Experiencing disease and medical treatment in renaissance Italy: Cardinal Pietro Bembo and his circle

This article, which examines contemporaries? personal experience of illness in Renaissance Italy, is part a growing literature concentrates on the patient rather than practitioner. The basis this study correspondence Pietro Bembo, well-known humanist, papal secretary and latterly Cardinal, with his cousin Gian Matteo Bembo long-standing friend, Cola Bruno. These letters are revealing how non-medical man understood described sixteenth century, associated particularly ?mal delle reni?, he shared friends recommended treatments. It also reveals attitude towards medical practitioners, ranging from scepticism to fully embracing new therapies such as Holy Wood, was used treat epidemic disease Great Pox. Indeed enthusiasm for efficacy drug great friend physician Girolamo Fracastoro, author Syphilis, poem dedicated treatise De contagione et contagiosis morbis (1546).