I don’t think that animals see like us, as we feel to see; but like us when the mind is distracted elsewhere: even if  the images of  the external objects depict themselves to the retinae of   our eyes and perhaps also the impressions of   them, left on optical nerves, determine our limbs to several movements, we do not feel anything from them. In  this case we move not differently from automata, and nobody will say that the force of   heat is  not enough to excite their movements.74

Thus, there is a sense perception that is not a sense perception, in that it is  unconscious and it is  good to reduce it to movement and heat, because it would be better identified with what today we call a reflex. Given these premises, why to speak of  an animal perception at all? Would it not have been wiser to eliminate every reference to this ‘wisdom of  the body’ that traverses, 73 Descartes, Descartes to Mersenne, 6 October, 1639, AT II, 599: ‘Il veut qu’on suive surtout l’instinc naturel, du quel il tire toutes ses notions communes; pour moy, Je distingue deux sortes d’instincs: l’un est en nous en tant qu’hommes et est purement intellectuel; c’est la lumière naturelle ou intuitus mentis auquel seul ie tiens qu’on se doit fier; l’autre est en nous en tant qu’animaux, et est une certaine impulsion de la nature a  la conservation de nostre cors, a la iouissance des voluptez corporelles etc., lequel ne doit pas tousiours estre suivi.’ 74 Descartes, Descartes to Plempius, 3 October, 1637, AT I, 413–14: ‘[… in tota illa parte usque ad pag. 60 satis expresse ostendam] me non putare bruta videre sicut nos, dum sentimus nos videre; sed tantummodo sicut nos, dum mente alio avocata, licet obiectorum externorum imagines in retinis oculorum nostrorum pingantur, et forte etiam illarum impressiones in nervis opticis factae ad diversos motus membra nostra determinent, nihil tamen prorsus eorum sentimus; quo casu etiam nos non aliter movemur, quam automata, ad quorum motus ciendos nemo dixerit vim caloris non sufficere.’ Italics added.

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like a thread, the reflection of  the libertinage érudit until Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655) and later? 75 Not by learning, but above all without being aware of   it, Descartes acknowledged his debts to the medical tradition, inheriting its fundamental vision even when it contradicted his philosophical instances. For all their differences, animals and humans share much more than the French philosopher is willing to admit: indeed, in humans, passions act not only as an instrument, but also as a limit on reasoning and against the subject’s own will; a  will that – honoring the thesis of   the Quod animi mores and in spite of  every most grounded metaphysical certainty – has been definitively forced, limited, and subjugated to the destiny of  the body.

  Pierre Gassendi devoted much attention to medicine, and to Galen in particular on several occasions. If   Galen represents one of   the main sources for Gassendi’s Vita Epicuri (Den Haag, 1656) it is  about about two fundamental questions of   Galen’s physiological thesis that Gassendi’s remarks are particularly enlightening: one concerns the constitution of   the parts in the foetus and the other the origins of   sense perception. As  to the former, Gassendi recalls the Galenic definition of   the term ἀδίδακτον as being the same as φύσις and endorses Galen’s interpretation of   Hippocrates’ theory on the formation of   the foetus. In  keeping with Galen, Gassendi remarks that, in calling the nature of   animals and the works of   nature unlearned, Hippocrates did not mean to suggest the absence of   a  general design in nature, but only the absence of   that self-awareness peculiar to human beings. In other words, nature always acts according to an internal cause, wise but unknown to us, with which it directs the functions of   the body; see Gassendi 1658, II, 230a. Furthermore, Gassendi’s appreciation of   Galen and his works is  especially apparent in a letter to Jan Baptist van Helmont (10 July, 1629) where he praises Galen’s De  usu partium. It  was indeed the reading of   this text that directed Gassendi’s evaluation of  other central doctrines in Galen’s natural philosophy. An example is Galen’s thesis of  the origin of  sense perception from the alterations of  matter, which Gassendi criticizes as unable to solve the problem of  the creation and destruction of   qualities ex nihilo, and which he further judges similar to the one of  Epicurus, see Ibid., 349b. Another interesting aspect of  the recall of   Galenic themes in Gassendi is the acknowledgment that not only the identity of  soul and temperament must be ascribed to Galen, but also the identity of   soul and spirit, maintained more than once by the Renaissance naturalists, Ibid., 243b–245b. This interpretation was pivotal in shaping Gassendi’s conception of   a material and intelligent anima mundi, different from the fully aware human soul, and yet meant to survive the body. 75

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FINAL REMARKS

THE ROLE OF  TRADITION IN MEDICAL THOUGHT

Vita brevis, Ars longa. This is the Hippocratic aphorism to which Western medicine has been faithful for centuries: it generated countless applications, numerous comments and new versions. Beyond its relevance as a  cultural manifesto of   European and Western medicine, the relevance of   Hippocrates’ precept lies in the epistemic and social value it embodies, which consists in underscoring the diachronic dimension of  medicine as a shared social praxis, reiterated and improved in the progress of   time. It reminded physicians of   all generations that medicine, as an ‘art’, is  a  discipline grounded in experience; a  ‘remembering knowledge’ that cannot be reduced simply to the acquisition and application of  a method. Galen captured this double value best in his commentary, when he noticed that: None of  us can at the same time found an art and bring it to its accomplishment. So, it is enough if  the subsequent generations, receiving the teachings achieved by the Ancients during many years, will add something to these, and, doing the same in turn, we will at the end have contributed to the development of  art.1

With its reference to Hippocrates, Western medicine has therefore envisaged itself  as tradition. The  very legitimacy of  this fundamental category of  intellectual history, however, has 1  Galen, HAC, K XVIIb, 352,5–8: ‘οὐδεὶς γὰρ ἡμῶν ἱκανός ἐστι συστήσασθαί τε ἅμα καὶ τελειῶσαι τὴν τέχνην, ἀλλ’ἀγαπητὸν εἰ πολλοῖς ἔτεσι τὰ τῶν ἔμπροσθεν οἱ μετέπειτα παραλαμβάνοντες καί τι προστιθέντες αὐτοὶ συντελέσαιμέν ποτε αὐτήν.’

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recently come under attack. From the 1960s through to the 1980s –  and to some extent still nowadays  – the whole story of   Western tradition and the very existence of   an intellectual history able to grasp its meaning has been put under severe scrutiny, amid fears of  a loss of  interest, if  not collapse, in favor of  the fields of  social and cultural history.2 However, in the last 20 years and thanks above all to European historians, the pendulum has swung back, and a new desire to study and to practice intellectual history, along with an awareness of   the problems inherent in certain approaches within social and cultural studies, emerged.3 With the debate on the core tenets of  intellectual history still going on, a  book on the history of   a  tradition, if  concerned with a limited period in it, has to justify itself  against two fundamental questions; namely, as to what extent anachronism is implicit in the use of   tradition as an intellectual category, and whether alternative approaches might better address the persistence in history of   specific set of   problems. For reason of   opportunity and length, this reflection takes the form of   a  discourse which has no pretention to provide a  detailed analysis of  the problem but only to explore some of  the motives that feature in the field of  intellectual history and, in particular, of  the history of  ideas. One of  the major points of  contention contemplated as part of   the category of   tradition is the concept of   progress, or, to be precise, the ‘historical anachronism’ resulting from the understanding of   history as a  linear progress. By ‘historical anachronism’ I  mean here the attribution of   intention and ideas to authors of   the past who were neither aware nor supportive of  them. Most critics have recognized the fallacy of   historical anachronism as inherent in the very way the history of  ideas, and thus the history of   science and medicine have been practiced during the past two centuries.4 It seems as though the very notions 2  Especially Bowsma 1981: 279, 283. For a synthesis on Bowsma’s legacy and the reactions it exerted among intellectual historians, Toews 1987. 3  MacMahon and Moyn 2014; LaCapra 1983; Chartier 1982 and LaCapra and Kaplan 1982: 47–85. 4  Skinner 1969, Cunningham 1988, and Jardine 2000. For the possibility of  anachronism in history, Spoerhase 2008.

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of  a history of  something like science and medicine would entail a teleological stance that leads to a misunderstanding of   what these disciplines were and how they were practiced in the past. Such an approach, also called Whiggish history, marked the encyclopedic enterprises of  nineteenth-century physicians who were also medical historians, from Kurt Sprengel (1766–1833), to Francesco Puccinotti (1794–1872), and Charles Daremberg (1817–72). History of   medicine was read by these historians as the progressive accumulation of   data, which, subsequently ordered under a rational method of   enquiry, produced objective and reliable knowledge. Such systematic investigations revolved around ‘heroic’ actors seen as the quintessential embodiment of   a grand narrative. Meant to reflect a progressive displacement of   ideas in a cultural and temporal contingency, this history resulted in a series of  systematic enterprises that seem no longer possible today, due to the fragmentation and ploriferation of   scholarly competences and knowledge. However, if  this way of   understanding history is  now generally considered obsolete, it is also because its weaknesses were too major to be overlooked. Nonetheless, it is  worthwhile to emphasize them afresh, as they survive –  in a  much disguised form  – in both the structuralist and post-structuralist methods. When the existence of   a continuous and progressive line in history is postulated, its landmarks must be assumed as potentialities, as ‘intended’ and therefore ‘metaphysical’ categories; thus historians have to read the texts through a sort of metaphysical lens which, selected a priori, justifies their conclusions. Such an approach has been essentially modified starting from the 1960s, when ideas borrowed from sociology, anthropology, and psychology started being adopted to avoid the naïve historical anachronism of   previous generations and to revisit the concept of   tradition as linear progress. The new methodological framework stemmed essentially from structuralism and the new methods provided by sociology, with the seminal work The Structure of   Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn (1922– 96) introducing paradigm shift and revolution as fundamental categories for a new approach to the history of   science. In the history of   medicine and biology, the same task fell onto the 271

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Croatian historian and physician Mirko Drazen Grmek (1924– 2000) with his book La Première Révolution Biologique (1990). One of   the merits of   the change prompted by Kuhn and his followers was the attention they devoted to concrete historical conditions surrounding science, scientists and practitioners across the centuries. The great promise of  the Kuhnian approach was to make social and intellectual history interact so as to overcome the traditional limitations of   disciplinary fields interested in the history of   knowledge. But the promise was not kept. In the attempt to avoid anachronism, Kuhn relied too heavily on structuralism and sociology, which led him to overestimate the impact that both these fields can have for any historical, and therefore empirical discipline. The  central claim of   the Kuhnian approach was to consider the process of   scientific discovery as a series of   revolutions revolving around paradigms that establish a fundamental difference between normal and revolutionary science.5 Such an approach is often called interpretationalist, as it posits that empirical data are not independent, but actively shaped by the activity of   the human mind, so much so that data collected by scientists do not really exist prior to their systematization under a  certain paradigm. These systematizations are called revolutions by Kuhn and are mutually exclusive, being characterized by incommensurability, as the impossibility for a set of   problems and ideas to be contemplated with the same meaning under different paradigms. Such a view leads to a  diminishing of   the role of   historical actors, whose theories are taken into consideration only insofar as they fit a particular position in a social context, whose interpretation is in any 5  The world ‘revolution’ is  ambiguous in many ways. In  Latin, revolutio entails a ‘turn’ and a ‘change’, and it is especially associated with the regular and harmonious rotations of   the celestial spheres; yet the meaning does not specify whether the turn is  complete or what are supposed to be either the duration or the importance of   the change. In this sense, many revolutions are possible and indeed happened in history, depending on the relevance, intensity and scale of   the events that led to social, political or intellectual change. Contrary to this, however, Kuhn’s conception implies that modern science was born out of   the substitution of   a  series of   paradigms or conceptual models, therefore implying incommensurability and abruptness. Revolution in this context is therefore misleading and the more appropriate Greek term katastrophé (καταστροφή), meaning the abrupt and complete change of   something into something different, should be used.

