The relationship between philosophy and medicine in the Middle Ages is an emerging area of research for both historians of science and historians of philosophy. However, within this new field of study, the 15th century remains largely terra ignota. The few existing studies generally focus on the University of Padua. The aim of this project is to challenge this view of the 15th century, by showing 1) that there was a vast body of philosophico-medical literature at this time, particularly in Italy, which was not confined to the famous "Padua School"; 2) that these texts, largely unpublished, have never been exhaustively catalogued or recorded; 3) that the protagonists of this thinking on the frontier between medicine and philosophy challenge traditional historiographical categories, such as the distinction between Scholasticism and Humanism, or between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance; 4) that from the point of view of the history of science, reflections critical of the authorities (of the Church, but also of philosophy) are to be found throughout northern Italy, in Bologna, Perugia, Ferrara, Florence and above all Pavia, the place on which we would particularly like to work as part of this project. Ultimately, the project should cover the whole of Europe, but in the two years of this project, we will be concentrating on the Italian case, which is already extremely rich and central to understanding the evolution of these issues in Europe.
Coordinator:
Aurélien Robert
