Italian physicians in exile and the first medical book in Lithuania

ENThe article analyses the historical episodes in which the first medical book published in Lithuania, Commentariola medica et physica (1584), was prepared by the Italian physician Simone Simoni (1532-1602). Assuming that the medical practice was directly affected by confessionalisation, tensions between heterodox physicians and Jesuits, the circumstances for the concentration of Italian heterodox physicians in the region of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Transylvania in the second half of the sixteenth century are discussed. Simone Simoni, a former Protestant and refugee religionis causa, in 1582 converted to Catholicism, and from 1583 served as a physician to the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania Stephen Bathory (1576-1586), undertook criticism of Italian physicians belonging to the early Socinian circle. In 1584-1589 Simoni developed two major controversies against Marcello Squarcialupi (1538-1592), who worked at the manor of the Transylvanian duke Sigismund Báthory (1573-1613), and Niccolò Buccella (died in 1599), the chief physician of Stephen Bathory. Commentariola medica et physica was the first fruit of this controversy. Simoni criticised the nature philosophy methods of the Socinian Squarcialupi, who focused not on theory but on the observation of phenomena. The medical controversy between Italian exiles reflected the early modern intersections of medicine and confession. Simoni considered the theoretical system of classical Aristotelian philosophy of nature to be the basis of medicine. After the opportunistic conversion to the Roman Church, he dedicated himself to the fight against his Socinian colleagues in exile. He did not recognize the experiments and observation practices of Socinians who delved into the particular phenomena of nature and human nature, used empirics and sought the secrets of a ‘Christian medicine’. Keywords: Simone Simoni, Marcello Squarcialupi, Italian physicians in exile, Vilnius. [From the publication]