title of “il Magnifico.” Lorenzo’s son, Piero, was expelled
from Florence (1494), but the family was restored in
- After the second expulsion of the Medici (1527–30)
Pope Clement VII installed Alessandro (died 1537), the
illegitimate son of his second cousin Lorenzo (died 1519),
as duke of Florence. After Alessandro’s assassination a
junior branch of the family, headed by COSIMO I(1519–
74), established a dynasty of grand dukes of Tuscany
(ruled 1569–1737).
Further reading: Janet Cox-Rearick, Dynasty and Des-
tiny in Medici Art: Pontormo, Leo X and the two Cosimos
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984);
Richard Fremantle, God and Money, Florence and the Medici
in the Renaissance (Florence, Italy: Olschki, 1992); John R.
Hale, Florence and the Medici: The Pattern of Control (Lon-
don: Thames & Hudson, 1977); Christopher Hibbert, The
House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall (Harmondsworth: Pen-
guin, 1974; new ed. Perennial, 1999); Nicolai Rubinstein,
The Government of Florence under the Medici (1434 to
- (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1966).
medicine Renaissance medicine inherited an erroneous
but well-worked-out and comprehensive theory of dis-
ease. Formulated in antiquity by Hippocrates and devel-
oped by Galen (see GALENISM, RENAISSANCE), it assumed
that man was compounded from four elements (fire,
earth, water, and air) which, in turn, revealed themselves
as the four humors: yellow bile (bilious or choleric), black
bile (melancholic), phlegm (phlegmatic), and blood (san-
guine). Any imbalance between the four humors, whether
caused by diet, meteorological factors, or other condi-
tions, led to sickness. The physicians’ task was to restore
the initial harmony that once existed between the humors
in a person’s constitution.
While the theory itself found widespread support
among Renaissance physicians, there was still consider-
able disagreement about how best to treat an illness. Tra-
ditionalists aimed to conform to Hippocratic practice by
treating disease conservatively with diet, rest, and simple
herbal medicines. Such moderate therapies proved of little
value against the spread of bubonic PLAGUEin the 14th
century and the introduction of syphilis into Europe a
century later. The failure of traditional remedies against
savage epidemics of this kind invited competition from a
growing number of alternative therapies. The most promi-
nent of these was linked with the name of PARACELSUS,
who saw disease as a specific rather than a general condi-
tion. It was, further, analyzable in chemical terms. Thus,
whereas traditional physicians had argued that contraries
cure, the Paracelsians turned from bland and harmless
vegetables to powerful poisons. Syphilis was treated by the
traditionalists with guaiac wood; the Paracelsians tackled
it with mercury and antimony. The debate continued for
much of the 16th century, with the Paracelsians being ac-
cused of using lethal poisons and the traditionalists being
pilloried as ineffective. A third tradition, linked with the
name of FRACASTORO, argued that disease was caused and
spread by specific contagious seminaria. While explaining
much, there were too many obvious objections to theories
of contagion to make them at all plausible. If the plague
was contagious, why did some members of a household
survive, despite frequent contact with their infected kin?
Furthermore, talk of invisible seminaria accorded badly
with a growing scientific reluctance to accept supposedly
occult qualities as causes.
Not all patients, however, needed the services of a
physician. Frequent wars, fought increasingly with ar-
tillery and firearms, had added to the calls made upon sur-
geons. Although they were incorporated by a royal charter
in England in 1540 their status remained low; ignorant of
Latin, and summoned only in the direst emergency, they
could not compete in status with the learned graduates of
Oxford and Padua who ran the College of Physicians.
Consequently, while Henry VIII’s physician received a
salary of £126.13s.4d., his surgeon had to be satisfied with
£26.13s.4d. a year.
Whether surgeons or physicians, Renaissance doctors
had little power to help their patients. With a neo-natal
mortality of over 30 per cent and with a life expectancy at
birth of under 40, the quality of the average European’s life
was little affected by the medical profession, especially as
physicians were few and expensive enough to place them
beyond the reach of the bulk of the population. As a re-
sult, most people consulted herbalists, empirics, sorcerers,
and anyone with a reputation for healing. Such practition-
ers worked well outside any tradition developed by
Hippocrates and Paracelsus. The greatest failure of Re-
naissance medicine, however, was to ignore problems of
public health. While the small populations of antiquity
could escape such indifference, the growing urban con-
centrations of Renaissance states did so at their peril.
See also: ANATOMY; IATROCHEMISTRY; PHARMACOPOEIA;
PLAGUE
Further reading: Carlo M. Cipolla, Public Health and
the Medical Profession in the Renaissance (Cambridge, U.K.:
Cambridge University Press, 1976); Margaret Pelling,
Medical Conflicts in Early Modern London: Patronage,
Physicians, and Irregular Practitioners 1550–1640 (Oxford,
U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2003); Nancy G. Siraisi,
Medicine and the Italian Universities, 1250–1600 (Leyden,
Netherlands: Brill, 2001).Meistergesang A form of sung poetry that developed in
Germany during the 14th and 15th centuries and flour-
ished in the 16th. It was performed solo by members of
guilds of Meistersinger (mastersingers), according to strict
rules of versification and music. At first religious but later
also secular, it developed out of the medieval courtly song
(Minnesang) as the practice of poetry and music became a
form of relaxation for members of the urban trade guilds.33110 0 mmeeddiicciinnee