Article ID: CBB349622990

Pharmacy, Testing, and the Language of Truth in Renaissance Italy (2017)

unapi

This article examines the role of testing and innovation in sixteenthcentury Italian pharmacy. I argue that apothecaries were less concerned with testing drugs for efficacy or creating novel products than with reactivating an older Mediterranean pharmacological tradition and studying the materials on which it relied. Their practice was not driven by radical experimentation but by a "culture of tweaking"—of minute operational changes to existing recipes and accommodation of their textual variants—which was rooted in the guild economy fostering incremental over radical innovation and in a humanist reevaluation of past autorities. Workshop practice was also increasingly driven by a new ideal of staying true to nature fostered by the period's botanical renaissance. This led to an emphasis on ingredients over processes in the shop, and found clearest expression in the elaboration of a taxonomic "language of truth" that helped apothecaries discern between authentic and inauthentic materia medica and harness their sincerity in lieu of testing effectiveness.

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB349622990/

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Authors & Contributors
Cevolani, Enrico
Macchio, Marina
Aldini, Nicolò Nicoli
Hanson, Bryan
McNabney, Justin
Paschal, Ashley
Journals
Atti e Memorie, Rivista di Storia della Farmacia
Azogue: Revista Electrónica Dedicada al Estudio Histórico-Crítico de la Alquimia
Bruniana & Campanelliana: Ricerche Filosofiche e Materiali Storico-testuali
Medicina nei Secoli - Arte e Scienza
Nuncius: Annali di Storia della Scienza
Pharmacy in History
Publishers
Cambridge University Press
Duke University
Concepts
Pharmacy
Apothecaries
Medicine
Physicians; doctors
Hospitals and clinics
Therapeutic practice; therapy; treatment
People
Aldrovandi, Ulisse
Algarotti, Vittorio
Hutchings, William D.
Ramazzini, Bernardino
Time Periods
16th century
17th century
Renaissance
18th century
19th century
Early modern
Places
Italy
Tuscany (Italy)
Florence (Italy)
Bologna (Italy)
Venice (Italy)
Naples (Italy)
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