Forgotten Healers: Women and the Pursuit of Health in Late Renaissance Italy

Citation:

Strocchia, Sharon T. 2019. Forgotten Healers: Women and the Pursuit of Health in Late Renaissance Italy. Harvard University Press.
Forgotten Healers: Women and the Pursuit of Health in Late Renaissance Italy

Abstract:

In Renaissance Italy women played a more central role in providing health care than historians have thus far acknowledged. Women from all walks of life—from household caregivers and nurses to nuns working as apothecaries—drove the Italian medical economy. In convent pharmacies, pox hospitals, girls’ shelters, and homes, women were practitioners and purveyors of knowledge about health and healing, making significant contributions to early modern medicine.

Publisher's Version

Last updated on 01/28/2025