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case pre-ordained by the assumption of  sociological categories. In keeping with structuralism, this assumption entails that historical actors are somewhat ‘unconscious’ of   the role they play in history, a  role whose ultimate motivation lies in the social and temporal framework they lived in, with their texts seen as exemplifications of   un underlying structure. The  task of   the Kuhnian historian of  science, at least as portrayed in The Structure of   Scientific Revolutions, would therefore be to consider scientific ideas as the product of   a socially located community, whose intellectual enterprise is  somewhat unrelated to previous developments. These ideas must subsequently be collected as many facts and interpreted from a  ‘superior’, and allegedly ‘neutral’ sociological viewpoint. Although much on a  different level, it is  clear that such an approach ends up replacing, by virtue of   its a  priori assumptions and alleged superiority of  its method, the role played by the metaphysical potentialities in Whiggish history. To be sure, the adoption of  paradigms and structures to approach the history of   science does not originate with Kuhn, but takes root in Kantian transcendentalism and the twentieth-­ century revival of  it, with authors such as Ernst Cassirer (1874– 1945) and Alexandre Koyré (1892–1964), which latter, in particular, was considered by Kuhn as an intellectual father. In the light of   what Koyré writes on the role of  experimentation in physics, one is made certain that such an acknowledgment was indeed motivated: Experimentation – the methodical investigation of  nature – implies both the language in which it poses its questions, and the vocabulary able to interpret its answers. If   classical science poses questions to nature in a mathematical or, more precisely, a  geometrical language, this language, or more exactly the decision to employ it – a decision corresponding to a change in metaphysical attitude – could not be inspired, in turn, by the experience that the decision itself  was going to condition.6 6  Koyré 1966: 13: ‘[L]’expérimentation – interrogation méthodique de la nature – elle présuppose et le langage dans lequel elle pose ses questions, et un vocabulaire permettant d’interpréter les réponses. Or, si c’est dans un langage mathématique, ou plus exactement géométrique, que la science classique inter-

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As suggested by Koyré, the fundamental structure of   scientific knowledge, the experiment, presupposes its own categories as given a priori. As such, these categories have no history, and it will be useless to trace one, because experimentally quantified science is the outcome of   a metaphysical turn. The only difference between Koyré and Kuhn’s stance lies in that, for the latter, categories defining the scientific status of  knowledge are mobile and change according to the historical context, and yet they are not less absolute, and for this reason incommensurable the one with the other. Unsurprisingly, the fundamental flaws of   the Neo-Kantian and structuralist approaches to science lay in their being both unhistorical and aprioristic. Most notably, they fail on three grounds, as they forget to take into account the role of   perception and thus the role of  the body and its import to human cognition, that is reduced to a mind-dependent representation; the role of   individuals as historical actors, that are instead reduced to instantiations of   paradigmatic structures; and finally the historical fragmentation and blending of   intellectual categories, structures and approaches, which ultimately makes a clear-cut distinction between different paradigms not only ideological, but impossible. With relation to the last point, in fact, historical methods are concerned with the interpretation of   a  range of   data resulting from the chaotic interaction of   individuals, within relatively known circumstances, institutions and periods of  time, not with the crystallization and aseptic application of   paradigms. Most notably, the use of   notions such as revolution and paradigm shift undergoes serious problems of   historical verifiability, insofar as both categories pose, yet do not clarify, the empirical criteria to be used in order to trace their occurrence in history. Quite the contrary, the interpretationalist reading presupposes its own categories as already applied, and therefore avoids the historical problem of   verification. In  this specific sense, the use of  paradigms and revolutions, either leads us to interpret as paradigmatic change what is not (e.g. historical roge la nature, ce langage, ou plus exactement la décision de l’employer, – décision qui correspond à un changement d’attitude métaphysique, – ne pouvait, à son tour, être dictée par l’expérience qu’elle allait conditionner.’

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claims of  a “Vesalian revolution”) or even compels the historian to situate authors and events on one side or the other of  an ideal border, which does not exist and never existed. Ultimately, it diminishes consistently the intellectual labor needed to evaluate the different approaches, levels, purposes, contexts and actors of  any real historical process. If, from a  philosophical viewpoint, it seems already difficult not to be sceptical of   any theory holding that the facts it means to explain are already conditioned by its very assumption, a closer look to early modern history reveals quite a different picture from that suggested by Kuhn and his followers. Notably, the evolution of   medieval physics, the language adopted by early modern philosophers and physicians, their practices, style of   writing, thinking and experimenting, show that tradition played a  pivotal role in defining much of   the early modern scientific enterprise. Galileo, often defined as the “father” of   modern physics, was a  natural philosopher whose understanding of   science was so deeply rooted in the Venetian Aristotelianism, that in the later part of   his life he would reclaim, with honor, the title of  ‘a true Peripatetic’, while many of   his contemporaries were rejecting it as an insult.7 Santorio was a  Galenist who conceived many ideas which broke away from traditional medicine, and nevertheless assumed as valid the same set of   problems and objectives posited in the Galenic rationale. Vesalius, another of   the alleged “founding fathers” though of   modern anatomy, was equally a  Galenist, working within a very traditional understanding of  what the body is and how it works. The history of  science is rife with cases of  authors whose works can be conceived as traditionalist in some respects while revolutionary in others. When confronted with these problems, the Ptolemaic system devised by Koyré and Kuhn around the revolution of   solid, perfect yet invisible paradigms, which make sense and order of  every chaotic dissimilarity in the observable world, founders on the dialectic of   history and its inner contradictions. This dialectic shows that structures evolve themselves pushed forth by historical and individual actors, that the new formulation rises as an answer from past questions   Letter to Fortunio Liceti, 15 September 1640.

7

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as well as present historical needs, and that any strong and relevant theoretical break is  compensated by the conservation of   the same vocabulary, and, initially at least, also by the same fundamental problems and aims. An analysis of   the early modern history of   medicine and medical authors shows cases in which both Aristotelians and Galenists are perhaps among the most active and systematic experimenters of  the early modern period (e.g., Vesalius, Cesal­ pino, Aselli, Santorio, and Harvey, among others) and that – contrary to Koyré’s claims – their experimentation is neither trivial nor brutally empirical at all. Quite the contrary, in the context of  Aristotelian physics and Galenic medicine, the experiment is the outcome of  a very complex and detailed methodology, logically and empirically grounded, which eventually leads to quantified self-experimentation. While certainly ostracized by many of   its detractors, this methodology continued nonetheless to suggest effective insights throughout the development of   seventeenth-century science and possibly even later, up to Linnaeus and the German Idealists. Ultimately, this dialectic of   history shows not only that authority and dispute, dogma and criticism are present at any moment and stage of   the historical process, if  in different combinations and intensities, but that the structuralist opposition of   binary terms, of   old and new, tradition and innovation, authority and rebellion, is  to a great extent historically untenable. As an example, when the approach of   the Galen-Aristotelians, as illustrated in the previous chapters, is compared with Descartes’ physics, it is clear that the alleged ‘new’ does not stand comparison with the alleged ‘old’ – in philosophy as well as, a fortiori, in medicine. Indeed, the attitude toward a  complete break with tradition, ends up fostering the candid methodology adopted by the Regulae ad directionem ingenii, where precisely mathematics is absent as an instrument of   analysis. The same holds for the simplistic mechanicism of   L’Homme, where quantified experimentation is absent, while it was widely and brilliantly applied by Descartes’ contemporaries, the Galenist Santorio and the Aristotelian Harvey. This dialectical and historical inversion between ‘new’ an ‘old’ is all the more visible in disciplines seen up until now as 276

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marginal in the realm of   scientific revolution, i.e. alchemy or indeed medicine, which both violate the meta-historical category of   paradigm, conversely presenting themselves as contaminated by many elements borrowed from many disciplines, as well as fragmented in a plurality of   directions, impossible to distill into an essence, an episteme, a paradigm or structure. Much of   the material for this fragmented contamination was included and indeed coordinated within the traditional framework of   knowledge. If   we consider an author like Santorio and situate his works in the context of   the so-called ‘scientific revolution’, suddenly all the conceptual abundance Santorio offers to the historian of   ideas loses its richest meaning, and can be explained only as a  derivation from Galileo. It  is  thus that cutting-edge instruments explained in the context of   commentaries, frequent references to Galen and Alexandrian medicine, discussions about Aristotelian logic and the concept of   latitude, can resemble – as Temkin wrote – ‘bizarre jokes of  history’ invented by the spirit to manifest, in spite of  the author’s intention, new and unexpected cultural ferments.8 But this  is a  ‘joke’ only if  a  Gestaltic or a  paradigmatic leap is  admitted. Instruments like the thermometer, for instance, are not meant to ‘replace’ the Galenic paradigm with another one, but to ‘make visible’, through their spatialization, the primary qualities of  Aristotelian physics, whose movement of  tension and relaxation showed them as corresponding to motions of   dilatation and compression of   the air included in the glass tube of  the instrument. In this sense is clear that, if  the concept of  temperament as the physical extension of  a quality (extensio) on a  scale of   degrees (latitudo graduum) fails, then the measurement itself  loses its meaning and the instrument becomes

8  Temkin 1973:  160: ‘Sanctorius’s endeavor to help Galenic medicine by the use of   the thermometer might well be cited as a case of   what the philosopher Hegel called “die List des Begriffes,” the cunning of  the concept, whereby a harmless-looking device effects the downfall of  the subject. The measurement of   heat and cold by the rise or fall of   a fluid in the tube of   the thermometer substituted for qualities. For Galen, hot and cold, dry and moist were meant to have objective existence. To the touch, hot and cold are quite different, whereas if  measured by the thermometer they become the more or less of   something else.’

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a useless toy.9 This is the reason why Galileo, who grasped only vaguely the importance of   these questions, dismissed the thermoscope as ‘a joke’. However, from the discussion of  the neo-Kantian and structuralist approaches, a set of   problems arise that are worth discussing in some detail. These are: a definition of  history of  ideas as a  field-subject and its methods; the relationship between authority, tradition, and innovation; finally, the role of  intellectual history in its relation to the concept of  tradition. As seen in the previous chapters, this book questions the very idea that the ‘new’ in medicine and science comes only from the opposition to, and the destruction of, a  given historical tradition. If   historically possible, radical breaks with the past would entail a  hiatus between thinking and knowing so profound, so as to render thinking useless and knowledge dogmatic. Luckily, this is not often the case. Continuity and discontinuity are always present at any stage of   the historical process and so they are at any level of   historical understanding; thus any truly critical stance toward reality can neither be recaptured in a  grand system of   history nor subjugated to the methodology of   any science. A critical stance toward reality, however sociohistorically located, requires motivation from a  set of   ideas and arguments that can make sense and justify its assumption. If  this is true for any critical actor and theory in history, it follows that a preliminary and fundamental difference to be addressed in the study of   how critical positions toward reality were formulated in history is the articulation of   the difference between ideas and facts. Put simply, ideas and facts seem to be related to each other as interpretation and text. Although apparently unpretentious, the comparison lends itself  to many difficulties. To begin with, interpretations are written in texts and thus can be treated equally as texts. In  this sense historians could be legitimized in assuming that ideas are facts to interpret critically, and to a certain extent this is the correct assumption. Ideas and actors need to be placed in a  context and this cannot be done with  Bigotti 2018: 94–100.

