Federica Rotelli - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

ARTICLES by Federica Rotelli

Plants in 16th and 17th century: Botany between Medicine and Science, edited by Fabrizio Baldassarri, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 169-196. , 2023

A Cultural History of Plants in the Post-Classical Era, ed. Alain Touwaide, vol. 2. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 59-77, 2022

The Cultural Histories Series: also available online A Cultural History of Plants is part of The ... more The Cultural Histories Series: also available online A Cultural History of Plants is part of The Cultural Histories Series. Libraries have the choice of printed sets, with the convenience of a one-off purchase and tangible reference for their shelves, and/or as part of a fully-searchable digital library available on annual subscription or perpetual access. www.bloomsburyculturalhistory.com A Cultural History of Plants presents a global exploration of how plants have shaped human culture. Covering the last 12,000 years, it is the definitive history of how we have cultivated, traded, classified, and altered plants and how, in turn, plants have influenced our ideas of luxury and wealth, health and well-being, art and architecture. Each volume addresses the same key themes, so readers can select a volume for an overview of a particular period, or follow a theme across the ages.

Vesalius, vol. XXVI, June 2020, e-supplement. 'Aesculapius in Lisbon', selected papers from Lisbon 46th ISHM Congress, 3-7 September 2018. Robrecht van Hee, Maria do Sameiro Barroso, Francesco Maria Galassi (eds)., 2020

The importance of exotic plants in European botany of the 18thcentury concerned not only the spec... more The importance of exotic plants in European botany of the 18thcentury concerned not only the species of edible plants but also the abundant vegetal species used for therapeutic purposes. Italian pharmacies also made sure to have available plants with certified therapeutic properties. In many pharmacies of that time, we can find pharmacopoeias, medical
formularies and recipes where these exotic plants were mentioned as ingredients of brews and decoctions celebrating their healing properties. Some pharmacies had full collections of vases to store these medical products. In this view, the literary sources from the Emilian pharmacies of the 18th century are particularly rich. Emilian pharmacists could also take advantage of the studies of the University of Bologna, one of the leading medical universities in Europe, whose tradition dates back to the medieval period. In the 18th century, famous physicians and scientists lectured at Bologna, such as Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694), Ferdinando Marsili (1658-1730), Giovanni Battista Morgagni (1682-1771), and Antonio Maria Valsalva (1666-1723). At that time, the inclusion of the new exotic drugs in the Hippocratic galenictradition was not an easy task. It was also not easy to conciliate the different approaches that the introduction of these new plants brought to medical science. Thanks to
this material, it is possible to reconstruct its significant practical and theoretical contribution to the Italian medical culture of the 1700s.

Medicina nei secoli, 2018

In the 16 th century the arrival of new exotic plants from the Americas and the Orient enriched t... more In the 16 th century the arrival of new exotic plants from the Americas and the Orient enriched the panorama of medicines that were sold by the Italian pharmacies. The increase of knowledge on the therapeutic virtues of new foreign plants suggested to the contemporaries great caution before adding them to the classical texts of Dioscorides, Pliny, Galen and the Arab medieval authors. In the 17 th century we witnessed a further increase in the use of these plants and the pharmacopoeias, which contained many medicinal preparations based on exotic plants, absent in the classical texts. However, the scientific paradigm in which European medicine operated remained throughout this period linked to the classic environment, and thus, medicine was unable to face the causes of major epidemics that afflicted the populations in those two centuries. The plague, syphilis, pneumonia, smallpox and infections were to go on being the scourges that could not be fought other than in a marginal way. Only for malaria, a new plant arriving from South America had an important impact: the Cinchona tree. Too little for a period that was full of progress in science.

Drafts by Federica Rotelli

Proceedings of the 46th Congress of the International Society for the History of Medicine, Lisbon, 3-7 September, 2018

