Godbarge, Clement (Author)
Cox, Virginia (Advisor)
New York University
Cox, Virginia
Physical Details: 292 pp.
Language: English
By providing the first intellectual biography of Filippo Cavriana (1538-1606), this dissertation sets out to examine the use of learned medicine as a form of political expertise in 16th-century Europe. It aims to contribute to a growing body of literature on the place of medicine in Renaissance culture, by focusing on the question of its political influence in courtly contexts–a subject which has remained until now largely understudied. Rather than examining this unlikely alliance solely through the lens of political theory, this dissertation opts instead for a microhistorical approach. The in-depth analysis of a single court physician and humanist, provides insight into the political activities and aspirations of a man of medicine when in the service of royalty. The present study not only interprets Filippo Cavriana's political analyses within their intellectual context, but also against the backdrop of social and cultural change. Originally from Mantua and subsequently sent into the service of Ludovico Gonzaga-Nevers and Catherine de' Medici in France, Filippo Cavriana maintained a secret correspondence with the Grand Dukes of Tuscany on the subject of the wars of religion. His medical expertise and political connections later earned him a lecturing position in medicine at the University of Pisa. This dissertation argues that Cavriana's reflections on the value and scope of medical practice for statecraft enable him to promote the court physician as an ideal companion to the prince, a medicus amicus optimus. It contends that Cavriana's promotion of a Hippocratic approach to the arts of governing not only gives pride of place to empirical observation, but also reasserts the importance of judgment, best modeled on the historically informed prudence of the experienced physician. Finally, this dissertation challenges the hasty categorization of Filippo Cavriana's political thought as “crypto-machiavellian” tacitism, showing instead how the physician allies his Hippocratic views on medicine to the temperate skepticism of Francesco Guicciardini.
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