“CORPS, MEDECINE ET MACHINES A L’ AGE CLASSIQUE”

Hiro Hirai, Radboud University Nijmegen

Inspired by the ideas contained in the newly recovered ancient sources, Renaissance humanists questioned the traditional teachings of universities. Humanistically trained physicians, called “medical humanists,” were particularly active in the field of natural philosophy, where alternative approaches were launched and tested. Their intellectual outcome contributed to the reorientation of philosophy toward natural questions, which were to become crucial in the seventeenth century. This volume explores six medical humanists of diverse geographical and confessional origins (Leoniceno, Fernel, Schegk, Gemma, Liceti and Sennert) and their debates on matter, life and the soul. The study of these debates sheds new light on the contributions of humanist culture to the evolution of early modern natural philosophy

Mechanism, Experiment, Disease: Marcello Malpighi and Seventeenth-Century Anatomy Domenico Bertoloni Meli

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  A leading early modern anatomist and physician, Marcello Malpighi often compared himself to that period's other great mind--Galileo. Domenico Bertoloni Meli here explores Malpighi's work and places it in the context of seventeenth-century intellectual life.

Malpighi's interests were wide and varied. As a professor at the University of Bologna, he confirmed William Harvey's theory of the circulation of blood; published groundbreaking studies of human organs; made important discoveries about the anatomy of silkworms; and examined the properties of plants. He sought to apply his findings to medical practice. By analyzing Malpighi's work, the author provides novel perspectives not only on the history of anatomy but also on the histories of science, philosophy, and medicine. Through the lens of Malpighi and his work, Bertoloni Meli investigates a range of important themes, from sense perception to the meaning of Galenism in the seventeenth century.

Bertoloni Meli contends that to study science and medicine in the seventeenth century one needs to understand how scholars and ideas crossed disciplinary boundaries. He examines Malpighi's work within this context, describing how anatomical knowledge was achieved and transmitted and how those processes interacted with the experimental and mechanical philosophies, natural history, and medical practice.

Malpighi was central in all of these developments, and his work helped redefine the intellectual horizon of the time. Bertoloni Meli's critical study of this key figure and the works of his contemporaries--including Borelli, Swammerdam, Redi, and Ruysch--opens a wonderful window onto the scientific and medical worlds of the seventeenth century

L’ANR-PHILOMED et le CERPHI (UMR 5037)

vous convient à cette rencontre autour de la venue de DOMENICO BERTOLONI MELI (Indiana University)

à l’ENS de Lyon, jeudi 14 juin, salle F 112

“CORPS, MEDECINE ET MACHINES A L’ AGE CLASSIQUE”

10h Domenico Bertoloni Meli (U. Indiana), “Machines of the body in the 17th century”
11h : François Duchesneau (U. Montréal),  “Machines de la nature et corps organiques” ou “Machines of nature and organic bodies”

12h Pause déjeuner

14 : Rafael Mandressi (Centre Alexandre Koyré/EHESS), “Avant les machines: architecture et anatomie à la Renaissance”
15h : Hiro Hirai (Radboud University, Nijmegen),  “Medical Humanism and Natural Philosophy in the Sixteenth Century”.

Fin des travaux 16h30.