The importance of exotic plants in European botany of the 18th-century concerned not only the spe... more The importance of exotic plants in European botany of the 18th-century concerned not only the species of edible plants but also the abundant vegetal species used for therapeutic purposes. Italian pharmacies also made sure to have available plants with certified therapeutic properties. In many pharmacies of that time, we can find pharmacopoeias, medical formularies and recipes where these exotic plants were mentioned as ingredients of brews and decoctions in which their healing properties were celebrated. Some pharmacies had full collections of vases to store these medical products. In this view, the literary sources from the Emilian pharmacies of the 18th-century are particularly rich. Emilian pharmacists could also take advantage of the studies of the University of Bologna, one of the leading medical universities in Europe, whose tradition dates back to the Medieval period. In the 18th century, famous physicians and scientists lectured at Bologna, such as Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694), Ferdinando Marsili (1658-1730), Giovanni Battista Morgagni (1682-1771), and Antonio Maria Valsalva (1666-1723). At that time, the inclusion of the new exotic drugs in the Hippocratic-galenic tradition was not an easy task. It was also not easy to bring together the different approaches that the introduction of these new plants brought to medical science. Thanks to this material, it is possible to reconstruct its significant practical and theoretical contribution to the Italian medical culture of the 1700s.

Conference Presentations by Federica Rotelli

For millennia, the Mediterranean Area has been a crossroads where humans, animals, and plants hav... more For millennia, the Mediterranean Area has been a crossroads where humans, animals, and plants have repeatedly migrated and settled, forging its biological and cultural characteristics. Its rich biodiversity, initially, was the result of plant movements from the East. Exotic plants adapted to new environments or interbred with local plants, increasing and diversifying agricultural production and improving the health of the populations that inhabited it. In ancient times, from the Near East, the cultivation of cereals, several fruit trees and aromatic plants spread to the Mediterranean, some of which originated in East Asia. However, only some of the latter managed to adapt to the new ecosystems while others continued to cross the globe in the form of commercial products. In this process, starting from the first millennium BCE, Phoenician and Greek traders and settlers played a pivotal role as intermediaries between the eastern and western Mediterranean, initiating 'mediterraneanisation' and the sharing of crops and techniques throughout its basin. Rome’s eastern expansion promoted the diffusion of new plants within the borders of the Roman Empire. New fruit trees began to be cultivated, thanks also to more favorable climatic conditions and advances in agricultural techniques. Spices originating from Southern Asia became part of Roman trade, increasing the interconnections between various parts of the globe. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Constantinople emerged in the East as the main commercial center of the 'Great Sea', while staple foods and spices from the East continued to reach the Western Mediterranean thanks to the settlement of Byzantine merchants along its coast. The process of plant globalization that took place in ancient times in the Old World was slower and more irregular than that which began with the era of great geographical explorations but no less decisive for the growth of the European population.

Exotic Plants in the Italian Pharmacopoeia of the 18th-century

The importance of exotic plants in European botany of the 18th-century concerned not only the sp... more The importance of exotic plants in European botany of the 18th-century concerned not only the species of edible plants but also the many vegetal species used for therapeutic purposes. Italian pharmacies also made sure to have available those plants with certified therapeutic properties. In many pharmacies of that time it’s possible to find pharmacopoeias, medical formularies and recipes where these exotic plants were mentioned as ingredients for brews and decoctions in which medical properties were celebrated. Some pharmacies had entire collections of vases in which to store these medical products. In this perspective, the literary sources coming from the Emilian pharmacies of the 18th-century are particularly rich. Emilian pharmacists could also take advantage of the studies of the University of Bologna, one of the main medical universities in Europe, whose tradition goes back to the Medieval period. In that century, famous physicians and scientists taught in Bologna, such as Malpighi, Marsili, Morgagni, and Valsalva. At that time one of the problems was that of adding the new exotic drugs to the hippocratic-galenic tradition, and reconciling the different approach that the introduction of these new plants brought to the medical science. Thanks to this material, it’s possible to reconstruct the significative practical and theoretical contribution to Italian medical culture of the 1700s.

