Tag Archives: Christianity

Santa Margherita da Cortona

April 17, 2023

Susan Brunn Puett J. David Puett Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States   Fig 1. Plaque on Porta Berarda commemorating Margherita and son’s entrance into Cortona. Photo by Sailko on Wikimedia. CC BY 3.0. From humble beginnings to years as a mistress, Margherita altered her path to become a tertiary Franciscan penitent, attending the ill […]

Can headless martyrs really walk? The belief in cephalophores in the Middle Ages

March 30, 2023

Andrew Wodrich Washington, DC   Saint Denis of Paris holding his severed head. Mid-15th century depiction from an illuminated prayer book (Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Ms. 5, fol. 35v, 84.ML.723.35v). The halos surrounding his decapitated head as well as the stump of his neck suggest that the soul and saintliness of St. Denis remain in […]

Dr. David Hartley and the benevolent AI

February 23, 2023

Erik Anderson Houston, Texas   Leftmost image: Portrait of David Hartley by Schakelton. National Library of Medicine. Public domain. Right images: AI-generated art of David Hartley, created with Night Café on February 2, 2023, using text prompts (e.g., “David Hartley physician and philosopher”) and/or the portrait of David Hartley as inputs. Fair use. Question posed […]

And for unto us… Medicine, Messiah, and Christmas

November 10, 2022

Desmond O’Neill Dublin, Ireland   Program cover for Handel and Haydn Society concert of December 25, 1815. Courtesy of the Handel and Haydn Society Archives. Although the very first performance of the Messiah took place in April 1742 in Dublin with the London première following in March 1743, the oratorio is closely associated with the […]

The wounds of Christ and Prometheus – two of a kind?

March 15, 2022

Julia van Rosmalen Thomas van Gulik Amsterdam, Netherlands   Fig. 1. Peter Paul Rubens, Prometheus Bound, 1611-1612. The eagle has buried its claws into the face and leg of Prometheus and uses its beak to tear out part of his liver that it has extracted through the right side of his chest. In the lower […]

Emblems and psychological medicine on the Sutton Hoo purse

March 29, 2021

Stephen Martin Durham, England, and Thailand   The recent film The Dig1 has brought into the wider public eye the story of an Anglo-Saxon ship burial.2 The burial mound, at Sutton Hoo, in Sussex, England,3,4 contained a high-status figure, almost certainly Royal. The most expensive of the grave goods5 are high-craftsmanship gold, set with very […]

Faith and patron saints during the Black Death

June 2, 2020

Mariella Scerri Mellieha, Malta   Saint Roch. 1502. Francesco Francia.  Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public Domain.  The Black Death of 1348 was the greatest biomedical disaster in European history. Although it was not the first plague epidemic, the Black Death swept through Europe, killing millions indiscriminately and affecting society like no other natural calamity.1 Attempts to understand the […]

Science versus religion: the medieval disenchantment

April 14, 2020

JMS Pearce Hull, England   Fig 1. An engraving showing a monopod or sclapod, a female Cyclops, conjoined twins, a blemmye, and a cynocephali. By Sebastian Münster 1544. Source History is a novel whose author is the people. -Alfred de Vigny (1797-1863)   In medieval times, knowledge, beliefs, and faith were largely centered upon a […]

We are all hospitalized (metaphorically speaking)

September 26, 2019

F. Gonzalez-Crussi Chicago, Illinois, United States   Figure 1. Right section of an etching titled Infirmus eram et visitastis me: (“I was sick and you visited me,” quoted from Matthew 25:36), sometimes attributed to Cornelius Galle. The left section (not shown) has Jesus Christ overseeing the hospital visit. Among the many species of adversity that unavoidably […]

John Calvin: his rule in Geneva and his many illnesses

May 28, 2019

At the age of twenty-three the great French religious reformer abandoned his Catholic faith, becoming in time the founder of one of the most important branches of Protestantism. During his life he wrote numerous tracts on various aspects of religion, notably emphasizing predestination and the supremacy of the Trinity, and advocating a simpler and more […]