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out historians partaking of   the critical assessment of   historical interpretations ex post, and from a different level. There is nonetheless a  difference as to how historical interpretations should be treated in this regard; that is  to say, as to whether the role of   the historian is  to respect the meaning of   the text and to propose an interpretation coherent with it or rather, in the impossibility of   drawing from an original meaning of   the text, historians have to reframe this very meaning according to a different perspective. The latter view is shared particularly by Marxist historians and by critical theorists. They both assume the non-distinction between ideas and facts, on the grounds that, being historically, linguistically and socially located, interpretations are dependent on the context and must therefore be subject to the same methodological scrutiny to which historical facts and other data are subject. As to the theoretical framework of  such an interpretation, this consists in assuming that intellectual data are reflective of   a deeper historical reality (i.e. power/ class struggle, race, gender bias, cultural hegemony, etc.), that they are cultural products, and that their meaning should not bear any relation to the present critical assessment the historian has to make of  them. This way of   approaching the non-distinction between ideas and facts and between texts, contexts, and interpretations is peculiar to cultural studies. The  fundamental assumption in cultural studies is  that ideas and practices are related to each other in a pervasive semiotic web, so as to form the elements of   an Überbau completely shaped by social events. Pivotal to this idea of   culture is also the extension of   text to any possible source, phenomenon, event or product that can be located within a particular period or context. If, on the one hand, a broad definition of   text allows cultural phenomena to be approached not in isolation but from a  multidimensional perspective, it consents, on the other, to locate whatever historical fact as an instance of  a cultural spectrum, whose distinctive traits remain undefined and therefore void of   content. In  the impossibility of   selecting a restricted definition of   text, practitioners of   cultural studies usually limit their interpretation to a  framework borrowed from the social sciences, and most notably from sociology and anthropology, as a  kind of   a  priori lens which 279

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permits the examination of   various texts from a neutral standpoint. In  this sense, the criticisms already levelled at Kuhn’s interpretation apply to this case as well. Indeed, not only does this methodology force different kind of   sources and methods to be read as all equivalent in terms of   relevance, but eventually allows the historian to dismiss historical accounts which may contradict the chosen criterion of  equivalence, by identifying the historical source as culturally biased or even irrelevant. As  already highlighted, in fact, diverging historical accounts cannot be challenging of  this approach. Seen as a lens that filters and distorts individual perceptions of   reality, the assumption of  cultural structure dictates that the historian should maintain a  cautious, and somewhat patronizing distance from the text, thus deflecting the focus from the analysis of   the text to the alleged underlying structure of  it. The idea that cultural assumptions act as many distorting lenses, finds its roots in historicism. The fundamental assumption of   historicism is  that whatever is  subject to human scrutiny is historical in the sense that ‘emerges from’ and is ‘shaped by’ historical events. Insofar as every form of   knowledge exists within a historical framework, any claim to universal validity, either empirical or theoretical, is undermined by its very historical root. We cannot therefore talk about astronomy in Galileo, embryology in Harvey or statistical quantification in Santorio as these terms suggest a meaning that was not the same at the time in which these authors lived and operated. Although reasonable in appearance, historicism is  in fact subject to a  fundamental flaw, or to be precise to a  “fallacy of  correlation”. As  a doctrine (especially so in the form of  contextualism), historicism entails two different but rather unsubstantiated claims; first, that everything that happens in a certain context, is relevant and necessarily related to it (‘contextualism’); second, that every correlation is  better expressed as a form of   dependence (‘determinism’). As it clearly appears, both claims get rid of   the distinction between description (correlation) and prescription (dependence), transforming any historical description into a life sentence. Without venturing into a  detailed and analytical enquiry as to why historicism fails also in terms of   historical meth­od­ 280

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ol­o­gy,10 a simple observation will suffice here: while all forms of   knowledge are certainly human and historical as to their origin, their genealogy signifies nothing as to their destiny, dissemination and value throughout time, which is exactly the task of   the intellectual historian to determine. In  this sense, what is  peculiar of   almost all forms of   intellectual knowledge and what marks the fundamental difference between ideas and facts and between intellectual and social history, is that ideas survive the historical death of   the individual who lived and acted in a historical and social contingency. They do so through a form of  constant translation from context to context, and from institution to institution, as it is  indeed the case with the works of  the ancients, and particularly so with Galen. In this sense, the possibility of   intellectual history as a field of   study relies upon the possibility of  translating, that is the possibility the historian has to approach the original meaning of   a text, to understand it, to trace its dissemination in different contexts along with its limits and possibilities, and eventually to re-produce it in another context where both the reader and the expectations are no longer the same. Thus, insofar as it is a translation, intellectual history not only inevitably entails a certain presentism and anachronism, but it has the right to do so. On the one hand, in fact, meaning is not so strictly bound to the terms that convey it so as not to be rendered by a  different, if  carefully selected and related, set of  concepts; on the other hand, the aim of  every translation is to allow the survival of  the same meaning through different words, not to force the reader to speak a language that no longer exists and that cannot be reconstituted anew. Unlike cultural and social historians, therefore, intellectual historians must approach both ‘texts’ and ‘authors’ by constantly presupposing intentionality, as well as intellectual and moral agency in their sources. Finally, the possibility that ideas from the past can indeed affect the methods a  historian originally assumed as valid to approach them in the present, can never be ruled out.11 In  this sense, the past is  kept alive by a  present activity

  On which, Popper 1964: 55–97 and Spoerhase 2000.   Cf. Cunningham 1988: 370–71.

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which is  both of   ‘preservation’ (i.e. of   the original meaning) and ‘re-invention’ of   it, which both are linked by the necessity of   questioning the texts in its inner assumptions, validity, and limits while never denying its impact on the historian’s present historical assumptions. This double activity (ἐνέργεια, actus, Tätigkeit) is accomplished only when historians feel the urgency of   the past intellectual problems as their own. To  be sure, translation works as long as interpretation works, so historians cannot be simply the witnesses of   the past and have to pose questions in order to get a sense of  the value of  the source. Yet, interpretation is never such that it shapes the value of   the source completely; historical interpretations cannot exhaust the meaning of  a text, because any interpretation is at the same time a preservation of  the text in a different form. In many important ways, the contemporary debate on the value and meaning of  the history of  ideas, from De Saussure to Foucault, from Koyré to Kuhn to post-structuralism is a debate on the value and the very possibility of   translations and interpretations across time. Indeed, Structuralism and Post-structuralism are both dependent on a theory of   language that refuses the existence of  meaning as something transcendental in respect to the context, thus they both refuse the idea that traditions could establish any certain grounds on which to establish such a  transcendental value. As  I shall argue later, however, both approaches deny the very concept of  history, and indeed tacitly or openly make a claim for the end of  history as such. The fundamental assumption of   history of   ideas may therefore be defined as the translatability of   the intellectual forms of  knowledge. The  idea of   translation clearly implies a  gradualist approach according to which maps of  meaning are transformed and extended over time, but this conception neither prevents nor constrains interpreters from finding or inventing new paths and meanings of  the texts. It follows from this that, in tracing the history of   ideas as the expression of  the human critical attitude toward its destiny, a historian has to behave as a translator rather than a narrator. The task is indeed to interpret and to translate the various languages, sources, aims, contexts and cross-references of   history in the light of   a  semantic spectrum which –  although always 282

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incomplete and subject to historical contingency – is nevertheless constant so to be indispensable if  an historian is  to offer an evaluation of   what the past is, and how it differs from the present. In this sense, the Foucauldian catch-phrase ‘historical narratives’ would be better replaced with –  and explained as the result of  – particular ‘translational strategies’. Without ever diminishing the originality and even the arbitrariness implied in any historical interpretation, the word ‘strategy’ avoids suggesting the possibility that scholars can make up their objects at will, while reminding us that any analysis can take shape only within a pre-established set of   criteria. Such criteria, however, are neither rules nor schemes that can be applied to history from a  “superior” and allegedly “neutral” point of   view. They are rather precarious scaffoldings meant to bridge the distances between the present and the past, and whose shape is destined to be broken and its material re-used as themselves history of   historiography. It  follows from this that, insofar as history is a discipline concerned with the concrete agency of  individual actors, the borrowing from the methodology of   social sciences, while always desirable, is never binding, and cannot constitute a  methodological landmark, for if  a  criterion of   distinction between past and present is to be found, it can only be found by doing history. It is indeed the very absence of   any a priori ‘safe space’ that makes sense, and at the same time keeps alive the critical awareness that the human species has of   its historical contingency. In this sense, history is the transcendental condition of  any critical enquiry, a condition that makes much of   twentieth-century faith into an ‘end’ or a ‘complete re-start’ of  history, a Messianic but delusional expectation. The concept of   translatability, however, defines also the limits within which historical interpretations can be compatible with each other – also and even more so in the case of   any untranslatable terms – and thus offers a  middle ground that avoid the Manichean dichotomies of  power/control that inform the Foucauldian reading of  history of  medicine as well as much of  the contemporary sociology of  medicine. Here, the historical text is  forced into a  sort of   narrative circularity, whereby the adoption of   cultural lenses and trans-generic categories (e.g. power, class, gender, race,  etc.) justifies whatever result can 283

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be obtained thanks to their very adoption, thus relegating history to the role of   an armed adjunct of   the political ideology in force. The result is a history that rejects old narratives only to reintroduce new ones, however dogmatic. On the other hand, the claim for a translatability of  the intellectual forms of   knowledge cannot be converted into a  claim into the content of   the form of   knowledge itself. The very fact that ideas must be accounted for in terms of  partial and selected transitions has no bearing to the content of  knowledge expressed by means of  them. Indeed, the task to critically evaluate the past, so as to extrapolate a  meaning out of   it, is  not proper to the historian qua historian, but to the political philosopher or to the philosopher of   history. Thus, the question as to whether the progressive accumulation of   knowledge may be a sufficient condition for any science to claim the epistemological status of  certainty or even truth, is either destined to be left out of  any historically-grounded analysis or to be answered negatively. Historians of   ideas cannot, qua historians, convert a  formal approach to history into a  content-related one. As  such, both the progressivist and the relativist standpoint are equally valid to the historian of   ideas, as the definition of   these approaches is content-related and entail a philosophical evaluation of  what science is qua science, not how it should be studied in its historical dissemination. From this standpoint, historians find themselves in the position of   ‘the incompetent linguist’ insofar as the competence in one or more languages (i.e. historical contexts) is not a guarantee as to the understanding of  the content of  knowledge expressed within it. In other words, an expert philologist would not be necessarily also a brilliant philosopher, a good architect or a competent physicist. The content and value of  what ought to be translated is matter of  different approaches and methods that historians use to determine the meaning and content of   a particular form of   knowledge and that determines their specialisation as historians. As a translator, therefore, the historian of   ideas is just an expert whose claims must be pondered critically. It is equally important to clarify that the word translatable does not entail the transit of   a form of   knowledge, as a whole, from one context to another, because this very assumption 284

