Forbidden Knowledge: Medicine, Science, and Censorship in Early Modern Italy

368 Pages·2020·14.485 MB·English

by  Hannah Marcus

Forbidden Knowledge

Forbidden Knowledge
Medicine, Science, and Censorship
in Early Modern Italy
Hannah Marcus
the university of chicago press
chicago and london
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2020 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations
in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of
Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637.
Published 2020
Printed in the United States of America
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isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 73658- 7 (cloth)
isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 73661- 7 (e-b ook)
DOI: https://d oi. org/ 10 .7208/ chicago/ 9780226736617 .001 .0001
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Marcus, Hannah (Historian of science), author.
Title: Forbidden knowledge : medicine, science, and censorship in early modern
Italy / Hannah Marcus.
Description: Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifi ers: LCCN 2020008837 | ISBN 9780226736587 (cloth) | ISBN 9780226736617
(e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Science—Censorship—Italy. | Medicine—Censorship—Italy. |
Libraries—Censorship—Italy. | Censorship—Italy—History.
Classifi cation: LCC Z658.I8 M373 2020 | DDC 363.310945—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020008837
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48- 1992 (Permanence
of Paper).
This book is dedicated to Morgan MacLeod
with my deepest gratitude.

Contents
List of Figures ix
Introduction: The Paradox of Censorship 1
1. The Medical Republic of Letters and the Roman
Indexes of Prohibited Books 25
2. Locating Expertise, Soliciting Expurgations 51
3. The Censor at Work 78
4. Censoring Medicine in Rome’s Index Expurgatorius of 1607 96
5. Prohibited Medical Books and Licensed Readers 131
6. Creating Censored Objects 167
7. Prohibited Books in Universal Libraries 199
Epilogue 226
Acknowledgments 237
Appendix 241
Notes 243
Bibliography 311
Index 345
vii

Figures
Jacket illustration: A censored page from Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus, Opera
(Venice, 1547). The George Peabody Library, The Sheridan Libraries, Johns
Hopkins University.
I.1 Expurgated page from Paschal Le Coq, Bibliotheca medica (Basel, 1590),
425, BH MED 96, Biblioteca Histórica de la Universidad Complutense de
Madrid. 3
1.1 Melchior Wieland’s marginalia in Pietro Andrea Mattioli, Epistolarum
medicinalium libri quinque (Prague, 1561), 163, at the Biblioteca Nazionale
Marciana, Venice, 18.D.20. With permission from the Ministero per i Beni
e le Attività Culturali—Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana. Reproduction pro-
hibited. 30
1.2 List of the “most useful and ne cessary authors in medicine,” Archivio
di Stato di Bologna, Studio, busta 353a, f. 1r. With permission from the
Archivio di Stato di Bologna and the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage
and Tourism. 39
2.1 Expurgated page from Conrad Gessner, Historiae animalium (Zurich, 1551),
a[1]r. Call number 55.8.l.1, vol. 1. Reproduced with permission from the
Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma. 55
2.2 The new façade of Palazzo del Bo. From Gymnasium patavinum Giacomo
Filippo Tomasini (1654). Courtesy of Wellcome Library, London. 60
3.1 Girolamo Rossi’s self-censorship. BCRa, Mob. 3. 1 B, n. 4, f. 405r. Repro-
duced with permission from the Instituzione Biblioteca Classense,
Ravenna. 91
4.1 Title page of Giovanni Maria Guanzelli da Brisighella, Index librorum pro-
hibitorum . . . (Rome, 1607). Call number *KB 1607 Index librorum prohibi-
torum. Rare Book Collection. The New York Public Library. Astor, Lenox,
Tilden Foundations. 100
ix
x Figures
4.2 Girolamo Rossi’s draft expurgations. BCRa, Mob. 3.1 B, n. 3, f. 319v.
Reproduced with permission from the Instituzione Biblioteca Classense,
Ravenna. 108
5.1 Reading license granted to Cosimo Ridolfi . MSS gen 25, item 7, Thomas
Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto. 135
5.2 Censored copy of Leonhart Fuchs, De historia stirpium (Lyon, 1555),
Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard University 137
5.3 Total License Requests, 1559–1664 139
5.4 License Request Locations by Qualifi cation 140
5.5 Licenses Requested by Medical Professionals 141
5.6 Pietro Paolini, Doppio ritratto con Stefano Coli. Marco Voena collection,
Turin. 151
5.7 List of books for which Girolamo Coli requested a reading license. ACDF,
Index IX, f. 344–45. Reproduced with permission from the Archive of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Vatican City. 153
5.8 Subjects Requested in Physicians’ Licenses 156
5.9 Requests for Authors Dealing with Chemical Medicine 159
6.1 Expurgated copy of Leonhart Fuchs, Libri IIII, difficilium aliquot quaes-
tionum (Basel, 1540). BAV, call number RG Medicina IV.3824 (int.1). © 2020
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. 170
6.2 Censored copy of Erasmus’s Latin translation of the Greek New Testa-
ment. Uncatalogued. Courtesy of the Biblioteca Comunale Manfrediana
in Faenza. 173
6.3 Expurgated copy of Janus Cornarius, Hippocratis opera (Basel, 1546). BCMF,
CINQ.004.002.014. Courtesy of the Biblioteca Comunale Manfrediana in
Faenza. 174
6.4 Fresco depicting the burning of the Arian books in the Salone Sistino of the
Vatican Library. © 2020 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. 178
6.5 Expurgated title page of Otto Brunfels, Herbarum vivae eicones (Strasbourg,
1532). BCMF, call number CINQ.004.003.013. Courtesy of the Biblioteca
Comunale Manfrediana in Faenza. 180
6.6 Expurgation indicated by a small stub of the excised page. Thomas Eras-
tus, Disputationum de noua Philippi Paracelsi medicina pars tertia . . .
(Basel, 1572). BSVP, call number 500.ROSSA.SUP.C.6.-43.3. Reproduced
with permission from the Biblioteca Antica del Seminario Vescovile di
Padova. 181
6.7 Two expurgated bindings. Reproduced with permission from the Ministero
per i Beni e le Attività Culturali e per il Turismo and the Biblioteca Univer-
sitaria di Padova. 182