Background
Gian Giacomo Bartolotti was born in 1470 in Parma, Italy. He came from a family of doctors. His father, Pellegrino, was competent in both pharmacy and surgery.
the University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
Gian Giacomo studied philosophy and medicine at the University of Bologna.
the University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy
Gian Giacomo studied philosophy and medicine at the University of Ferrara.
Portrait of Gian Giacomo Bartolotti, circa 1656-1660. The Trustees of the British Museum.
philosopher physician scientist scholars
Gian Giacomo Bartolotti was born in 1470 in Parma, Italy. He came from a family of doctors. His father, Pellegrino, was competent in both pharmacy and surgery.
Gian Giacomo studied philosophy and medicine at the universities of Bologna and Ferrara; at the latter, he was a pupil of Antonio Cittadini and of Sebastiano Dell’Aquila, both of secondary importance in the medical ranks of Ferrara. He was there in 1494, among those who witnessed the conferring of degrees, and in 1497 he attended an anatomical dissection.
Although not included on the list of professors holding regular appointments at Ferrara, Gian Giacomo was assigned in 1498 to teach a course on the fourth “fen” of the first book of the Canon of Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna). He prefaced the course with a series of historical lessons that he also used as an introduction to his Opusculum de antiquitate medicinae. Toward the close of the century he was practicing medicine, and in the early sixteenth century he was doing so at Venice.