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would be unhistorical. Translatability only refers to a sufficiently universal methodological approach, which guarantees that the variation of  historical interpretations related to the same text or event is necessarily limited and therefore can be used as a criterion to explain why interpretations of   the same texts show a similar profile in different contexts and situations. The limit given to this variability is what allows the survival of  knowledge as tradition, in the form of  language-game or, with respect to the Aristotelian tradition, as προς ἕν. This limit is  therefore the constant reference within the variation of   a  set of   problems. The  definition of   these problems, of   their unity and development, dictates to the historian the assumption of   a choice, to be made in accordance with the vocabulary and the proper conditions of  the form of  knowledge analyzed, and yet impossible to define once and for all in a single formula. From this standpoint, the objectivity of   historical categories is a historical problem, pertaining to the historian as it is subject to change, and cannot be reduced to the aprioristic assumption of  a paradigm. Translatability therefore implies the plurality of   contexts and the concept of   shared knowledge. Under the concept of  plurality of   contexts, we may assume that a  concept, an idea, an institution, etc. should always be analyzed from a variety of  perspectives that nevertheless interact together as co-present in a  historical situation. Their interaction, in turn, hinges on the category of   shared knowledge. When interacting together, translatability and plurality give origin to the methodological frame of   the chaotic continuity according to which when a  knowledge is  transformed, it is  not transformed through a Gestaltic leap, but in pieces, that are ‘digested’ and reassembled in new forms, often chaotically, with the addition of   other elements that are born from different and unorthodox directions and that may become fragments themselves. So to speak, tradition can be read as a form of  ‘intellectual metabolism’ that implies and compels what is external to it to become internal, and that by ‘metabolizing’ the external, transforms the internal itself. Revolutions are possible, therefore, as historical, partial, incomplete and fragmented interactions not as unhistorical re-starts. 285

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Needless to say, tradition can be somewhat authoritarian, but authority is  not always and necessarily synonymous with constraint. If   the authority of   a tradition represents its permanence in time, this very permanence also means the act of  keeping itself  alive through its transformation in different historical and geographical forms. Indeed, this survival would be impossible without the supply and renewal of  new instruments. Thus, the prejudice according to which traditions conserve themselves solely through the repetition of  the same facts, questions and authors is in need of  a profound revision: the backward imitators originate the decadence of   a value, not its perpetuation; its critics, conversely, represent sometimes the most brilliant innovators. As  a consequence, also the definition of   the ‘end of   a  tradition’ as the weakening or disappearance of   a  problem is, at the very least, partial. It presupposes that a tradition is defined by the reference to its origin but tells us nothing of  its evolution and direction. If   ideas predate their historical development, this excess in respect of   the context, this being more than just a by-product of   history, takes shape not in the form of   a  fact (e.g.  a  concept, method, institution or language produced by the brilliant mind of  one or more individuals) but into that one of   a problem, meant as the smallest meaningful unity in need of   a development, that is neither completely excedent, neither fully contained within its origin. And this, incidentally, is the very image that European medicine has chosen for itself  in its reference to Hippocrates and Galen: viewing itself  as a collective effort to keep alive a direction rather than the jealous preservation of  a dead authority. The vitality of   this effort and its contribution in shaping many of   the relevant changes that occurred in various realm of  medical knowledge between the end of  the sixteenth century and the beginning of   the seventeenth century have been presented throughout this book. If   John Herman Randall (1890– 1980) and Étienne Gilson (1884–1978) had already highlighted the role of   tradition in the birth of   modern thought and many contributions have been devoted recently to highlight the role that medicine played in late scholastic thought,12 the import   Perler 2009; Deschene 1996 and 2000; Corcilius and Perler 2014.

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of   Galenism on the development of   early modern medicine and science seems somehow not to have been fully addressed. It is significant that one of   the relevant acts of   this conceptual transformation, of   this ‘intellectual metabolism’ –  as we have defined it – was the surfacing of   the ‘corporeality of   the body’ in European culture, an awareness through which the premises of   quantified medical experimentation would arise. But this change also prompted, by way of  opposition and to some extent still nowadays, a  lasting oblivion of   the body and the forced removal of   the animal from the late Scholastic and then Cartesian quest for the true core of   subjectivity. Traditionally meant to represent nothing more than an intellectual ‘leftover’, the Galenic tradition is eventually found at the very core of  the early modern idea of   the self. From anatomy to physiology, from theory of   matter to the abstract categories of   human ingenuity, physicians and philosophers drew from Galen and his writings as from a  fountainhead of   new ideas, which transcended their repetition as traditional formulas of   an academic Canon. In  this sense, even though no longer as a  medical authority, Galen still urges us to keep alive the same intellectual mission which he felt, as a constant of  the human spirit, it would endure forever: We can in fact conceive of   something that, even though it was generated, will not be destroyed, for it is possible for the whole totality not to be destroyed, but restored little by little.

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PLATES

PLATES

Plate 1. Pseudo-Galen, Anatomia (fifteenth cent.). Wellcome Library, London. The male human body, frontal view: Nomenclature of  the outer structures of  the body, pointing out on the side the mental faculties corresponding to the two frontal cerebral ventricles (sensus communis, cellula imaginativa).

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Plate 2. Pseudo-Galen, Anatomia (fifteenth cent.). Wellcome Library, London. The male human body, rear view: Nomenclature of  the outer structures of  the body, pointing out on the side the mental faculties corresponding to the two posterior cerebral ventricles (cellula aestimativa, cellula memorativa).

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Plate 3. Pseudo-Galen, Anatomia (fifteenth cent.). Wellcome Library, London. The male human body, frontal view: Artistic rendering of  the muscles.

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Plate 4. Pseudo-Galen, Anatomia (fifteenth cent.). Wellcome Library, London. The male human body, rear view: Artistic rendering of  the nerves.

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Plate 5. Pseudo-Galen, Anatomia (fifteenth cent.). Wellcome Library, London. The male human body, frontal view: Skeletal bones.

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Plate 6. Pseudo-Galen, Anatomia (fifteenth cent.). Wellcome Library, London. The male human body, rear view: Skeletal bones.

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Plate 7. Johannes Ketham, Fasciculus Medicinae (c. 1490). Padua, University of  Padua. The scene illustrates a late-medieval anatomy lesson: the ‘lector’, from his vantage point on the high-back chair, is reading a passage from Galen’s De iuvamentis membrorum, while the ‘ostensor’, on the right holding a baculum, shows the ‘sector’ the part that needs to be incised.

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Plate 8. Andreas Vesalius, Tabulae anatomicae sex (Venice 1538). London, Wellcome Library. Foreground: Illustration describing the liver (five-lobed, like that of  dogs) and the ramifications of  the portal vein according to the Galenic anatomy. Right margin: Illustration of  the male and female urogenital apparatuses.

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Plate 9. Andreas Vesalius, Tabulae anatomicae sex (Venice 1538). London, Wellcome Library. Foreground: Description of  the venous system according to Galen.

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Plate 10. Andreas Vesalius, Tabulae anatomicae sex (Venice 1538). London, Wellcome Library. Foreground: Description of  the arterial system and of  the ascending and descending path of  the aorta according to Galen. Top: Corresponding to the encephalon, ramification of  the vessels known as rete mirabile (present in ungulates and some mammals but not in humans).

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Plate 11. Diagram of  Galenic physiology (Illustration from Singer 1989, p. 100). Top to bottom: The brain, with the two carotid arteries feeding into the brain and forming the rete mirabile at the base of  the head, where blood is transformed into animal spirit (spiritus animalis); the heart, source of  the arteries and seat of  innate heat (calidus innatus) and the vital spirit (spiritus vitalis); the pervious atrioventricular septum, enabling intraventricular bloodflow; five-lobed liver, source of  the veins and seat of  the natural spirit (spiritus naturalis).

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Plate 12. Leonardo da Vinci, MS Clark 12597r. Leonardo’s drawing has been used to highlight the disposition of  the ‘main organs’ of  the body according to the description provided by Galen’s in the Ars Medica.

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Plate 13. Girolamo Fabrici da Aquapendente, Tabulae Pictae (late sixteenth to early seventeenth century). Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana: De anatomia ossium (Rari 111.01). Top: Frontal view of  a child’s cranium, without the mandible. Bottom right: Base of  the cranium, cross-sectioned removing the frontal, ethmoid, and sphenoid bones. Bottom left: Interior surface of  the cranium. Centre: Hyoid bone, vomer, cheekbone, and jaws (the present and following descriptions of  Acquapendente’s tabulae are based on Panattoni 2011).

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Plate 14. Girolamo Fabrici da Aquapendente, Tabulae Pictae (late sixteenth to early seventeenth century). Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana: Anatomia musculorum totius corporis (Rari 116.02). Buccinator, masseter, and temporal muscles, and forward-folded frontalis muscle. Suprahyoid, infrahyoid, and sternocleidomastoid muscles. Also illustrated are the epicranial aponeurosis and the upper parts of  the trapezius muscle (based on Panattoni 2011).

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Plate 15. Girolamo Fabrici da Aquapendente, Tabulae Pictae (late sixteenth to early seventeenth century). Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana: Anatomia capitis, cerebri, nervorum (Rari 112.01). Top: Basal view of  the occipital, temporal, and frontal lobes surrounding the cerebellum, with the tonsils and the vermis, from whose lower end the dorsal surface of  the bulbus extends. The encephalon appears enveloped by the dura mater. Bottom: Three-quarter, right-side back view with the dura mater enveloping the encephalon; clearly outlined are the open superior sagittal sinus and, in the back, the open transverse and sigmoid sinuses. In view is the middle meningeal artery (based on Panattoni 2011).

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Plate 16. Girolamo Fabrici da Aquapendente, Tabulae Pictae (late sixteenth to early seventeenth century). Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana: Anatomia capitis, cerebri, nervorum (Rari 112.02). Top: Cerebral hemisphere, viewed from the top after the dural meningeal envelope has been cut open. Bottom: Dural encephalic sac on the cranial base (based on Panattoni 2011).

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Plate 17. Girolamo Fabrici da Aquapendente, Tabulae Pictae (late sixteenth to early seventeenth century). Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana: Anatomia capitis, cerebri, nervorum (Rari 112.04). Top: Cerebral hemisphere, the meninges partly removed. Bottom: Portion of  the dissected cerebral hemisphere. In view are the white matter and the cortex (based on Panattoni 2011).

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Plate 18. Girolamo Fabrici da Aquapendente, Tabulae Pictae (late sixteenth to early seventeenth century). Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana: Anatomia capitis, cerebri, nervorum (Rari 112.05). Top: Horizontal cross-section of  the cerebral hemispheres; the corpus callosum has been sectioned and folded over the cerebellum. In evidence are the fornix cerebri, thalami, and lateral ventricles with their choroid plexuses. Bottom: Brainstem and temporal lobes of  the cerebral hemispheres. In view are basilar artery and the branches making up the cerebral arterial circle, whose discovery is attributed to the English anatomist Thomas Willis (1621–75), but which appears to have already been described by Gabriele Falloppia (1523–62), Girolamo Fabrici’s teacher (based on Panattoni 2011).

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Plate 19. Girolamo Fabrici da Aquapendente, Tabulae Pictae (late sixteenth to early seventeenth century). Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana: Anatomia capitis, cerebri, nervorum (Rari 112.06). Top: Basal view of  the encephalon, showing the vertebral arteries merging into the basilar artery and the cranial nerves. Bottom: Lower side of  the cerebellum, with the cerebral peduncles and the brainstem folded over to show the fourth ventricle (based on Panattoni 2011).

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Plate 20. Girolamo Fabrici da Aquapendente, Tabulae Pictae (late sixteenth to early seventeenth century). Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana: Anatomia capitis, cerebri, nervorum (Rari 112.08). Top: Cerebral hemispheres, corpus callosum, and the fornix, sectioned and folded back to show the telencephalon, thalami, and lateral ventricles, with their choroid plexuses. Bottom: Telencephalon, thalami, third ventricle, and the quadrigeminal plate, isolated after removal of  the corpus callosum (based on Panattoni 2011).

