Disease and Culture in Early Modern Italy. (360G-Wellcome-079190_Z_06_Z)

£20,269

The pilot study will investigate the wide variety of cultural responses to large-scale epidemic disease, principally in Italy and against the backdrop of plague during the sixteenth century. The study will question generally accepted ideas (William McNeill, Alfred Crosby, and others) that epidemic catastrophe brought on widespread pessimism, otherworldly philosophies, and the decline of vigorous state formations). For the most catastrophic plague wave of the sixteenth century, 1575-7, the relationship was more nearly the reverse. The principal source for viewing this relationship will be the plague tract as it developed and multiplied through the sixteenth century. Written by university doctors, practicing medics, members of newly established health boards, and parish priests, these sources provide not only changing attitudes toward medical practice; they express fears and hopes and devise means for combating their hidden enemy from ritual purges to social policy. Around three hundred of them survive for sixteenth-century Italy, scattered through rare book rooms and archives; less than handful are available in modern editions. Along with demographic sources, chronicles, and literary works (novelle), this pilot study will explore these largely untapped sources to chart psychological and cultural reactions to epidemic disease from periods of low plague mortalities to the catastrophic years, 1575-7.

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Grant Details

Amount Awarded 20269
Applicant Surname Cohn
Approval Committee Medical History and Humanities Funding Committee
Award Date 2005-11-10T00:00:00+00:00
Financial Year 2005/06
Grant Programme: Title Project funding: Inactive scheme
Internal ID 079190/Z/06/Z
Lead Applicant Prof Samuel Cohn
Partnership Value 20269
Planned Dates: End Date 2010-01-31T00:00:00+00:00
Planned Dates: Start Date 2006-02-01T00:00:00+00:00
Recipient Org: Country United Kingdom
Region Scotland