ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Stones, Remedies, and Revolutions: Ulisse Aldrovandi Between Lapidaries and Paracelsianism

• In Event: UNEARTHED II: Res inanimatae in Late Medieval and Early Modern Medicine

English Abstract

The Bolognese naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi assembled one of the most extensive and remarkable collections of res inanimatae in the early modern period. His museum housed thousands of stones, gems, rocks, and minerals. Beyond reflecting his personal fascination with the materiality of the mineral world, res inanimatae and fossilia also played an important role in contemporary medical teaching and practice. The fifth book of Dioscorides’s Materia medica—which Aldrovandi taught at several points throughout his long career—included descriptions and therapeutic uses of more than ninety such substances. Drawing on Aldrovandi’s substantial manuscript legacy and on the printed works available in his library, the first part of my paper examines his sustained engagement with the teaching and investigation of res inanimatae, his understanding and practice of alchemical and lapidary medicine, and the extent to which Paracelsian ideas appear (or fail to appear) in his manuscripts and in his correspondence with physicians, apothecaries, and alchemists in Italy and beyond. In the rest of the paper I situate Aldrovandi’s interest in lapidary and mineral medicine within the broader intellectual and medical landscape of northern Italy (especially in the Emilia-Romagna region), and within the wider use of res inanimatae in early modern pharmacy and medical care.

Author

• Monica Azzolini, University of Bologna