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Plate 21. Girolamo Fabrici da Aquapendente, Tabulae Pictae (late sixteenth to early seventeenth century). Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana Anatomia capitis, cerebri, nervorum (Rari 112.10). Top: Lateral surface of  the encephalon on part of  the cranial base, with partial removal of  the meninges. In view are the cranial nerves. Also accurately reproduced in detail is the lateral sulcus, attributed a few decades later to the Dutch anatomist Franciscus Sylvius (1614–72). Bottom: Inferior surface of  the cerebellum, with the brainstem folded forward to show the floor of  the fourth ventricle and the cross-sectioned surface of  the cerebellar peduncles (based on Panattoni 2011).

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Plate 22. Girolamo Fabrici da Aquapendente, Tabulae Pictae (late sixteenth to early seventeenth century). Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana: Anatomia capitis, cerebri, nervorum (Rari 112.13). Bone marrow and brain, partly sectioned to show the ventricular cavities (based on Panattoni 2011).

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

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348

INDEX OF CONCEPTS AND TERMS

INDEX OF CONCEPTS AND TERMS

ablatio, 228 abruptness, 272 active disposition, 191 force, 185 perception, 154 activity, 47, 71, 77, 82, 89–90, 110, 135, 151, 156, 172, 197–198, 200, 222, 272, 281 ἐντελέχεια, 54–55, 160 Tätigkeit, 509 antecedent (indicans), 227 actio, 36, 41, 43, 47, 184, 191 a tota substantia, 241, 248 action of accidents, 249 of astral influxes, 179 of drugs, 229 of forces, 167 of form, 62, 245 of muscles, 261 of the heart, 152, 181, 250 of heat, 88, 178, 242 of poisons, 247 of the spirit, 154–155 actuality, 54–55, 135, 158, 160, 180– 181 additio, 228 aemulatio, 33 aequale ad pondus, 113, 229–230, 235, 244 ad iustitiam, 229 affectio per consensum, 204 alchemy, 167, 277

Alexandrianism, 61–63, 172 alteratio totius substantiae, 51 alteration, 26, 48–51, 56, 71, 88, 101, 115–116, 128, 146, 151, 154, 183, 205, 233, 242, 267 amentia, 86, 197 anachronism, see: Historical anachronism analogy, 43–44, 61, 114–117, 135, 141, 161, 176, 179, 227, 239, 244–245 anamnesis, 111, 142 anastomoses, 175 anatomy, 25, 34–37, 41, 43–47, 65–67, 69–70, 107, 122, 124, 142, 171, 226–227, 254, 260, 275, 287 anatomy table, 65 ancient, 43 animal, 44 Aristotelian, 35, 37 comparative, 48 human, 43 anima, 86–87, 94, 107, 141, 155, 170, 172–173, 203–204, 214– 216, 218–219, 241, 259 a Deo immissa, 156, 158 brutorum, 262 forma corporis, 24, 130 mundi (see also: world-soul), 142, 177, 180–182, 267 e semine educta, 156, 158

349

INDEX OF CONCEPTS AND TERMS

educta de potentia materiae, 61 essentia (animae), 87 rationalis, 27, 58, 66, 131 sentiens, 154 superaddita, 147 (animae) sedes, 81–82 (animae) substantia, 149 tota in toto corpore, 79 animation of the embryo, 171 anthropology, 56, 59, 66, 108, 139, 144, 156–157, 160, 222, 271, 279 antiperistasis, 162, 218 argumentum a priori, 108 a posteriori, 108 ex morbis, 205 ex auctoritatibus, 108, 110, 205 ex natura, 205 Aristotelianism, 24, 27, 29, 36, 41, 43, 47, 57, 60, 62, 65, 75, 84, 94, 134, 144, 149, 158, 172, 184– 185, 189, 203, 222, 225, 239, 275 arteries, 17, 57, 76, 82, 84, 89, 90, 152, 155, 250, 254, 256 astronomy, 280 atheists, 80, 262 atomi, 242 attraction, 111, 151, 155, 175 auctoritas, 29, 34–35 automaton, 262 autopsy, 33, 45 Averroism, 60, 172, 180 axiomatics, 227

bilious temperament, 115 black bile, 102, 214, 216 blood, 48, 57, 85, 89–90, 142, 170– 171, 175, 204, 216, 226, 254, 256, 261 bon sense, 260 brain, 27, 38, 47–48, 58, 66–71, 74–78, 80, 82–84, 89, 107, 119– 122, 125, 128–129, 131, 133, 151–152, 154, 162, 168–169, 171, 178, 189, 203–207, 210, 214–218, 220, 223, 250

calidum/calor, 90, 94, 102, 114, 117, 243 agglutinatus, 173 igneus, 182 influens, 90 innatum, 88, 90, 235 insitus, 173 substantia calida, 90 vitalis, 117, 173 cardan joint, 263 cardiocentrism, 66, 85 castration, 128 catholicism, 130 causa, 34, 88, 102, 169, 216, 218, 242, 245, 248, 250 agens, 172 causarum serie, 86 sine qua non, 71–72, 207 efficiens, 26, 139, 142, 179, 181, 207, 210, 259 finalis, 95, 181, 207 formalis, 179, 199, 207, 212 materialis, 26, 177 causatio, 207, 243 causal asymmetry, 197 consecution (see also: consecutio), 49, 116, 118, 133, 165, 191–192, 196, 198 equivalence, 197 instrumentality, 197 causality of heavens, 180 cerebellar peduncles, 70–71 cerebral circumvolutions, 68, 73 ventricles, 67–68, 70–72, 77, 140, 142, 152–153, 155, 162, 250 cerebrum, 72–73, 83–85, 152, 216– 218, 250 cervello, 77, 133 characterial inclination, 102, 110, 115 choleric temperament, 61, 115 circulatio, 169 circulation of blood, 170–171, 175, 226 circumscription (περιγραφή), 36 clockwork (analogy), 244, 249

350

INDEX OF CONCEPTS AND TERMS

coagulus, 176 cogitatio (see also: vis cogitativa), 42, 60, 76, 80 commentarius (genre), 33 commotiones, 162 compatibility (criterion of), 25, 262 compositio, 36, 45, 92, 109, 114 compositive and resolutive (method), 41, 69 concoctio, 129 confirmatio, 33, 65 consecutio, 49, 180, 184, 191–192, 199 consequent (indicatus), 227 contextualism, 280 continuum, 48, 76, 138, 179–180, 192, 262 corpora mixta, 92, 242 corpuscle, 24, 95 corpusculum, 242 corpuscularianism, 242 corruption, 81, 109 cosmos, 55, 81, 138, 162, 260 criterion of scientificity, 56–57, 60, 172 critical theory, 279 crura cerebri, 67 cultural studies, 270 cultural history, 270 degree, 52, 93, 96, 103, 124, 157, 167, 177, 179, 183, 185, 195, 197, 208, 210–211, 216–217, 228–230, 232–233, 235, 238, 243, 249, 261–262, 277 of complexity, 159 of drugs, 26, 129 of extension, 184 of knowledge, 126 of moral inclination, 116 of natural inclination, 122 of quality, 210–211 of heat, 88, 102, 129 of intensity, 129, 235, 249 of probability, 86 of refinement, 140 of temperament, 235

demonstratio potissima, 277 destillatio (κατάῤῥους), 168–169 dicto de omni, 248 discernment, 151 dispositio, 164, 169, 195 stabilis, 196 labilis, 195 disposition, 52, 102, 108, 117, 120– 121, 124, 140, 164, 191, 302 active, 191 passive, 191 divine intelligence, 135, 181 knowledge, 59, 142 soul (part of), 60, 158, 182 will, 182 element (theory of), 24, 47–50, 62, 88, 95, 146, 151, 175, 199, 202, 206–207, 230, 242 embryo, 26, 83–84, 93, 122, 175, 177, 180 embryology, 43, 280 encephalon, 67, 70, 73 episteme, 138, 277 epithymetikon, 85 essence of the soul, 47, 59, 65, 87, 91, 94, 166, 210 of functions, 86 of the parts, 54 essentia, 87–88, 156, 217, 219, 247, 249 facultatuum, 84, 90, 217 essentialism, 27, 37, 53 eugenics, 126, 128 excrement, 73, 82, 120, 169, 232, 250 experiment, 57, 67–68, 82, 84, 122, 151–152, 227, 229, 231, 233, 238, 242, 253–254, 256–257, 274, 276 experimentation, 24–25, 33–34, 68, 246, 253, 257, 273–274, 276, 287 experientia, 34, 58, 194, 253 experimentum, 58, 65, 227, 231, 253 crucis, 256

351

INDEX OF CONCEPTS AND TERMS

extensio, 82, 277 extension of a body, 80, 82, 118, 242 of a quality, 184, 230, 233, 235, 277 fable du corps, 264 fable du monde, 264 facultas (facultates), 90, 153, 165, 192, 204, 206, 215–220 aestimativa, 78, 217 affectuosa, 205 appetitiva, 191, 202 cognoscitiva, 178, 192, 205 corporea, 90 naturalis, 131 rationalis, 192 vitalis, 90, 131 fallacia consequentis, 247 feu sans lumière, 254 finalism, 59, 210 finis, 60, 207 (gratia) cui, 207–208 gratia cuius, 207–208 first mover (primum mobile), see also: immobile engine, 244 form, 26, 36, 45, 51–52, 54–56, 59, 61–62, 68, 74, 91–95, 109, 172–173, 175–176, 179–181, 184, 194, 206–207, 210, 219, 225, 245, 259, 262, 282, 284 εἶδος, 48, 54 form of forms (εἶδος εἰδῶν), 56, 222 form of temperament, 56 recurrent patterns, 147 forma, 45, 77, 87, 90, 94, 130, 136, 140, 146, 154, 158–160, 194, 208, 219, 243 essentia (formarum), 247 intensio et remissio (formarum), 26, 159, 183, 235 genus (formarum), 159 furor, 100 Galenism, 23–25, 29–30, 35–36, 41, 46–47, 51, 61, 63, 84, 89,

91, 94, 134, 144–145, 149, 170, 225–226, 239, 249, 252, 287 Galenists, 27–28, 34, 51, 94, 111, 236, 251, 261, 275–276 genealogy, 281 generatio ex putri, 179 generation, 26, 47, 51, 53–56, 59, 81, 84–85, 91, 95–96, 159, 169, 173, 175–176, 179–180, 210, 242, 250, 254 genius, 27, 125–126, 129, 133, 136– 137, 139–140 German Idealists, 276 governing principle of the soul (ἡγεμονικόν), 48, 73–74 gradus, 26, 184, 191, 195 recessus, 233, 235 reducere usque ad non gradum, 184 growth, 85, 151, 172 habitus, 60, 115, 164, 196, 236 electivus, 208 cognoscendi (γνωρίζουσα ἕξις) 135 health, 114–115, 228–229, 235 latitude of health, 237 original and substantial, 236 present and accidental, 236 heart, 47, 58, 60, 66, 74, 76, 80, 82– 85, 89–90, 93–95, 103, 109, 128, 131, 152, 169, 171, 175–177, 181, 191, 203–204, 210, 215, 218, 247, 250, 252, 254, 256 heat, 26, 29, 58, 68, 85, 91, 94, 102, 118, 125, 147, 149, 156, 159, 162, 168–169, 176–179, 181, 183–184, 210, 215, 217, 242, 246–247, 253–254, 259–262, 266, 277 animal, 252 heavenly, 180, 181 influent, 90, 95, 179, 182 igneous, 182 inherent, 95 innate, 80, 87–88, 90, 94–95, 129, 142, 146, 171–173, 175–

