Biography

Ori Ben-Shalom is a doctoral candidate in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University. He studies the history of early modern medicine, with a particular interest in the relationship between medical practice and politics. In his dissertation, Ori examines the use of historical research in 18^th-century Italian medicine and its political significance. In the past, he has also conducted research on plague, public health, and religious reform in the 15^th and 16^th centuries. Before joining Harvard, Ori graduated from the Adi Latuman Interdisciplinary Program for Outstanding Students at Tel Aviv University, where he earned an M.A. in early modern history. He spent the academic year 2023-24 living and working in Bologna as a fellow of the Harvard Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies.

Project Summary

Physicians in 18th-century Italy elevated their profession’s perennial war against disease into new realms: from focusing on individuals’ health, they shifted to thinking about the health of society in general. One of the most significant practices they developed in order to do so was the study of history, which they executed in libraries and archives across the Italian states. This project examines how historical research became a central scientific method through which physicians investigated epidemics and promoted health reforms in the hope of eradicating them. Yet, it also demonstrates how, by studying the histories of plague, malaria, syphilis, and other illnesses, these physicians systematically reconstructed the history of science and medicine in the Renaissance. Their historical work, at times critical towards their precursors, at times commending, sought to emphasize the striking progression of science in previous centuries, thus contributing to an early notion of a “scientific revolution” that had occurred in Italy in the early modern period. This project proposes that, through this marriage of history, medicine, and the ethos of progress, they became indispensable political actors for the burgeoning enlightened State and one of the first groups of historians to shape the idea of the Renaissance in modern times.