[Sca-cooks] Thoughts on food as medicine

[Raphaella DiContini]

Thank you Johnnae! I wish I had your skill at finding hard to get sources!

My focus is really more on the Italian, but I have been searching further afield 
to try to get the broadest base of information possible before I narrow it down 
so I'm not relying on just 1-2 sources. I've been looking at information from 
other sources (i.e. not just Italian) in hopes of seeing if medical 
recommendations were spread much like the blatant copying of recipes/ cookbooks 
that happend at this time. 

 
 I actually found "Who goes drunk to bed begets but a girl": The history of a 
Renaissance medical proverb- online Monday and read it on the bus ride home. 
It's also mostly focused on the English, but provides some interesting back 
ground and succinct summation of Aristotelianism, vs. Hippocratic theory and how 
Galen straddles the two (mostly leaning towards Aristotelianism, except for 
being more in line with Hippocrates’s two-seed theory of procreation). I found 
it amusing, and It's definitely worth a read. 

 
If by any chance you might know where I can get my hands on the 1593 Obstetrics 
textbook, La commare o raccoglitrice I would be extremely and eternally 
grateful, or electronic versions of any of the many health manuals printed in 
Italy1400-1600. I'd love to get my hands on a copy of Luigi Belloni's edition of 
Michele Savanarola, Gioberti, Marinello, or Mecurio. 

 
I've found some great books, but most of them just lightly touch on a small 
aspect of what I'm looking at. I bought myself a bunch of related books as a 
holiday gift.  
 
Here's my current reading list: 
 The Medical Renaissance of the 16th Century, Marriage Wars in Late Renaissance 
Venice, Collected Letters of Renaissance Feminists, Women in the Streets (Essays 
on Sex and Power in Renaissance Italy), Women, Family and Ritual in Renaissance 
Italy, Women and Men in Renaissance Venice (Twelve Essays on Patrician Society), 
and The Renaissance Man and His Children (Childbirth and Early Childhood in 
Florence 1300-1600), the Boundaries of Eros (Sex Crime & Sexuality in 
Renaissance Venice). 

 
I had also found a bunch of interesting articles, several of which I've written 
reviews for, if anyone is ineterested, this is just a small selection. 

The fate of popular terms for female anatomy in the age of 
print:  http://www.jstor.org/stable/286711
http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/286711.pdf?acceptTC=true
Anatomizing the past: Physicians and History in Renaissance Culture:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2901531
Science and humanism in the Italian Renaissance: 
http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1852869.pdf?acceptTC=true
Theory, Everyday Practice and Three Fifteenth Century Physicians: 
http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/301784.pdf
Medieval Women's Guides to Food During Pregnancy: Origins, Texts, and Traditions 
http://journaldev.cbmh.ca/index.php/cbmh/article/viewFile/292/291
and this, The Sources of Eucharius Rösslin's ‘Rosegarden for Pregnant Women and 
Midwives' (1513)  
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2668903/pdf/medhis5302-01-167.pdf

The book that started this field of study for me is "How to Do It - Guides to 
Good Living for Renaissance Italians" by Rudolph M. Bell and I can't  recommend 
it enough. It's packed full of fantastic information and I think it's lively 
enough for even non-scholars to be kept interested. 

 
In joyous service, 
Raffaella 
 


________________________________
From: Johnna Holloway johnnae at mac.com