352

INDEX OF CONCEPTS AND TERMS

178, 181–182, 203, 215, 235, 261 native, 90, 181 natural, 128, 179, 210 temperamental, 95, 182 vital, 82, 89, 175 Hellenistic philosophy, 30, 35 hemlock, 214 historical anachronism, 270, 278, 282 historicism, 280 history of ideas, 270, 278, 282 homo alembicus, 167 faber, 33 homogeneous parts, 54, 114 humidum, 243 radicale, 90, 182 humors, 24, 48–49, 102, 109, 114– 115, 118, 199, 216, 223, 228, 247 hygiene, 134 hygrometer, 233–234 iatromechanism, 251 imago/imagines, 259 insensatae imagines, 216 imaginatio, 86, 216–218 imagination, 67, 123, 125, 135, 142, 177–178, 180, 192, 214–215, 219–220 immobile engine, 56, 61 inanitio and repletio, 232, 246 incommensurability, 272, 274 index librorum prohibitorum, 130, 139 indication (ἔνδειξις, indicatio), 111, 227, 246 ingegno donnesco, 133 ingenium, 26–27, 78, 119–120, 122, 129–130, 132–135, 137, 139, 141–142, 145–146, 156, 159– 161, 167, 172, 183, 189, 203, 223, 246, 249, 260, 266 calidi, 26 innate inclination, 194, 197 (ἀδίδακτον), 52 insania, 197 instrumentum vs essentia, 90, 156

intellect, 52, 61, 74, 77, 83, 120, 122–126, 131–133, 135, 160– 161, 165, 200, 206, 214–215, 217, 219–221 actual, 135, 160 active (or productive, νοῦς ποιητικός), 61, 200, 221–222 divine, 135 human (ἀνθροπίνος νοῦς), 222 material (ὑλικὸς νοῦς), 61 potential, 135, 160 intellectio, 162 intellectual history, 269–270, 272, 278, 281 intellectual metabolism, 285, 287 intellectus, 34, 61, 83, 131, 172, 220 intelligible, 160, 166, 215 intemperantia, 100–101, 103, 230 intensity (intensio), 26, 92, 95, 129, 162, 215, 229, 235, 237, 249 intuition, 125–126, 135, 200, 222, 257, 260, 263, 265 judgment, 48, 110, 112, 216 faculty of (aestimativa), 78, 126, 197, 222 Kantian transcendentalism, 273 language-game, 285 latitude, 233, 237, 277 latitudo, 26, 233, 235 graduum, 277 sanitatis, 233, 237 libertinage érudit, 183 libertines, 262 libertinism, 258 linear demonstration, 57 localization (of faculties), 66, 68, 70, 75–77, 80, 82, 122, 215 localizationism (medical thesis or principle of), 66, 68, 78, 80, 84, 89, 96, 151, 155, 214 locus, 66, 73 machina, 167, 243 machinatio, 243

353

INDEX OF CONCEPTS AND TERMS

main organs of the body (κυριότητα), 47, 89, 100, 146, 203, 204 mammillary tubercles, 250 materia, 51, 61, 87, 160, 175, 208, 243, 262 crassa, 215 prima, 51, 243 sentiens, 48 materialism, 24, 51, 56, 61–62, 117–118, 130, 134, 141, 147, 166, 179, 199, 201–202, 205, 210–211, 224 mechanism, 38, 103, 111, 116, 119, 210, 226, 243–245, 253–254, 261 medici (physicians), 46, 66, 74, 77, 86, 88, 225 melancholia, 86, 102, 216 melancholic humor, 216 melancholy, 214 membrum, 42, 66, 84, 236, 259, 266 memory, 41, 70, 123–124, 180, 197, 205, 207, 214–215, 217 mens, 27, 45, 60, 83, 129, 133, 135, 145–146, 156, 172, 183, 189, 192, 199, 216, 219, 223, 249, 259–260, 262–263 menstruus, 91 mind, 23, 25, 27, 53, 55–57, 62–63, 67, 69, 78, 81–82, 101, 111, 115, 117, 126, 133–134, 160–161, 178, 184, 189, 192, 198–200, 211, 214–216, 219, 221, 223, 245, 253, 257–258, 261–262, 266, 272, 274, 286 mixis, 62, 202 moral pathology, 96 morbus Gallicus, 241 motus a quo, 26, 55, 95, 169, 210, 237, 245, 259 ad quem, 26, 54, 95, 245, 259 natura, 58, 76, 83, 86, 90, 117–118, 140–141, 147, 154, 165, 172, 175, 179, 181, 194, 205, 216–

217, 219–220, 230, 232, 235, 237, 241, 244, 263 facit habilem, 121–122 naturalism, 28, 130, 132–133, 137– 138, 144, 147, 149, 156–158, 161, 169–170, 180, 189–190, 236, 252, 260–261 nutrition, 85, 142, 151 organism, 45, 47, 54–56, 59–60, 82, 88–90, 94, 103, 109, 129, 155, 175–176, 180, 182, 206, 210, 248, 251, 259, 263 Paracelsian medicine, 167 paradigm shift, 271, 274 pars (partes), 66, 72, 102, 152, 176, 250, 242 similares, 54, 114 dissimilares, 114 principatus (partium), 85 particula(e) minima(e), 242 passions, 26–27, 47–48, 61, 96–97, 100–104, 108–109, 112, 116– 117, 126, 151, 154–155, 162, 166, 189–192, 194–195, 197– 199, 204–205, 214, 216, 218, 221–222, 226, 233, 252, 257, 262–265, 267 λόγοι ἔνυλοί, 96 pathognomy, 115 perception, 24, 26, 53, 71, 142, 154, 167, 178, 183, 189, 196, 222– 223, 263, 266–267, 274, 280 intuitive, 101 periodicatio, 247 perpessio, 191 perspiratio insensibilis, 232 perturbatio, 191–192, 195 phantasia (see also: vis imaginandi), 60, 76, 83, 86, 181, 220 philosophi (philosophers), 46, 56, 58, 60, 66, 74, 86, 88, 103, 177 phlegmatic illness, 205 temperament, 115 phrenitis, 109 physiognomonic syllogism, 115

354

INDEX OF CONCEPTS AND TERMS

physiognomy, 102, 111, 114–115, 165 physiological polycentrism, 80, 85, 151, 156 physiology, 28, 35–36, 44, 46–47, 80, 85, 89–91, 96, 112, 114, 119, 124, 128, 133, 142, 144, 149, 151, 154, 158, 160–161, 165–169, 171, 175, 191, 226, 237, 260, 262–263, 287 priority (notion of), 54, 249 plurality of contexts, 285 pneuma, 87, 89–90 natural, 89 psychic, 36, 67, 89 vital, 89 pneumatology, 89 pons Varolii, 67 post-structuralism, 282 potentia, 61, 131–132, 177, 181, 217, 241, 243, 245, 247, 262 motrix horologii, 244 resistendi, 236 potentiality, 54–56, 61, 91, 111, 126, 158, 160, 180–181, 262, 271, 273 presentism, 281 privation, 158, 210 probable (πιθανóν), 86 propensiones, 206, 209 proportio, 101, 114, 209 geometrica, 144 mathematica, 144 proportion, 95, 112, 114, 140, 202, 228, 235 pulse, 142, 151–152, 154–155, 230– 231, 233, 256 pulsilogium, 230–231, 233–234 quaestio, 33, 51, 63, 69, 80, 83, 159, 201, 214 de essentia facultatuum naturalium, 84 de intensione et remissione formarum, 235 de principatu partium, 84 quality/qualities, 26, 46, 49–51, 62,

120, 125, 129, 133, 204, 206– 207, 229, 235, 239, 241–242, 244–245, 247–249, 261, 267, 277 agential, 92, 94, 159 complementary, 92, 95, 124 elemental, 51, 210, 243 moral, 48 occult, 241–242 primary, 197, 246, 277 quantification of, 235 remission of, 26, 235 uniform, 235 uniformly difform, 235 rarefaction, 246 raritas et densitas, 243, 246 rassemblance, 263 rassemblement, 262 ratio studiorum, 132 rationes infallibiles, 248 reminiscence, 142, 147 reproduction, 151 res cogitans, 223 naturales, 116 non naturales, 100, 116, 228, 232 resolutio, 37, 40–41, 133 Respublica Christiana, 132 retention, 151 revolution, 271–272, 274–275, 285 scientific, 272–273, 277 Sadducees, 80 saggio dell’oro, 140 schème bio-distillatoire, 169 Scholastic system, 24 Scholasticism, 24–25, 27, 200 School of Padua, 28, 65, 156, 227 School of Salamanca, 75 senses, 57, 70, 74, 100, 135, 157, 161, 191, 194, 200, 220, 244, 249 external, 73, 76 internal, 77 sedes, 66, 175, 192 animae, 80–84 mentis, 82–84

355

INDEX OF CONCEPTS AND TERMS

naturalis, 82–83 operationis, 83 seed, 24, 90–91, 95, 156, 169 self-consciousness (awareness), 147, 267 self-experimentation, 276 self-preservation, 111, 154, 167, 260, 262 sella Sanctorii, 232 sensibility, 146–147, 151, 177, 180 sensus communis, 73–76, 165, 220 separation (notion of, χωρισμóς), 54, 56–57, 109, 126, 243 similitudo, 161 simple drugs, 204, 229 situs, 242–245 soul (see also: anima), 25–26, 28, 33, 44–45, 47–48, 52–54, 56, 59–63, 65, 68–69, 73–74, 78, 80–84, 86–88, 94, 96, 100, 102– 103, 107–112, 116–117, 119, 121–122, 131, 141–142, 146, 151, 153–156, 158, 160–161, 164–166, 171, 173, 177–179, 183, 191–192, 195, 198–199, 202–210, 212, 214–215, 218– 219, 222–223, 225–226, 233, 241, 249–251, 257–259, 261– 264, 267 appetitive, 47, 60, 85 corporeal, 155, 172 divine, 158 essence of, 47, 87, 91 immortal, 86, 109, 130–132, 145 incorporeal, 67 infused by God, 156 material, 182 mortal, 97, 112 of brutes, 257, 259, 262 originating from the seed, 156 rational, 47–48, 57, 60, 66–68, 76, 78, 83, 107–109, 117, 122, 125, 130–131, 167, 171–172, 182, 192, 197, 203, 222, 262, 263–264 sensible, 57, 121 spirited, 47, 60

substance of, 109 superadded, 147 vegetative, 43, 121 world-soul, 142, 181 species, 84, 90, 140, 145, 158, 173, 177, 195–196, 216, 220, 232, 243 intellegibiles, 134 morborum, 66 temperamental[es], 108, 112, 133, 173, 207 spira chalybea, 210, 249–250 spirit, 24, 26, 48, 70, 82, 136–138, 140–142, 144, 146, 151–152, 154–157, 162, 164, 166–167, 175, 183, 223, 226, 247, 261, 267, 277, 287 animal, 67–68, 70–71, 215, 250 material, 147, 165 spiritus, 72–73, 84, 88–89, 94, 140– 142, 147, 153–155, 160, 162, 165–166, 175, 183, 191, 210, 247, 250 animalis, 67 in cerebri ventriculis contentus, 151 steelyard chair, 232 Stoicism, 190 strictus et laxus, 251 structuralism, 271–273 subjectivism, 184 substance, 27, 47, 57, 59, 71, 90– 91, 95, 140, 144, 155–156, 159, 164, 166, 173, 176–179, 184– 185, 189–190, 199, 214, 218, 225, 229, 236, 239, 241–242, 244, 247, 249–250, 259, 261 abstract, 67 corporeal, 65, 86, 183, 222, 244 gradability of, 26 homogeneous, 89 immortal, 88 material, 26, 29, 156 mortal, 203 of the soul, 109 substantia, 51, 59, 72–73, 88, 91, 154–155, 165, 175, 192, 217, 219, 241–242, 244–245, 250

