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Exploring Women's Health and Medical Treatment in Renaissance Italy Through Giovanni Marinello's Treatise
  • Frank Martin
Frank Martin
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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.