Since the 6th and 5th centuries B.C.E., observations on the Indian flora were an important part o... more Since the 6th and 5th centuries B.C.E., observations on the Indian flora were an important part of Greek literature. Evoking the myth of the Golden Age, the writings depicted India as a fertile land, rich in exotic plants. At the time of the Corpus Hippocraticum (5th century B.C.E.) trade between India and the Mediterranean passed through the Near East. The Corpus Hippocraticum mentions various Indian medicinal plants whose names reveal their Indian or Median and Persian origins. Only after Alexander the Great's eastern campaigns were Indian plants introduced directly into the Mediterranean area and came to be more accurately known. The main source of the information on Indian medicinal plants featured in the Historia plantarum of Theophrastus were the botanical observations found in the accounts of the historians who traveled east with Alexander in his military advance. Many of the Indian plants in the Historia plantarum are described again, with variations and additions, in the De materia medica of Dioscorides and in the Naturalis Historia of Pliny the Elder, both written in the Roman Empire period. Compared to Theophrastus, these later authors not only featured more eastern species, but they also devoted more space to Indian tropical plants. This was the period in which direct trade between Rome and India flourished and the importation of spices, which were mostly used as medicines, reached its height. As scholars encountered these new exotic plants, they analyzed and described their growth and their interaction with the environment, classified them within the botanical-pharmacological system and deepened how they cured diseases in human body. In the description of Indian plant species, a real knowledge of the plants was often lacking, being mostly known only as commercial products. Though they had no doubts about the eastern origin of these plants, often they did not know where exactly the plants came from. The places whence they were imported were often mistaken for the area where they grew. In any cases, Indian plants were integrated into the botanical-pharmacological system and came to be part of the Mediterranean pharmacopoeia. Described accurately by the same standards used for Mediterranean and Near Eastern plants, they shared, on the basis of common characteristics, the same classification criteria. However, in the descriptions of the medicinal properties of these plants and their use in the cure of illnesses there were no explicit references to Indian medicine. Certain similarities between Indian and Greek medicine and correspondences between the properties and the uses of some Indian plants in the ayurvedic and mediterranean tradition could suggest the transmission of Indian medical knowledge to the Mediterranean World. The study of Indian plants and their presence in and assimilation into the Graeco-Roman world is an important tool to deepen the knowledge of cultural interactions, as well as specifically medical, between the Mediterranean World and the East.

Conference organizations by Federica Rotelli

CO-Organized Panel. In this panel, we aim to discuss the study of plants in different contexts, p... more CO-Organized Panel.
In this panel, we aim to discuss the study of plants in different contexts, periods, and areas from Late Middle Ages to the Early Modern world. The recent scholarship has highlighted the importance of the study of vegetation in diverse areas of human activity, thereby suggesting that the claim that botany was just a secondary branch of knowledge
throughout the ages is not supported by documentation. In contrast, this field of knowledge stands as a complex assmeblage of inputs, aims, case studies, and methodologies, and reveals a broader confrontation with nature as a whole. In this panel, we would like to approach this through different case studies. These cases involve a wide range of practices and practitioners (botanists, alchemists, physicians, natural scholars, philosophers and collectors) and concerns as, for example, (a) the exchanges of specimens, seeds, or parts of plants, (b) the study of herbs in pharmaco-therapeutics, (c) the naturalphilosophical
attempts to explain vegetal bodies, and (d) the natural-historical work of representing and cataloguing specimens’ diversities. Ultimately, the aim of the panel is to explore the complexity and the intersections in the knowledge of the second realm of nature.

Papers by Federica Rotelli

De Gruyter eBooks, Jun 19, 2023

The Cultural Histories Series: also available online A Cultural History of Plants is part of The ... more The Cultural Histories Series: also available online A Cultural History of Plants is part of The Cultural Histories Series. Libraries have the choice of printed sets, with the convenience of a one-off purchase and tangible reference for their shelves, and/or as part of a fully-searchable digital library available on annual subscription or perpetual access. www.bloomsburyculturalhistory.com A Cultural History of Plants presents a global exploration of how plants have shaped human culture. Covering the last 12,000 years, it is the definitive history of how we have cultivated, traded, classified, and altered plants and how, in turn, plants have influenced our ideas of luxury and wealth, health and well-being, art and architecture. Each volume addresses the same key themes, so readers can select a volume for an overview of a particular period, or follow a theme across the ages.

Medicina nei secoli, 2018

In the 16th century the arrival of new exotic plants from the Americas and the Orient enriched th... more In the 16th century the arrival of new exotic plants from the Americas and the Orient enriched the panorama of medicines that were sold by the Italian pharmacies. The increase of knowledge on the therapeutic virtues of new foreign plants suggested to the contemporaries great caution before adding them to the classical texts of Dioscorides, Pliny, Galen and the Arab medieval authors. In the 17th century we witnessed a further increase in the use of these plants and the pharmacopoeias, which contained many medicinal preparations based on exotic plants, absent in the classical texts. However, the scientific paradigm in which European medicine operated remained throughout this period linked to the classic environment, and thus, medicine was unable to face the causes of major epidemics that afflicted the populations in those two centuries. The plague, syphilis, pneumonia, smallpox and infections were to go on being the scourges that could not be fought other than in a marginal way. Only ...