356

INDEX OF CONCEPTS AND TERMS

actio a tota substantia, 241 alteratio totius substantiae, 51, 248 calida, 90, 173 sufficiens enumeratio, 248 suffocation, 103 sympathy (sympathia), 142

temperamentum sequi, 192, 194–198, 219–220 temperies, 114 thermometer, 233–234, 239, 246, 277 thinking of thought (νόησις νοήσεως), 55

tacit rational knowledge (λόγος ἐνδιάθετος), 52 the incompetent linguist (paradox of), 248 temperament, 24, 27, 49, 54–56, 59, 87–88, 94, 97, 102–103, 108–110, 112–116, 119–120, 124, 129, 131, 133, 141, 146, 153, 171, 173, 176–177, 179, 183, 194, 197–199, 201–212, 214–215, 218–220, 223, 225, 229–231, 235, 259, 267, 277 cerebral, 68, 107, 122–123, 131, 206, 217 innate, 116 natural, 45 perfect (σύμμετρον), 112–113 temperamentum, 86–88, 90, 94, 107, 114, 117, 131, 165, 173, 192, 194, 199, 201, 203–204, 214, 216–217, 219 ad iustitiam, 114, 229 ad pondus, 114, 229–230, 235, 244

usus, 36, 45, 94 utilitas, 41–43 veins, 76, 85, 90, 152, 155, 256 ventricles of the brain, 67–68, 70– 72, 77, 140, 142, 152–153, 155, 162, 250 vis/virtutes, 82, 165, 206, 209, 232, 241, 244, 258 appetitiva, 206 cogitativa, 128 commemorandi, 161 existimandi, 60, 161 imaginandi, 199, 219 polemica, 38 pulsatilis, 254 seminalis, 128 sentiendi, 192 vivisection, 25, 38, 82, 254 Whiggish history, 271

357

INDEX OF NAMES AND TITLES

INDEX OF NAMES AND TITLES

Ab Indagine, Johannes, 118 Introductiones apotelesmaticae, 118 Accattino, Paolo, 61 Acquapendente, Girolamo Fabrici da, 28, 41–44, 68–70, 176, 252 Anatomia capitis, cerebri, nervorum, 69–70 De cerebro, et anatomia capitis, 70 De formato foetu, 69 De intellectu, 70 De memoria, 70 De phantasia, 70 De venarum ostiolis, 69 De voce siue de laryngis dissecti historia, 42 Fasciculi lectionum numero XXV, 70 Tabulae pictae, 44, 68, 70 Totius animalis fabricae theatrum, 68–69 Agrippa, Livio, 118 Discorso sopra la natura e complessione humana, 118 Aldrovandi, Ulisse, 144 Alonso, Aurora Miguel, 132 Alvarez, Diego, 130 Amalteo, Geronimo, 156 Andernach, Johan Winter von, 35–36 Angelo Mai (library), 212 Angiolgabriello di Santa Maria, 176

Anonymus Londinensis, 238 Antyllus, 37 Aphrodisias, Alexander of, 51, 61– 62, 83, 203, 205 Apostolici Regiminis (Papal Bull), 130 Aquinas, Thomas, 61, 159, 222 De unitate intellectus, 222 Summa contra gentiles, 61 Aranzi, Giulio Cesare, 252 De humano foeto, 252 Archimedes, 28 Argenterio, Giovanni, 28, 89–90, 152, 156 De somno et vigilia, 89, 156, 241 Aristotle, 25, 29, 33–34, 46–47, 53–56, 58, 60–62, 68, 73– 74, 76, 85, 91, 96, 110, 114, 125–126, 133, 135, 145–147, 154, 158–161, 165, 167–168, 172–173, 180, 190, 200–202, 205–208, 210–211, 221–222, 254, 259 Categoriae, 210 De anima, 25, 34, 42, 47, 56, 60–62, 68, 73–75, 135, 154, 160, 167, 190, 201–202, 206, 222 De caelo, 190 De generatione et corruptione, 190 De partibus animalium, 62 Historia animalium, 42, 259 Metaphysica, 135, 160, 200

359

INDEX OF NAMES AND TITLES

Metaphysics, see also: Metaphysica, 34, 61 Metereologica, 62, 190 Physica, 190 Analytica posteriora, 222 Aselli, Gaspare, 252, 276 De lactibus sive de lacteis veneis, 252 Astrain, Antonio, 75 Aucant, Vincent, 252 Averroes (Ibn Rušd), 62, 205, 248 Avicenna (Abu Ali Sina), 167, 179– 180 De diluviis, 179 Bacon, Francis, 29, 144 Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, 144 Temporis partus masculus, 29 Bahuin, Gaspard, 72 Baldini, Artemio Enzo, 190 Ballester, Luis García, 29 Balsamo, Luigi, 130, 132 Baroja, Julio Caro, 130 Beeckman, Isaac, 260 Bernard, Claude, 67 Bigotti, Fabrizio, 212, 239, 246, 278 Bitbol- Hespériès, Annie, 252 Bodin, Jean, 114 Universae naturae theatrum, 114 Bondì, Roberto, 149, 158, 166 Bonuzzi, Luciano, 43 Bouras-Vallianatos, Petros, 30 Bourbon, Éléonore de, 78 Bowsma, William, 270 Branca, Giovan Francesco, 158 Brann, Noel L., 137 Browne, Thomas, 59 Buonarroti, Michelangelo, 69 Büttner, Jochen, 226 Buzzati, Augusto, 170 Caimo, Pompeo, 91, 93–95, 133 De calido innato libri, 94 Dell’ingegno humano, 133

Campanella, Tommaso, 138, 158, 162, 252 Philosophia sensibus demonstrata, 158 Canevari, Demetrio, 144 Canini, Angelo, 62 Canone, Eugenio, 139 Capra, Marcello, 80–84 De sede animae et mentis, 80– 81 Cardano, Girolamo, 38, 41, 241 Anatomia Mundini cum expositione Cardani, 41 Opera omnia, 41 Carlino, Andrea, 41 Casserio, Giulio, 28, 44–45 Cassirer, Ernst, 137–138, 161–162, 273 Philosophy of symbolic forms, 162 Substance and function, 162 The individual and the cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy, 161 Castelli, Bartolomeo, 114 Lexicon medicum, 114 Castiglioni, Arturo, 226 Cavendish, William (Marquis of Newcastle), 265 Caverni, Raffaello, 226 Cesalpino, Andrea, 76, 167, 169, 171, 276 Chalcocondyles, Demetrius, 36 Chalmers, Alexander, 78 Champier, Symphorien, 138 Chartier, Roger, 270 Chiaradonna, Riccardo, 46, 86 Chiaramonti, Scipione, 97, 99, 101– 104, 118, 195 De atra bile, 97, 99, 102 De coniectandis cuiusque moribus, 102 Chrysippus of Soli, 47, 66 Clagett, Marshall, 235 Clarke, Edwin, 77 Clement VIII (Pope), 149 Coiter, Volcher, 35

360

INDEX OF NAMES AND TITLES

Colombo, Matteo Realdo, 28, 38, 40, 69, 167, 171 Corcilius, Klaus, 286 Corpus Hippocraticum, 29, 37 Cratander, Andreas, 35 Cremonini, Cesare, 58, 91–92, 94–95, 103, 107–108, 176, 196, 201–211, 221 [Quaestio] utrum animi mores sequantur corporis temperamentum, 201–211 De calido innato adversus Galenum, 91–92, 176, 201– 202 De principatu partium, 201 Discursus exquisitus de intelligentiis, 202 Lectiones in libros Aristotelis de logica, 202 Quaestio pulcherrima de sensu communi, 202 Tractatus de facultate appetitiva, 202 Cristina of Lorena, 133 Crombie, Alistair, 225 Cunningham, Andrew, 270, 281 Cusa, Nicholas of, 138, 141 Da Carpi, Berengario, 36, 41, 153 Da Reggio, Niccolò, 36 Da Vinci, Leonardo, 67 Daremberg, Charles, 68, 271 De Franco, Luigi, 144, 166 De Liuzzi, Mondino, 41 De Miranda, Girolamo, 160 De Saussure, Ferdinand, 282 Deer Richardson, Linda, 241 Del Gaizo, Modestino, 226 Delfino, Federico, 156 Della Forza, Fabio, 170 Della Porta, Giovanni Battista, 114–115, 118 Descartes, René, 24, 73, 75, 154, 169, 185, 190, 200, 223–224, 226, 248, 251–267, 276 Description du corps humaine, 257

Discours de la méthode, 253– 254, 260 Excerpta anatomica, 169, 257 L’Homme, 252, 258–259, 265, 276 Les passions de l’âme, 259 Primae cogitationes circa generatione animalium, 257 Meditationes de prima philosophia, 223 Regulae ad directionem ingenii, 253, 260, 276 DesChene, Dennis, 75, 286 Deuchino, Giovanni Battista, 176 Dewhurst, Kenneth, 77 Dolce, Lodovico, 76–77 Somma di tutta la filosofia d’Aristotele, 76 Dollo, Corrado, 80 Donatellus Castillionensis, Johannes (see: Rudio) 170 Donato, Girolamo, 62 Donato, Maria Pia, 30 Doni, Agostino, 144–148 De natura homini libri duo, 144–147 Donini, Pierluigi, 61–62 Dorn, Gerhard Aurora thesaurusque philosophorum, 167 Duhem, Pierre, 225 Durling, Richard, 89, 95 Emesa, Nemesius of De natura hominis, 68 Erasistratus, 55, 238 Ernst, Germana, 139 Ettari, Maria Stella, 226 Facciolati Jacopo, 170 Facen, Jacopo, 170 Falloppia, Gabriele, 28, 38, 44, 69, 80 Observationes anatomicae, 44 Favaro, Antonio, 70, 226 Fernel, Jean, 51, 67, 138, 161, 241 De abditis rerum causis, 51

361

INDEX OF NAMES AND TITLES

Ficino, Marsilio, 136–139 De triplici vita, 137 Fiorentino, Francesco, 147, 184 Foucault, Michel, 138, 282 Fracanziano, Antonio, 170 French, Roger, 36, 68, 78 Froben, Johann, 35 Galen, 24–30, 33, 35–41, 43–63, 66–68, 71, 73–76, 78, 80, 84– 87, 89–91, 94, 96–97, 102–104, 107–119, 121–122, 125–126, 128, 130–133, 137–141, 145– 146, 149, 151–152, 154, 164– 165, 168, 171–172, 177, 189, 190–192, 194–196, 202–212, 214–215, 217–218, 220–221, 223, 225, 227, 229–230, 232– 233, 235, 238, 241, 245, 251– 252, 256, 258, 267, 269, 276– 277, 281, 286–287 Adversus Lycum, 90, 94 An in arteriis sanguis contineatur, 454 Anatomicae administrationes, 35–37, 41, 256 Ars medendi. See: Ars medica Ars medica, 116–117, 195, 235 Commentary to Plato’s Timaeus, 112 De animi cuiuslibet peccatorum dignotione et curatione, 107 De causis pulsuum, 116 De consuetudinibus, 111 De dissectione nervorum, 42 De elementis ex Hippocrate, 48, 88, 146, 151 De foetuum formatione, 46, 52, 84, 245 De iuvamentis membrorum, 35– 36, 41 De libris propriis, 46, 108 De locis affectis, 37, 52, 121, 168 De methodo medendi, 48, 52, 232

