Taddeo Alderotti, c. 1223-1295, Italian physician.
Taddeo Alderotti, c. 1223-1295, Italian physician.
University of Bologna – SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AND SURGERY, Institute established: 1088, Bologna, Italy.
Alderotti`s distillation manual.
Alderotti`s wonderful book, a medical alchemical and Viticultural summary, incorporating Hermes, the transmutation of metals, Taddeo Alderotti, the virtues and Arnaud from Villanova letter from human blood, illuminated manuscript on vellum.
Taddeo Alderotti, c. 1223-1295, Italian physician.
University of Bologna – SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AND SURGERY, Institute established: 1088, Bologna, Italy.
Alderotti`s wonderful book, a medical alchemical and Viticultural summary, incorporating Hermes, the transmutation of metals, Taddeo Alderotti, the virtues and Arnaud from Villanova letter from human blood, illuminated manuscript on vellum.
Alderotti`s distillation manual.
From the Medieval manuscript, doctor treating a patient.
Pope Honorius IV (c. 1210 – 3 April 1287), born Giacomo Savelli, was Pope from 2 April 1285 to his death in 1287. During his pontificate he largely continued to pursue the pro-French political policy of his predecessor, Pope Martin IV.
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https://www.amazon.com/Libello-Conservare-Sanit%C3%A0-Ricetta-Inedita/dp/0260898600/?tag=2022091-20
medicine physician scholars Logic
Taddeo Alderotti, also known as Thaddaeus Florentinus, was born around 1223 in Florence, Italy to a modest Florentine family. Biographical information about Alderotti is for the most part based on references to himself in his writings. From these it is known that he was born and brought up in extreme poverty and was an adult before he began his education.
Taddeo Alderotti received his primary education in Florence and made rapid progress in his studies.
Once started on his studies at Bologna, however, he made rapid progress, and within a few years (ca. 1260) he was teaching at the university as a professor of medicine, Alderotti quickly gained a reputation as an excellent teacher and commanded large crowds of students. His courses relied on the works of Hippocrates, Galen, and Avicenna, which had been given a position of authority since Constantine the African brought these over from north Africa in the 11th century and translated them. Indeed, he was one of the founders of medical study at Bologna and was held in such esteem in the city that he was accorded citizenship in 1289.
In his commentaries on the works of Hippocrates, Galen, Hunayn ibn Ishaq, Avicenna, and others, Alderotti utilized the translations of Burgundio of Pisa in preference to those of Constantine the African. He is unique in that he urged his readers to read the original as well as his commentary. At the same time he encouraged more and better translations of classical and Arabic works.
Alderotti’s commentaries on various classical and Islamic writers established the dialectical method of teaching in the medical school, a method that was used until the sixteenth century. He also developed a new form of medical literature, the Consilia, a collection of clinical cases with advice on how to treat them.
Besides being a teacher of medicine, Alderotti was a well-known and successful practitioner; Pope Honorius IV was one of his patients. The extent of his reputation is attested to by the fact that he is mentioned by Dante in Paradiso, XII, 83. The students Alderotti taught during his tenure as professor would become some of the best doctors and professors of the next generation. His pupils included such persons as Bartolomeo da Varignana, Henri de Mondeville, and Mondino dei Luzzi.
In his religious affiliation Taddeo Alderotti was a Roman Catholic. In his last will he left his library of medical and philosophical books to the Franciscans and the Servites, and his body was laid to rest in the Franciscan church.
A brilliant teacher and a skilled medical practitioner, Taddeo was also well versed in philosophy. He held that medicine derived its principles from (and was there a subdivision of) natural science, and thus natural science and logic were a necessary foundation for the study of medicine. Alderotti's model, and like Hippocrates he sought causes for illness in science rather than religion—a revolutionary idea in the thirteenth century. He also reintroduced Hippocrates' practice of teaching medicine at the patient's bedside.
Taddeo was largely responsible for taking medical education out of dusty translations of ancient texts and into the sickroom, teaching at the patient's bedside. He believed in taking a patient's medical history. He advocated a scholastic and dialectical approach to medical teaching, and his methods to a large extent shaped medical education at Bologna, a curriculum which was in its infancy at the time he arrived there.
Alderotti got wildly excited about the medicinal benefits of distilled alcohol, including its use as an antiseptic, which to the modern mind seems like good sense indeed. However, if you were his patient and you were suffering from epilepsy, his prescription might have been a concoction of burned human bones, wine, and peony juice, along with pills which included the gallbladder of a beaver and bear's testicles. If that didn't appeal, you could try an alternative: the liver of a wolf, burned and powdered asses' hooves, and the blood of a tortoise.
Quotations:
Taddeo on distillation:
"Its glory is inestimable; it is the parent and lord of all medicines, and its effects are marvelous against all cold affections."
Here's his recipe against melancholy and sadness:
"A half spoonful (of aqua vitae) every morning, taken on an empty stomach, together with a small dipper of fragrant wine, makes a man glad, merry, and happy, and strengthens all the animal virtues against all thick and turbid spirits."
Taddeo Alderotti had a reputation for charging very high fees at the University. By the time of his death in 1295, he became a rich man. His last will and testament indicates that his medical practice, his lecture, and his investments had paid off handsomely.
It appears that he may have suffered some incapacitation in the last couple of years of his life, during which time he quarreled bitterly with one of his students (see Students, below). He may have grown "manipulative and suspicious" in those years, as historian Nancy Siraisi surmises based on his numerous wills and the secrecy with which he surrounded his final will.
Quotes from others about the person
Alderotti`s talent for making money earned him a mention by Dante, who in his Paradiso 12:82-85, put these words into the mouth of Saint Bonaventura, speaking of Saint Dominic:
"Non per lo mondo, per cui mo s'affanna di retro ad Ostiense ed a Taddeo, ma per amor della verace manna
in picciol tempo gran dottor si feo...
Not for the world, for whose sake they labor now, following the man from Ostia and Taddeo, but for love of the true manna,
in short time he became a great teacher..." (trans. Robert M. Durling)
Alderotti's wife, Adela, came from a Florentine family; they were wed in 1274 (when he was somewhere between 51 and 68). They had a daughter, Mina, born around 1280, who married into the prominent Pulci family in Florence, bringing with her a sumptuous dowry of 1000 gold florins. Taddeo also had a natural son, Taddeolo, who he legitimated in 1290.
Pope Honorius IV, born Giacomo Savelli, held the papacy for only two years. Born in 1210 in Rome, he died in 1287. Even at the point where he became pope, gout had incapacitated him, and he was unable to stand or to walk. Thus, when Taddeo was called to come to Rome and treat the ailing pope during what proved to be his final illness, no one would necessarily have expected a miraculous cure; the pope's health had been too poor for too long. Taddeo went, and he commanded the princely sum of 100 ducats a day for his services. My source says he eventually walked away with 10,000 ducats, a huge amount of money, so he must have been in attendance on the pope for 100 days. Although Taddeo was probably not the only physician summoned, it was a signal honor to be called.
c. 1300-c. 1310 He was a pupil of Taddeo Alderotti and later became an Italian physician and pioneer in forensic pathology. In Bologna in 1302, Varignana performed the first medico-legal autopsy—that is, an autopsy conducted for the purpose of obtaining information regarding a crime. He was later appointed to the faculty of the University of Perugia after the latter was founded in 1308.
