page_title: Schola Medica Salernitana
section_title: The Second Period: 11th-13th centuries
hierarchical_section_title: Schola Medica Salernitana / The Second Period: 11th-13th centuries
caption_attribution_description: Planetary spheres, zodiac elements. Archives &amp; Manuscripts
context_page_description: The Schola Medica Salernitana was a Medieval medical school, the first and most important of its kind. Situated on the Tyrrhenian Sea in the south Italian city of Salerno, it was founded in the 9th century and rose to prominence in the 10th century, becoming the most important source of medical knowledge in Western Europe at the time.
  Arabic medical treatises, both those that were translations of Greek texts and those that were originally written in Arabic, had accumulated in the library of Montecassino, where they were translated into Latin; thus the received lore of Hippocrates, Galen and Dioscorides was supplemented and invigorated by Arabic medical practice, known from contacts with Sicily and North Africa. As a result, the medical practitioners of Salerno, both men and women, were unrivalled in the medieval Western Mediterranean for practical concerns.
context_section_description: Geographic location certainly played a key role in the growth of the School: Salerno, a Mediterranean port, fused influences of Arab and Byzantine-Greek culture. Books of Avicenna and Averroes arrived by sea, and the Carthaginian physician Constantine the African (or Ifrīqiya) who arrived in the city for several years came to Salerno and translated many texts from Arabic: Aphorisma and Prognostica of Hippocrates, Tegni and Megategni of Galen, Kitāb-al-malikī (i.e. Liber Regius, or Pantegni) of Alī ibn'Abbās (Haliy Abbas), the Viaticum of al-Jazzār (Algizar), the Liber divisionum and the Liber experimentorum of Rhazes (Razī), the Liber dietorum, Liber urinarium and the Liber febrium of Isaac Israel the Old (Isaac Iudaeus).
  Johannes (d. February 2, 1161) and Matthaeus Platearius, possible father and son, resided in Salerno at this time when they apparently published their famous "Liber de Simplici Medicina" (a.k.a. "Circa Instans") which is first recorded in Salerno under their name early in the 13th Century.  Subsequent incarnations — c.1480 now found in Brussels; and in the early 1500s, published in Paris with art by Robinet Testard and now found in both Paris and St. Petersburg — bore the name "Livre des simples medecines".  Facsimiles with commentary for both editions have been published by Opsomer and Stearn (1984) and by Moleiro (2001).
  Under this cultural thrust are rediscovered the classical works long forgotten in the monasteries. Thanks to the "Medical School", medicine was the first science discipline to come out of the abbeys to confront again with the world and experimental practice.
  Monks of Salerno and of the nearby Badia di Cava were of great importance in Benedictine geography, for we note in the city in the eleventh century the presence of three important figures of this order: Pope Gregory VII, the Abbot of Montecassino Desiderio (future Pope Vittore III) and bishop Alfano I.
  In this context, the "School" of Salerno grew until it became a point of attraction of both sick and students from all over Europe. The prestige of doctors in Salerno is largely witnessed by the chronicles of the time and the numerous manuscripts kept in the major European libraries.
  In 1231, the authority of the school was sanctioned by Emperor Federico II. In his constitution of Melfi it was established that the activity of a doctor could only be carried out by doctors holding a diploma issued by the Medical School Salernitana. In 1280 Charles II of Anjou approved the first statute in which the School was recognized as a General Study in Medicine.
  Its fame crossed borders, as proved by the Salernitan manuscripts kept in many European libraries, and by historical witnesses. The twelfth- or thirteenth-century author of the poem Regimen sanitatis Salernitanum gave a Salernitan provenance to his poem in order to advertise his work and give validity to it. The school kept the Greek-Latin medical tradition going, merging it with the Arab and Jewish medical traditions. The meeting of different cultures led to a synthesis and the comparison of different medical knowledge, as evidenced by a legend that ascribes the foundation of the school to four masters: the Jewish Helinus, the Greek Pontus, the Arab Adela, and the Latin Salernus. In the school, besides the teaching of medicine (in which women too were involved, as both teachers and students), there were courses of philosophy, theology, and law.
  The most famous female doctor and medical author at the school is Trota or Trotula de Ruggiero, who is accredited with several books on gynaecology and cosmetics, collectively known as The Trotula. De Passionibus Mulierum Curandorum was first published around 1100 AD and was a prominent text until a major revision by Louise Bourgoise, a midwife whose husband worked as assistant to Ambrose Paré in the early 1600s. A further 19 less definitive manuscripts by Trota can be found in European libraries today. Additional women physicians who attended this school became known as the "Women of Salerno," or the mulieres Saleritanae, and included women such
caption: Planetary spheres, zodiac elements. From Miscellanea medica: collection of Salernitan medical works.
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