Tag: Medici
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Medicean optics: an analysis of Raffaello’s Portrait of Pope Leo X and Two Cardinals
Vincent P. de Luise New Haven, Connecticut, United States Portrait of Pope Leo X (Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ Medici) and his cousins, the cardinals Giulio de’ Medici and Luigi de’ Rossi. Raffaello Sanzio (Raphael). oil on panel 154 cm x 119 cm (61 in. x 49 in). 1518-1519. Galleria degli Uffizi, Firenze. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Myopia, or nearsightedness, is…
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Berengario da Carpi, pre-Vesalian anatomist (1460–1530)
Berengario da Carpi was the most important anatomist of the generation preceding the so-called Anatomical Trinity of Vesalius, Fallopio, and Eustachio. He is regarded as one of the founders of scientific anatomy, challenging the reliance on ancient texts and emphasizing the primacy of direct observation based on dissecting the human body. A prolific author, he…
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The gout of the Medici
Florence in the fifteenth century was one of the most important cities in Western Europe. Rich and resplendent, first in banking and in the wool trade, it even issued its own currency, the golden florin, widely used throughout Europe. For some three hundred years the city was ruled almost continuously by the Medici, at one…
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Saints Cosmas and Damian, patron saints of doctors
Unlike many other doctors, Cosmas and Damian were also saints. They lived in what today is modern Turkey, where they practiced healing the sick. They may also have been color blind (!), replacing (as in the paintings shown here) a patient’s gangrenous leg with one of the wrong color. But the Florentine Filippo Lippi clearly…