Forgotten healers : women and the pursuit of health in Late Renaissance Italy /

This study examines the substantial role that women played in health care in Renaissance Florence between 1500 and 1630. Strocchia (Emory Univ.) begins by describing how noble women, including Medici duchesses, were medically knowledgeable and took control of much of the court's health care. She then leads the reader through the important functions that other lay women, nuns, and nurses maintained in Florence, with comparisons to other parts of Europe. The most original chapter describes nuns who owned and operated at least nine major pharmacies in the city. They acquired raw materials from abroad or grew them in their gardens using original techniques (e.g., forcing potted plants to bloom out of season); manufactured unguents and medicines in their workshops; and sold a variety of medicines and wellness products to the public, earning profits that kept religious orders in the black. Another chapter describes a syphilis hospital run by women who pledged their lives to nursing at a young age; one of them even managed the hospital. Based on extensive archival research and a wide reading of secondary literature, this clearly written book demonstrates that women played a large role in Italian Renaissance health care. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels. --Paul F. Grendler, emeritus, University of Toronto