Plants in 16th and 17th century: Botany between Medicine and Science, edited by Fabrizio Baldassarri, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 169-196. , 2023

A Cultural History of Plants in the Post-Classical Era, ed. Alain Touwaide, vol. 2. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 59-77, 2022

The Cultural Histories Series: also available online A Cultural History of Plants is part of The ... more The Cultural Histories Series: also available online A Cultural History of Plants is part of The Cultural Histories Series. Libraries have the choice of printed sets, with the convenience of a one-off purchase and tangible reference for their shelves, and/or as part of a fully-searchable digital library available on annual subscription or perpetual access. www.bloomsburyculturalhistory.com A Cultural History of Plants presents a global exploration of how plants have shaped human culture. Covering the last 12,000 years, it is the definitive history of how we have cultivated, traded, classified, and altered plants and how, in turn, plants have influenced our ideas of luxury and wealth, health and well-being, art and architecture. Each volume addresses the same key themes, so readers can select a volume for an overview of a particular period, or follow a theme across the ages.

Vesalius, vol. XXVI, June 2020, e-supplement. 'Aesculapius in Lisbon', selected papers from Lisbon 46th ISHM Congress, 3-7 September 2018. Robrecht van Hee, Maria do Sameiro Barroso, Francesco Maria Galassi (eds)., 2020

The importance of exotic plants in European botany of the 18thcentury concerned not only the spec... more The importance of exotic plants in European botany of the 18thcentury concerned not only the species of edible plants but also the abundant vegetal species used for therapeutic purposes. Italian pharmacies also made sure to have available plants with certified therapeutic properties. In many pharmacies of that time, we can find pharmacopoeias, medical
formularies and recipes where these exotic plants were mentioned as ingredients of brews and decoctions celebrating their healing properties. Some pharmacies had full collections of vases to store these medical products. In this view, the literary sources from the Emilian pharmacies of the 18th century are particularly rich. Emilian pharmacists could also take advantage of the studies of the University of Bologna, one of the leading medical universities in Europe, whose tradition dates back to the medieval period. In the 18th century, famous physicians and scientists lectured at Bologna, such as Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694), Ferdinando Marsili (1658-1730), Giovanni Battista Morgagni (1682-1771), and Antonio Maria Valsalva (1666-1723). At that time, the inclusion of the new exotic drugs in the Hippocratic galenictradition was not an easy task. It was also not easy to conciliate the different approaches that the introduction of these new plants brought to medical science. Thanks to
this material, it is possible to reconstruct its significant practical and theoretical contribution to the Italian medical culture of the 1700s.

Medicina nei secoli, 2018

In the 16 th century the arrival of new exotic plants from the Americas and the Orient enriched t... more In the 16 th century the arrival of new exotic plants from the Americas and the Orient enriched the panorama of medicines that were sold by the Italian pharmacies. The increase of knowledge on the therapeutic virtues of new foreign plants suggested to the contemporaries great caution before adding them to the classical texts of Dioscorides, Pliny, Galen and the Arab medieval authors. In the 17 th century we witnessed a further increase in the use of these plants and the pharmacopoeias, which contained many medicinal preparations based on exotic plants, absent in the classical texts. However, the scientific paradigm in which European medicine operated remained throughout this period linked to the classic environment, and thus, medicine was unable to face the causes of major epidemics that afflicted the populations in those two centuries. The plague, syphilis, pneumonia, smallpox and infections were to go on being the scourges that could not be fought other than in a marginal way. Only for malaria, a new plant arriving from South America had an important impact: the Cinchona tree. Too little for a period that was full of progress in science.

Proceedings of the 46th Congress of the International Society for the History of Medicine, Lisbon, 3-7 September, 2018

