Union Académique Internationale

Project nº74, adopted in 2007

The Edizione Nazionale «La Scuola Medica Salernitana» (ENSMS) was established September 28, 2006 with Professor Agostino Paravicini Bagliani as chair. Its purpose is the creation of editions and studies dealing with the written tradition of the Salerno School of Medicine as well as the historical context of its diffusion. Since its foundation the ENSMS has also organized seminars and conferences. At its foundation the scientific committee comprised Ferruccio Bertini († 2012), Charles Burnett, Irene Caiazzo, Chiara Crisciani, Antonio Garzya († 2012), Monica H. Green, Danielle Jacquart, Romana Martorelli Vico († 2012), Michael McVaugh, Enrique Montero Cartelle, Piero Morpurgo, Laurence Moulinier, Marilyn Nicoud, Massimo Oldoni, Giovanni Orlandi († 2007), Ileana Pagani, Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, Francesco Santi, and Paul Gerhard Schmidt († 2010). The publications of the ENSMS, edited by SISMEL Edizioni del Galluzzo (Florence), are currently as follows :

1. La Scuola Salernitana. Gli autori e i testi. Atti del Convegno Internazionale presso l’Università di Salerno (3-5 novembre 2004). A cura di Danielle Jacquart e Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, 2007, p. XIV-589. – The colloquium preceded a detailed examination of the current state of studies of the Salernitan textual tradition.
2. Alphita, edité par Alejandro García González, 2008, p. X-594. – This is a critical edition of an important text of the third generation of the of the Salerno Medical School, perhaps the richest in texts and notes. 3.La Collectio Salernitana di Salvatore De Renzi. Convegno internazionale Università degli Studi di Salerno, 18-19 giugno 2007. A cura di Danielle Jacquart e Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, 2008, p. XVIII-262. – This colloquium subjected the monumental Collectio Salernitana to historiographical correction, all the more necessary as the purpose of the ENSMS is the critical reedition of Salernitan texts.
3. Trotula. Un compendio medievale di medicina delle donne. A cura di Monica H. Green. Traduzione italiana di Valentina Brancone, 2009, p. VI-427. – Italian translation of the critical edition of one of the most influential medical compendia on women’s illnesses in medieval Europe, as established by Monica H. Green. Traditionally attributed to the mysterious Trotula, supposedly the first woman to teach medicine at Salerno at the celebrated School’s peak, it is not, according to Monica H. Green, one sole treatise but rather three independent works, each written by a different author.
4. Bartholomaeus Mini de Senis, Tractatus de herbis (Ms London, British Library, Egerton 747). A cura di Iolanda Ventura, 2009, p. VIII-914. – Transmitted by a richly illustrated manuscript, the treatise is one of the masterpieces of scientific and naturalist imagery of the later Middle Ages. Compiled alphabetically, it describes the therapeutic properties of ‘simple’ substances derived from the plant kingdom.
5. Terapie e guarigioni in età normanno-sveva. Convegno Internazionale (Ariano Irpino 5-7 ottobre 2008). A cura di Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, 2010, p. XIV-418. – The colloquium showed that the Normano-Swabian world played an important role in the history of the relationship between therapeutic methods and healing. A rich tradition of chronicles also bears witness to this.
6. La Pratica de Plateario. Edición crítica, traducción y estudio de Victoria Recio Muñoz, 2016, p. XI-880. Compiled by a master of the Salerno School of Medicine towards the middle of the twelfth century, this medical work was highly popular in the Middle Ages as the teaching manual.
7. Gilles de Corbeil, Libet de uirtutibus et laudibus compositorum medicaminum. Edition et commentaire par Mireille Ausécache, 2017, p. VIII- 523. – Le Liber de uirtutibus et laudibus compositorum medicaminum is the ambitious work of Giles of Corbeil, (twelfth century). Written for apprentice doctors, it passionately champions the doctrines the author learned while enrolled at Salerno under its great teachers. Included is Giles’s moving panegyric to those masters.