Academic literature on the topic '1676-1721'

Abstract Background and Aims Pope Gregory I (Magnus)―born c.540 AD, Pope 580-604 AD―in a letter to Bishop Venanzio ofLuni (later venerated as a saint) wrote “I have been confined to bed for the last eleven months, because of pain and malaise and suffer because of goutand my life has been turned into a penitence for my sins thus I am waiting death as a physician who will give me health”. He was the first Pope to suffer of gout and opens a list including in the years 20 pontiffs that includes Sisinnius, (b.650, pope 21 day in 708); Boniface VI (b. 806, Pope 15 days in 886), Honorius IV (b.1210, Pope 1285-1287); Boniface VIII (b. 1230, Pope 1294-1303); Clement VI (b.1281,Pope 1342-1352), Nicholas V (b.1387, Pope 1447-1455); Pius II( b. 1405, Pope 1458-1464); Sixtus IV (b. 1414, Pope 1471-1474); Pius III (b.1440, Pope 26 days in 1503); Pius IV (b. 1499, Pope 1559-1565); Julius II (b. 1443, Pope 1503-1516); Julius III (b.1481, Pope 1550-1555); Clement VIII (b. 1536, Pope 1592- 1605); Clement X (b.1581, Pope 1670-1676); Innocent XI (b.1681, Pope 1676-1689); Innocent XII (b.1649, Pope 1676-2692); Innocent XIII (b.1655, Pope 1721-1724); Benedict XIV (b. 1765, Pope 1740-1758), and Pius VIII (b.1761, Pope 1829-1830). Their mean age at death was 69.4 years, the youngest being Sisinnius (59 years), the oldest being Clement X (96 years). Results Some popes were strong eaters like Boniface VIII. He was chronically affected by gout and renal stone disease and by the fear for death, and the search for therapies capable to prolong life. Cosmacini says “podagroso e gottoso”… the Pope is affected by arthritis and renal disease due to overalimentation very rich (straricca) in meat”. He enrolled various archiaters among them Taddeo Alderotti (1223-1295), Pietro da Abano (1257-1315), Anselmo da Bergamo (artisphysicae professor), Simone of Genova (author of Clavissanationis), Accursino from Pistoia, Manzia from Fabriano, Gugliemo da Brescia, Angelo da Camerino and Campano da Novara (Magister Campanus), the naturalist he too affected by renal stone disease. Julius III too was a strong eater (he loved fatty foods seasoned with garlic) as was Pius IV, the hard worker who everyday used to take a nap after lunch and a long walk later in the day. By contrast Nicholas V (his Pontiff saw in 1453 the Fall of Costantinople and the end of the Hundred Years War) was a sober eater and drinker as were Pius II who made use of simple common foods, little wine and slept up to 5-6 hours. Probably Nicholas V died uremic since his pale natural color switched into yellowish-brown (itaque ex naturali et subcandido in croceumsubcinericiumque color suusconversusest). Pius III “was a sober eater and drinker and used to dine every two days. Some of the above popes were patrons of universities (Boniface VIII, Nicholas V, Pius II), some were patrons of arts and science (Nicholas V, Sixtus IV). Boniface VIII is remembered for the Bulla detestandeferitatis (against dismemberment and evisceration of cadavers), issued on September 27, 1299). For thatBulla, during the subsequent centuries he was wrongly accused even by Herman Boerhaave and Albrecht von Haller to have retarded the advancement of medicine by impeding anatomical dissections. By contrast Sixtus IV is remembered not only for modernizing Rome and embelling it, but for the 1482 Breve to the University of Tubingen allowing―for teaching purposes ―dissection of dead bodies of people sentenced to death.

Documentary investigations conducted at the Florence State Archives contributed to shed light on eighteenth-century efforts to develop the collection of the Uomini Illustri portraits, exhibited along the walls of the Uffizi Gallery. While the original body of works had been commissioned by granduke Cosimo I to Cristofano di Papi dell’Altissimo, who had copied the series held by Paolo Giovio in his villa in Como, the Florentine collection was later enriched by a massive supply of portraits between 1719 and 1733. The desire to complete the Uffizi ‘gioviana’ series was probably due to Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici and the artist who followed in Cristofano dell’Altissimo’s footsteps should be identified in Carlo Ventura Sacconi (1676-1762), who painted 159 portraits of illustrious men. Between 1721 and 1727 the painter also completed the so-called ‘serie Aulica’, which was displayed – just like the ‘gioviana’ series – in the corridors of the Florentine Gallery.

Theodor Dassow (1648–1721), professor of Oriental Languages at the University of Wittenberg, was one of the most important German Hebraists of his time. When he died, he left to Wittenberg University an archive of about 6,000 handwritten pages bound in twenty-five volumes. These volumes brim with translations of Mishnah treatises and fragments of other Jewish works. One of the tomes contains at least four works that testify to the relationship that developed between Dassow and Isaac Abendana, when the German scholar visited Holland and England from 1676 to 1678. From the manuscript materials it would appear that Abendana taught the German professor how to translate the Mishnah and that they collaborated on a Latin translation of tractate Menahot. This chapter seeks to understand the reasons that led Dassow to become Abendana’s student as well as the role that the exercise of translating the Mishnah played in Dassow’s subsequent activity as a Hebraist.