The importance of exotic plants in European botany of the 18th-century concerned not only the spe... more The importance of exotic plants in European botany of the 18th-century concerned not only the species of edible plants but also the abundant vegetal species used for therapeutic purposes. Italian pharmacies also made sure to have available plants with certified therapeutic properties. In many pharmacies of that time, we can find pharmacopoeias, medical formularies and recipes where these exotic plants were mentioned as ingredients of brews and decoctions in which their healing properties were celebrated. Some pharmacies had full collections of vases to store these medical products. In this view, the literary sources from the Emilian pharmacies of the 18th-century are particularly rich. Emilian pharmacists could also take advantage of the studies of the University of Bologna, one of the leading medical universities in Europe, whose tradition dates back to the Medieval period. In the 18th century, famous physicians and scientists lectured at Bologna, such as Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694), Ferdinando Marsili (1658-1730), Giovanni Battista Morgagni (1682-1771), and Antonio Maria Valsalva (1666-1723). At that time, the inclusion of the new exotic drugs in the Hippocratic-galenic tradition was not an easy task. It was also not easy to bring together the different approaches that the introduction of these new plants brought to medical science. Thanks to this material, it is possible to reconstruct its significant practical and theoretical contribution to the Italian medical culture of the 1700s.

For millennia, the Mediterranean Area has been a crossroads where humans, animals, and plants hav... more For millennia, the Mediterranean Area has been a crossroads where humans, animals, and plants have repeatedly migrated and settled, forging its biological and cultural characteristics. Its rich biodiversity, initially, was the result of plant movements from the East. Exotic plants adapted to new environments or interbred with local plants, increasing and diversifying agricultural production and improving the health of the populations that inhabited it. In ancient times, from the Near East, the cultivation of cereals, several fruit trees and aromatic plants spread to the Mediterranean, some of which originated in East Asia. However, only some of the latter managed to adapt to the new ecosystems while others continued to cross the globe in the form of commercial products. In this process, starting from the first millennium BCE, Phoenician and Greek traders and settlers played a pivotal role as intermediaries between the eastern and western Mediterranean, initiating 'mediterraneanisation' and the sharing of crops and techniques throughout its basin. Rome’s eastern expansion promoted the diffusion of new plants within the borders of the Roman Empire. New fruit trees began to be cultivated, thanks also to more favorable climatic conditions and advances in agricultural techniques. Spices originating from Southern Asia became part of Roman trade, increasing the interconnections between various parts of the globe. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Constantinople emerged in the East as the main commercial center of the 'Great Sea', while staple foods and spices from the East continued to reach the Western Mediterranean thanks to the settlement of Byzantine merchants along its coast. The process of plant globalization that took place in ancient times in the Old World was slower and more irregular than that which began with the era of great geographical explorations but no less decisive for the growth of the European population.

Exotic Plants in the Italian Pharmacopoeia of the 18th-century

The importance of exotic plants in European botany of the 18th-century concerned not only the sp... more The importance of exotic plants in European botany of the 18th-century concerned not only the species of edible plants but also the many vegetal species used for therapeutic purposes. Italian pharmacies also made sure to have available those plants with certified therapeutic properties. In many pharmacies of that time it’s possible to find pharmacopoeias, medical formularies and recipes where these exotic plants were mentioned as ingredients for brews and decoctions in which medical properties were celebrated. Some pharmacies had entire collections of vases in which to store these medical products. In this perspective, the literary sources coming from the Emilian pharmacies of the 18th-century are particularly rich. Emilian pharmacists could also take advantage of the studies of the University of Bologna, one of the main medical universities in Europe, whose tradition goes back to the Medieval period. In that century, famous physicians and scientists taught in Bologna, such as Malpighi, Marsili, Morgagni, and Valsalva. At that time one of the problems was that of adding the new exotic drugs to the hippocratic-galenic tradition, and reconciling the different approach that the introduction of these new plants brought to the medical science. Thanks to this material, it’s possible to reconstruct the significative practical and theoretical contribution to Italian medical culture of the 1700s.

