Exploring Women's Health and Medical Treatment in Renaissance Italy
Through Giovanni Marinello's Treatise
Abstract
This article looks at a 16th-century medical book called Le
medicine partenenti alle infermità delle donne by Giovanni Marinello
(Venice, 1574), who wrote it intending to assist midwives and other
delivery attendants in improving their professional practices. It is a
very successful text that serves as an illustration of the rich body of
treatises on women’s diseases that were published in Europe in the
sixteenth century and up until the first half of the seventeenth and
which, despite disagreements and controversies, reflect a rekindled and
passionate interest in medicine for the uniqueness of the female body
that is beginning to diverge from the scholastic view of woman as an
imperfect male. In addition, Marinello’s work depicts the nature of
contemporary daily life. It provides in great detail natural cures for
sterility issues and all conditions related to pregnancy, childbirth,
and postpartum, always within the bounds of what is reasonable for a
period defined by the ideas of the Council of Trent.