De moribus, 108, 117 De motu musculorum, 42 De naturalibus facultatibus, 118 De optima secta ad Trasybulum, 58 De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis, 24, 37, 42, 46–48, 59, 67, 71, 73, 97, 107–109 De praenotione ad Epigenem, 38 De propriis placitis, 59, 107– 108 De propriorum animi cuiuslibet affectuum dignotione et curatione, 107 De sanitate tuenda, 114, 212 De semine, 84 De temperamentis, 112, 116, 118, 229 De tremore, palpitatione, convulsione et rigore liber, 89– 90 De usu partium, 26, 35–38, 43, 46, 52–53, 55–56, 59, 63, 118, 267 De vocalium instrumentorum dissectione, 42 Exortatio ad medicinam, 52 Fragmentum de substantia facultatum naturalium, 59, 107 In Hippocratis Epidemiarum libros Commentaria, 52 Omnia quae extant opera (1541), 28, 35, 38 Quod animi mores corporis temperamenta sequantur, 24, 26, 48, 52, 54, 59, 63, 87, 96–97, 102, 104, 107– 112, 116–122, 125–126, 131–132, 139, 154, 164, 191–192, 194, 198, 202, 205, 209, 211–213, 267 Galilei, Galileo, 65, 184, 221, 226– 228, 238–239, 246, 275, 277– 278, 280 García, Emilio, 132

362

INDEX OF NAMES AND TITLES

Garin, Eugenio, 80, 139 Garofalo, Ivan, 30, 37 Garzoni, Tomaso, 133 Hospitale de’ pazzi incurabili, 133 La piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo, 133 Theatro de vari et diversi cervelli mondani, 133 Gassendi, Pierre, 267 Giacon, Carlo, 75 Giglioni, Guido, 21, 149, 152, 160, 162 Gilbert, Neil W., 225 Gilson, Étienne, 261, 286 Giunti (family of printers), 28, 35, 38 Gliozzi, Giuliano, 80 Grataroli, Guglielmo, 118 De praedictione morum, 118 Grmek, Mirko Drazen, 29, 68, 226, 229, 238, 272 La Première Révolution Biologique, 272 Harvey, William, 162, 171, 182, 225, 253–254, 256–257, 276, 280 De motu cordis, 182 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 277 Heliodorus, 37 Heraclitus, 110 Hero of Alexandria, 28 Hippocrates, 29, 47, 52, 88–89, 110, 117, 119, 121, 146, 203, 205, 227–229, 267, 269, 286 De carnibus, 29, 146 De flatibus, 228 De natura hominis, 48, 117 Hirai, Hiro, 30, 51, 147, 178, 241 Huarte, Juan de San Juan, 27–28, 76, 78, 101–102, 104, 119–136, 144, 146–147, 157–158, 165, 170, 180, 182–183, 191, 258

Examen de Ingenios, 28, 101, 104, 119–121, 123, 129–130, 132–134, 191 Huarte, Luis, 130 Ingegno, Alfonso, 165–166 Iriarte, Mauricio, 119, 124 Jardine, Nick, 270 Jöcher, Gottlieb Christian, 212 Jones, William Henry Samuel, 238 Jordanus, Thomas, 86–87 Joutsivuo, Timo, 235 Kant, Immanuel, 223 Kaplan, Steven, 270 Kaye, James, 228 Ketham, Johannes de, 41 Fasciculum Medicinae, 41 Klibansky, Raymond, 137 Koyré, Alexander, 273–276, 282 Kraus, Paul, 108 Kraye, Jill, 190 Kristeller, Paul Oskar, 62, 137 Kudlien, Fridolf, 227 Kuhn, Thomas, 271–275, 280, 282 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 271, 273 LaCapra, Dominick, 270 Lando, Ortensio, 170 Laurenza, Gaetano, 41 Lèfevre, Wolfgang, 226 Liceti, Fortunio, 161, 275 Linnaeus, Carl, 276 Liruti, Giuseppe, 170–171 Lohr, Charles H., 75 Luisini, Luigi, 27, 57–58, 97–98, 100–101, 104 De compescendis animi affectibus, 97–98, 100 Lupi, Walter F., 134 Maclean, Ian, 65, 114, 139, 225, 235, 258 MacMahon, Darrin, 270 Manuli, Paola, 29, 46, 85

363

INDEX OF NAMES AND TITLES

Manuzio, Aldo (heirs of), 28, 35– 36, 47 Manzoni, Tullio, 68, 73 Marinelli, Curzio, 219–220 De morbis nobilioris animae facultatibus obsidentibus, 219 Marta, Giacomo Antonio, 184– 185 Pugnaculum Aristotelis, 184 Martinioni, Giustiniano, 170 Marullus, 37 Massaria, Alessandro, 170, 176 Mattock, John N., 108 Mercenario, Arcangelo, 190 Mersenne, Marin, 262, 266 Mikkeli, Heikki, 65 Mondeville, Henri de, 124 Cyrurgia, 124 Mondini, Mondino, 176 Ad disputationem de genitura additamentum apologeticum, 176 De genitura pro Galenicis adversus Aristotelicos, 176 Moraux, Paul, 45, 51, 57 Mothu, Alain, 167, 169 Moyn, Samuel, 270 Mulsow, Martin, 155–156, 162 Nancel, Nicholas de, 78–80, 84, 141, 258–259 Analogia microcosmi ad macrocosmon, 78 De immortalitate animae, 78, 259 Quaestiones, 78, 80 Nardi, Bruno, 62, 179 Naudé, Gabriel, 97, 171, 201 Nutton, Vivian, 29–30, 47, 107 O’Malley, Charles Donald, 67 Olivieri, Luigi, 65 Omodeo, Pietro Daniel, 30 Ongaro, Giuseppe, 70 Oresme, Nichole, 235 Oribasius, 36–37 Orsini, Flavio, 160

Pagallo, Giulio, 58 Pagel, Walter, 29, 68, 76–77 Panofsky, Erwin, 137 Paterno, Bernardino, 170 Patrizi, Francesco, 178 Discussiones Peripateticae, 178 Pendasio, Federico, 190, 201 Perler, Dominik, 286 Persio, Antonio, 139–144, 147, 149 Apologia pro Bernardino Telesio, 159 Trattato dell’ingegno dell’huomo, 139, 142–143 Persona, Giovanni Battista, 124, 131–132, 196, 208, 211–219, 221 In Galeni librum Quod animi mores commentarius, 211– 212, 214, 219 Petit, Pierre, 117 Peucer, Caspard, 118 Commentarius de praecipuis divinationum generibus, 118 Philip II of Spain, 119 Philoponus, John, 243 Piazzoni, Francesco, 69 Piccolomini, Francesco Carli, 27, 51, 60, 108, 190–202, 208, 211– 212, 221 Istitutione del Principe, 190 Quaestio An Galenus negaverit materiam, 51 Universa philosophia de moribus, 51, 190–193, 195, 202 Pietrobelli, Antoine, 29, 107 Pitré, Giuseppe, 80 Plater, Felix, 67, 219 Praxeos seu de cognoscendis, praedicendis et curandi affectus, 219 Plato, 29, 47, 76, 96, 108–112, 134, 144, 177, 205 Phaedo, 112 Respublica, 109, 134 Symposium, 112 Timaeus, 85, 112

364

INDEX OF NAMES AND TITLES

Plempius, Vopiscus Fortunatus, 254, 258–259, 262, 266 Pluta, Olaf, 62 Pomponazzi, Pietro, 62–63, 136, 159, 179 De anima, 62 Tractatus acutissimi, utillimi et mere peripatetici, 63 Popper, Karl, 281 Poppi, Antonino, 65, 225 Porzio, Simone, 51, 62–63 An homo bonus vel malus volens fiat disputatio, 63 De humana mente, 63 Possevino, Antonio, 132 Coltura degl’ingegni, 132 Pouchelle, Marie-Christine, 124 Procopio, Marco, 226 Protospatharius, Theophilus, 36 Epitome, 36 Pseudo-Aristotle, 97, 119 Physiognomica, 119 Problema XXX, 97, 119 Pseudo-Galen Anatomia (15th century), 41 De iuvamentis membrorum, 35–36, 41 Puccinotti, Francesco, 271 Ramus, Petrus (Pierre de la Ramée), 78 Randall, John Herman, 137, 225, 286 Read, Malcon K., 119 Reisch, Gregor, 76 Margarita Philosophica, 76 Rinaldi, Massimo, 171, 182 Risse, Wilhelm, 65 Rocca, Julius, 68, 73, 77 Rogliano, Plinio, 158 Rostand, Jean, 253 Rudio, Eustachio, 27–28, 70, 73, 86–88, 91, 108, 169–172, 174– 183, 210, 261 De morbo Gallico, 176 De naturali atque morbosa cordis constitutione, 171, 175

De peste maligna, 170 De pulsibus libri duo, 170 De virtutibus et viciis cordibus, 170, 181 Liber de anima, 70, 169–174, 177–178, 182, 261 Salino, Bernardino, 211 Sanders, John Bertrand deCusance Morant, 67 Sansovino, Francesco, 170 Santori, Santorio, 24, 26, 34, 162, 184, 190, 210, 220–221, 225– 251, 253, 264, 275–277, 280 Commentaria in Artem medicinalem Galeni, 210 Commentaria in primam Fen primi libri Canonis Avicennae, 231, 234 De remediorum inventione, 251 Medicina Statica, 227, 231– 232, 238 Methodi vitandorum errorum omnium, 227–228, 236, 239–248 Santorio. See: Santori Sanz, Rodrigo, 134 Savino, Christina, 212 Saxl, Fritz, 137 Schleiner, Winfried, 130 Schuhmann, Karl, 159 Schuyl, Florent, 258–259 Sherwood Taylor, Frank, 167 Siegel, Rudolph E., 68, 89 Simon, Max, 36 Singer, Charles, 29, 34 Singer, Peter N., 29, 108, 118 Siraisi, Nancy, 43, 90, 226 Skinner, Quentin, 270 Spoerhase, Carlos, 270 Sprengel, Kurt, 271 Spruit, Leen, 154 Stabile, Giorgio, 34, 243 Stevens, Scott Manning, 66, 78 Suárez, Francisco, 59, 75

365

INDEX OF NAMES AND TITLES

Telesio, Bernardino, 26–30, 51, 91, 132, 137, 139, 141–142, 144, 147, 149–152, 154–167, 169, 178, 180, 182–184, 252–253, 260 De rerum natura iuxta propria principia, 139, 144, 149, 154, 158, 160–161, 163–164, 166, 178 De rigoris aestusque, 149 De somno, 139, 149, 158 Quae et quomodo febres faciunt, 149 Quod animal universum, 29, 139, 149, 151, 156, 158 Varii de naturalibus rebus libelli, 149–150 Temkin, Owsei, 29, 46, 149, 277 Toews, John, 270 Toledo, Francisco de, 74–75 Vallés, Francisco, 117 Varolio, Costanzo, 67 De nervis opticis, 67 Vegetti, Mario, 29, 46, 85, 107 Vesalius, Andreas, 28, 35, 38–41,

43–44, 67, 69, 138, 252, 275– 276 De humani corporis fabrica, 38–39, 43–44 Epitome (De humani corporis fabrica epitome), 41 Tabulae anatomicae sex, 39 Von Staden, Heinrich, 55 Walker, Daniel, 67, 138 Wallace, William A., 65, 225 Walzer, Richard, 108, 117 Zabarella, Jacopo, 58, 65, 154, 227 De methodis, 65 De naturalibus rebus libri XXX, 65 Zara, Antonio, 132–133 Anatomia ingeniorum et scientiarum, 133 Zecchinelli, Giovanni Maria, 170– 171, 175, 178 Delle dottrine sulla struttura del cuore, 170–171 Zipser, Barbara, 30

366