Since the 6th and 5th centuries B.C.E., observations on the Indian flora were an important part o... more Since the 6th and 5th centuries B.C.E., observations on the Indian flora were an important part of Greek literature. Evoking the myth of the Golden Age, the writings depicted India as a fertile land, rich in exotic plants. At the time of the Corpus Hippocraticum (5th century B.C.E.) trade between India and the Mediterranean passed through the Near East. The Corpus Hippocraticum mentions various Indian medicinal plants whose names reveal their Indian or Median and Persian origins. Only after Alexander the Great's eastern campaigns were Indian plants introduced directly into the Mediterranean area and came to be more accurately known. The main source of the information on Indian medicinal plants featured in the Historia plantarum of Theophrastus were the botanical observations found in the accounts of the historians who traveled east with Alexander in his military advance. Many of the Indian plants in the Historia plantarum are described again, with variations and additions, in the De materia medica of Dioscorides and in the Naturalis Historia of Pliny the Elder, both written in the Roman Empire period. Compared to Theophrastus, these later authors not only featured more eastern species, but they also devoted more space to Indian tropical plants. This was the period in which direct trade between Rome and India flourished and the importation of spices, which were mostly used as medicines, reached its height. As scholars encountered these new exotic plants, they analyzed and described their growth and their interaction with the environment, classified them within the botanical-pharmacological system and deepened how they cured diseases in human body. In the description of Indian plant species, a real knowledge of the plants was often lacking, being mostly known only as commercial products. Though they had no doubts about the eastern origin of these plants, often they did not know where exactly the plants came from. The places whence they were imported were often mistaken for the area where they grew. In any cases, Indian plants were integrated into the botanical-pharmacological system and came to be part of the Mediterranean pharmacopoeia. Described accurately by the same standards used for Mediterranean and Near Eastern plants, they shared, on the basis of common characteristics, the same classification criteria. However, in the descriptions of the medicinal properties of these plants and their use in the cure of illnesses there were no explicit references to Indian medicine. Certain similarities between Indian and Greek medicine and correspondences between the properties and the uses of some Indian plants in the ayurvedic and mediterranean tradition could suggest the transmission of Indian medical knowledge to the Mediterranean World. The study of Indian plants and their presence in and assimilation into the Graeco-Roman world is an important tool to deepen the knowledge of cultural interactions, as well as specifically medical, between the Mediterranean World and the East.

CO-Organized Panel. In this panel, we aim to discuss the study of plants in different contexts, p... more CO-Organized Panel.
In this panel, we aim to discuss the study of plants in different contexts, periods, and areas from Late Middle Ages to the Early Modern world. The recent scholarship has highlighted the importance of the study of vegetation in diverse areas of human activity, thereby suggesting that the claim that botany was just a secondary branch of knowledge
throughout the ages is not supported by documentation. In contrast, this field of knowledge stands as a complex assmeblage of inputs, aims, case studies, and methodologies, and reveals a broader confrontation with nature as a whole. In this panel, we would like to approach this through different case studies. These cases involve a wide range of practices and practitioners (botanists, alchemists, physicians, natural scholars, philosophers and collectors) and concerns as, for example, (a) the exchanges of specimens, seeds, or parts of plants, (b) the study of herbs in pharmaco-therapeutics, (c) the naturalphilosophical
attempts to explain vegetal bodies, and (d) the natural-historical work of representing and cataloguing specimens’ diversities. Ultimately, the aim of the panel is to explore the complexity and the intersections in the knowledge of the second realm of nature.

De Gruyter eBooks, Jun 19, 2023

The Cultural Histories Series: also available online A Cultural History of Plants is part of The ... more The Cultural Histories Series: also available online A Cultural History of Plants is part of The Cultural Histories Series. Libraries have the choice of printed sets, with the convenience of a one-off purchase and tangible reference for their shelves, and/or as part of a fully-searchable digital library available on annual subscription or perpetual access. www.bloomsburyculturalhistory.com A Cultural History of Plants presents a global exploration of how plants have shaped human culture. Covering the last 12,000 years, it is the definitive history of how we have cultivated, traded, classified, and altered plants and how, in turn, plants have influenced our ideas of luxury and wealth, health and well-being, art and architecture. Each volume addresses the same key themes, so readers can select a volume for an overview of a particular period, or follow a theme across the ages.

Medicina nei secoli, 2018

In the 16th century the arrival of new exotic plants from the Americas and the Orient enriched th... more In the 16th century the arrival of new exotic plants from the Americas and the Orient enriched the panorama of medicines that were sold by the Italian pharmacies. The increase of knowledge on the therapeutic virtues of new foreign plants suggested to the contemporaries great caution before adding them to the classical texts of Dioscorides, Pliny, Galen and the Arab medieval authors. In the 17th century we witnessed a further increase in the use of these plants and the pharmacopoeias, which contained many medicinal preparations based on exotic plants, absent in the classical texts. However, the scientific paradigm in which European medicine operated remained throughout this period linked to the classic environment, and thus, medicine was unable to face the causes of major epidemics that afflicted the populations in those two centuries. The plague, syphilis, pneumonia, smallpox and infections were to go on being the scourges that could not be fought other than in a marginal way. Only ...