Italian Charlatans Database, 1550-1800

UKDA study number:5800

Principal Investigator

Gentilcore, D.
University of Leicester. School of Historical Studies

Sponsor

Wellcome Trust

Distributed by

UK Data Archive, University of Essex, Colchester.

March 2008

Bibliographic Citation

All works which use or refer to these materials should acknowledge these sources by means of bibliographic citation. To ensure that such source attributions are captured for bibliographic indexes, citations must appear in footnotes or in the reference section of publications. The bibliographic citation for this data collection is:

Gentilcore, D., Italian Charlatans Database, 1550-1800 [computer file]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Archive [distributor], March 2008. SN: 5800, http://dx.doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-5800-1.

Acknowledgement

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Copyright:
David Gentilcore, University of Leicester

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5800 . Italian Charlatans Database, 1550-1800

Depositor:

Gentilcore, D. , University of Leicester. School of Historical Studies

Principal Investigator:

Gentilcore, D. , University of Leicester. School of Historical Studies

Sponsor:

Wellcome Trust

Abstract:

From the mid-sixteenth century, Italian Protomedico tribunals, Colleges of Physicians or Health Offices (jurisdiction varied from state to state) required ‘charlatans’ to submit their wares for inspection and, upon approval, pay a licence fee in order set up a stage from which to perform and sell them. As far as the medical magistracies were concerned, charlatans – or quacks, empirics, mountebanks, itinerant pedlars, whatever we wish to call them – had a definable identity. They constituted a specific trade or occupation. In this context, the Italian term ciarlatano lost some of its bite, becoming less a term of abuse and more a generic, bureaucratic label, identifying a category of healer. The word had a more precise meaning, fewer figurative connotations than it would acquire in English. More importantly, it was a label, the charlatans used themselves.
The licensing regime in place in early modern Italy allows us unparalleled opportunities when it comes to the investigation of suspect but generally tolerated categories like charlatans. It was the ongoing attempt to regulate the activity of charlatans which provides us with the raw material for this Database and for the book associated with it, David Gentilcore’s Medical Charlatanism in Early Modern Italy (Oxford University Press, 2006; ISBN 0199245355)

Main Topics:

The licensing procedure - from initial application by the charlatan to the issuing of a licence - provides us with a wealth of information about them and the phenomenon of which they were part. Each complete licence tells us the charlatan's name and place of origin, his stage name or alias, the nature of his practice/activity, licences and/or 'privileges' from other States (if any), the remedies he wished to sell, and (sometimes) their ingredients. A database of such information can thus tell us as much about individuals and medicines as it can about broader trends in the history of early modern Europe. Itemising some 1,600 licences, issued to over a thousand of different charlatans the length and breadth of Italy, over a period of over two and a half centuries, the Italian Charlatans Database comes as close as it is possible to get in our attempt to understand charlatans and charlatanism 'from the inside'.

The data has been divided in to three tables: representing the Charlatans (Charlatans), licences awarded to the Charlatans (Licences) and the remedies each licence allowed them to sell (LicenceToSell). Two appended documents offer further information relevant to this third table. Appendix One: Translation of remedy ingredients assists in the case of information supplied in the original Italian, by providing information on the ingredients and their purported uses and benefits. Appendix Two: Index of remedies with ingredients gives lists of ingredients for some of the main licensed remedies referred to in the Database.

Coverage:

Time Period Covered: 1550 - 1800
Dates of Fieldwork: 1995 - 2005
data file created
Country: Italy
Geography: Bologna; Milan; Padova; Parma; Pavia; Rome; Siena; Turin; Venice
Spatial Units: No spatial unit
Observation Units: Individuals
Kind of Data: Textual data; Numeric data; Alpha/numeric data

Universe Sampled:

Location of Units of Observation: National
Population: Licence records of Italian charlatans for the period 1550-1800

Methodology:

Time Dimensions: Cross-sectional (one-time) study
Sampling Procedures: No sampling (total universe)
Method of Data Collection: Compilation or synthesis of existing material
Data Sources:
Archival holdings Consulted for this Database (all in Italy)
1) Archivio di Stato, Mantova (AS Ma), Magistratura Sanitaria Antica
2) Archivio di Stato, Padova (AS Pd), Ufficio di Sanità , 'Permessi e licenze'
3) Archivio di Stato, Pavia (AS Pv), Università : Facoltà  di Medicina, Farmacia e Aromatari, 'Ciarlatani-pseudomedici-offerte di balsami' and 'Atti, registri: protofisico Gio. Giacomo Castiglione'
4) Archivio di Stato, Rome (ASR), Archivio dell'Università  di Roma, 'Atti del Protomedicato'
5) Archivio di Stato, Siena (ASS) Archivio dello Studio, 'Libri del Protomedicato' and 'Deliberationes Collegii Philosophiae et Medicinae Doctorum'
6) Archivio Storico dell'Università  di Torino (ASUT), Facoltà  die Farmacia (Protomedicato)
7) Archivio di Stato, Venice (AS Ve), Provveditori alla Sanità , 'Notatoria', 'Rapporti dei medici' and 'Suppliche'

Secondary Sources Consulted for the Database
1) Bertolotti, Antonio: 'La medicina, chirurgia e farmacia in Roma nel secolo XVI', Il Buonarroti, vols. 4-6 (1885-6), pp. 187-198 and 226-234.
2) Rigoli, Paolo, Gli 'infinti inganni': il mestiere del ciarlatano tra Sei e Settecento (documenti veronesi, 1678-1803), Verona, Della Scala, 1990.

Weighting: no weighting conducted

Language(s) of Written Materials:

Study Description: English
Study Documentation: English and Italian

Access:

Access Conditions: The depositor has specified that registration is required. Available to all registered users. The depositor may be informed about usage.
Availability: History Data Service, UK Data Archive
Contact: Help desk: hds@essex.ac.uk

Date of First Release:

28 March 2008

Copyright:

David Gentilcore, University of Leicester

File last updated:

31 October 2011