Ancient and contemporary medicine and doctors in F. Petrarch’s Invective contra medicum

Abstract

The starting point of Petrarch’s invective was a letter he wrote to the ailing Pope warning him against the doctors around him, most of whom were charlatans. The letter fell into the hands of one of the hustling doctors, and, outraged by this, he compiled a writing in defense of medicine, slandering Petrarch and poetry. In response to this, the poet launches a destroying attack on the doctor, who was not ashamed to place medicine, which is classified among the artes mechanicae, before rhetoric, which is included among the artes liberales, and even poetry. In my study, I show how the author, who has a denouncing opinion about the doctors of his time, evaluates ancient medicine and the famous doctors of antiquity, and how he highlights the superiority of poetry by presenting the hierarchy of sciences.