Sources and resources of court medicine in Mid-Sixteenth Rome : erudition as an epistemological and ethical claim

In his medical book entitled De arte gymnastica (Venice, 1569), the humanist physician Girolamo Mercuriale of Forlì (1530-1606) noted that the human body is the focus of several disciplines. De arte gymnastica is a medical treatise of exceptional erudition that combines medical with broad philological, historical, and antiquarian learning. Mercuriale put together his De arte gymnastica during his residence in Rome (in the years 1562-1569), where he served as the personal physician of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (1520-1589), one of the most powerful Churchmen and richest patrons at the time. In his medical treatise Mercuriale attempts to recover the Greco-Roman gymnastics in a medical context, as the “true” medical gymnastics. He promotes the medical gymnastics as an ideal method of medical treatment for contemporary use, with both preventive and curative value based on its beneficial role in the maintenance and obtainment of health. [Publisher's text]