Medical Charlatanism in Early Modern Italy (review)

This book presents a wide-ranging study of medical charlatanism in early modern Italy. Its chief value lies in its provision of a meticulously researched and imaginatively presented discussion of a subject about which exists a multitude of assumptions but little dedicated research, in the fields of the history of medicine and in early modern social and cultural history more broadly. This monograph amply fills an important gap in historical knowledge about this fascinating topic and provides a missing link, including many surprises, in the history of medicine.

From the outset, the reader is challenged to reconsider the enduring and pervasive view that charlatans in the early modern period must have been vilified as marginal, dishonest individuals operating at the fringes of early modern Italian society, a view that would seem to be borne out by the continued use of the word "charlatan" as a pejorative term. Gentilcore's study demonstrates that this view must be revised if we are to grasp more accurately the purpose, function, and role of the medical charlatan in early modern Italy.

A particularly valuable contribution of this study is its use of the author's own devised database, the "Charlatans Database" (or CDB), which allows for a quantitative analysis of the rich documentary material produced by legislators and medical officials whose task it was to regulate, define, and control (but not quash) the work of charlatans. The result of this analysis is a very valuable study that locates charlatans more precisely than has been previously possible in the context of a cultural, social, and legislative system that not only accommodated charlatanism but also understood it to be an essential part of the fragile and dangerous realms of health, sickness, death, and dying in early modern Italy.

While providing a thorough study of the origins, forms, and functions of charlatanism (part II), this study does something more: it presents a new framework for understanding charlatanism by drawing on cultural and social historical methodologies to very good effect (part I). It draws out the myriad ways charlatans were constructed by various interested parties: the authorities, as well as competitors and detractors (such as members of the growing medical establishment); producers of artifacts of popular culture—including song and visual representation—and, finally and very effectively, the charlatans themselves (parts I and III). Methodologically, the study combines a postmodern approach to cultural history ("charlatanry was a constructed category" [p. 2]), with the empiricism of more traditional approaches to the history of medicine ("Charlatans . . . actually existed" [p. 3]), producing an original, enlightening, textured, and intellectually exciting study of early modern medical charlatanism in Italy.

While the author's ambitious methodological approach provides a fruitful and multifaceted vantage point from which to explore charlatanism in this period, the structure of the monograph poses a potential challenge for the reader. The study begins in part I with a postmodern analysis of how charlatanism was constructed, followed in part II by the mechanics of charlatanism, including its historical precedents. For this reviewer—and relative novice to the history of charlatanism—the information provided in part II would have greatly aided her appreciation of the cultural constructions of charlatanism discussed in part I. This is a minor criticism of a book that, taken as a whole, or indeed in its individual parts, constitutes an extremely rewarding analysis of this fascinating group, which was sometimes maligned but was almost always understood by contemporaries to play an essential role in the Italy of the early modern period. The book will be of immense interest to students and scholars of the history of medicine, as well as to social and cultural historians not just of Italy but also of Europe as a whole in the early modern period.