Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

A Royal Accident: Medical Authority and Political Dynamics in 1559

2021; University of Chicago Press; Volume: 24; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1086/713500

2037-6731

Valeria Finucci,

Historical Economic and Social Studies

NotesContact Valeria Finucci at Romance Studies Department, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708 ([email protected]).I would like to dedicate this essay to Kevin Brownlee, friend, mentor, colleague, guide, and academic advocate. More than thirty years ago he invited me to participate in a National Endowment for the Humanities summer seminar on Dante's Divina Commedia at Dartmouth College. That event, together with his unwavering support through the years, has changed my academic life, redirected my scholarly interests, and advanced my intellectual objectives. I salute him for his generosity, groundbreaking scholarship, and unfailing kindness. A first version of this essay was presented at a symposium organized by Kevin Brownlee and Eva del Soldato, titled "Strategies of Authority," at the University of Pennsylvania in April 2018.1. Roland Puccetti, "Brain Transplantation and Personal Identity," Analysis 29 (1969): 65–77, at 70. On intellectual disabilities see also C. F. Goodey, "Blockheads, Roundheads, Pointy Heads: Intellectual Disability and the Brain before Modern Medicine," Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 41, no. 2 (2005): 165–83.2. "To the very kindly and learned Andreas Vesalius the second Asclepius and cherished friend." This is how Vesalius was addressed in a letter by his friend Johan Herwagen, writing from Basel on March 23, 1555 [?1553]. In C. D. O'Malley, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 1514–1564 (Berkeley, 1965), 405–6.3. Paré revolutionized surgical techniques in various instances, aiming at minimizing pain or the damage to the body. See La manière de traicter les playes faictes tant par hacquebutes, que par fleches: Et les accidentzicelles, comme fractures et caries des os, gangrene et mortification […] (Paris, 1551). Together with Jean Tagault he dominated the field of French surgery in the early and mid-sixteenth century. See Marie Louise Concasty, ed., Commentaires de la facultè de médecine de l'Université de Paris (1516–1560) (Paris, 1964).4. The anesthetic was used only after 1846; the antisepsis after 1867.5. The history of surgery and in particular of surgeons is still to be fully fleshed out. For recent explorations, see John Henderson, The Renaissance Hospital: Healing the Body and Healing the Soul (New Haven, CT, 2006); Cynthia Klestinec, "Vesalius among the Surgeons," in "Vesalius and the Languages of Anatomy," ed. Valeria Finucci and Maurizio Rippa Bonati, special issue, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 4, no. 1 (2018): 125–51; Michael McVaugh, "When Universities First Encountered Surgery," Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 72, no. 1 (2017): 6–20; Piers D. Mitchell, Medicine in the Crusades: Warfare, Wounds, and the Medieval Surgeon (Cambridge, 2004); and Pearl Katz, The Scalpel's Edge: The Culture of Surgeons (Boston, 1999).6. For the importance of barbers to address surgical needs, see Sandra Cavallo, "Barber Surgeons and Artisans of the Body," in Artisans of the Body in Early Modern Italy: Identities, Families and Masculinities (Manchester, 2007), 64–88; Tiziana Pesenti, "'Professores chirurgie,' 'medici ciroici,' e 'barbitonsores' a Padova nell'età di Leonardo Buffi da Bartapaglia," Quaderni per la storia dell'Università di Padova 11 (1978): 1–38; Celeste Catherine Chamberland, "Honor, Brotherhood, and the Corporate Ethos of London's Barber-Surgeons' Company, 1570–1640," Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 64, no. 3 (2009): 300–332; and Anita Guerrini, The Courtiers' Anatomists: Animals and Humans in Louis XIV's Paris (Chicago, 2015).7. In 1554 Paré had been accepted into the Confraternity of Saint Côme, which had both barbers and surgeons among its members, but the requirement that inductees know Latin was waived in his case, a demonstration of the fame that he had already achieved by then. See Steven G. Friedman, "Ambroise Paré: Barber Vascular Surgeon," Journal of Vascular Surgery 68, no. 2 (2018): 646–49.8. See Andrew Cunningham, The Anatomical Renaissance: The Resurrection of the Anatomical Projects of the Ancients (Aldershot, 1997); Roy Porter, Blood and Guts: A Short History of Medicine (New York, 2003); L. W. B. Brockliss and Colin Jones, The Medical World of Early Modern France (Oxford, 1977); Peter Elmer, The Healing Arts: Health, Disease, and Society in Europe, 1500–1800 (Manchester, 2004); Mary Lindemann, Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1999); and Piero Gambaccini, Mountebanks and Medicasters: A History of Italian Charlatans from the Middle Ages to the Present (Jefferson, NC, 2004).9. On the relationship between physicians and surgeons at the time, see Richard Palmer, "Physicians and Surgeons in Sixteenth-Century Venice," Medical History 23, no. 4 (1979): 451–60; David Gentilcore, Medical Charlatanism in Early Modern Italy (Oxford, 2006); Vivian Nutton, "The Humanist Surgeon," in The Medical Renaissance of the Sixteenth Century, ed. A. Wear, R. K. French, and I. M. Lonie (Cambridge, 1985), 75–99; Oswei Temkin, "The Role of Surgery in the Rise of Modern Medical Thought," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 23, no. 3 (1951): 249–59; and Michael Stolberg, "Bedside Teaching and the Acquisition of Practical Skills in Mid-Sixteenth-Century Padua," Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 69, no. 4 (2014): 633–61.10. Michel Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic (London, 1997), 95. Medically speaking though, already by the middle of the eighteenth century Giambattista Morgagni (1682–1771), professor of anatomy at the University of Padua, had shown that the observation of patients' diseases—coupled with the later anatomical dissection of their bodies—confirmed his hypothesis that diseases begin in specific organs and tissues. See Morgagni, De sedibus, et causis morborum per anatomen indagatis libri quinque (Venice, 1761). Today Morgagni is considered the father of modern anatomical pathology.11. As Marco Catani and Stefano Sandrone write in Brain Renaissance: From Vesalius to Modern Neuroscience (Oxford, 2015), there is an image (A2 in the appendix) in which "three longitudinal most anterior gyri of the frontal lobe as well as the vertical direction of the precentral and postcentral gyri in the frontal and parietal lobe" were officially defined only two hundred years later (27). For another example, "the cortex of the insula, a structure 'discovered' by Felix Vicq d'Azyr and Johann Christian Reil 350 years later, is also clearly visible" (27). The appendix of all figures with commentary is at 215–52.12. According to Webster's Dictionary, the rete mirabile is "a small but dense network of blood vessels formed by the breaking up of a larger vessel into branches that usually reunite into one trunk and believed especially important as oxygen-storing mechanism in aquatic animals" (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rete%20mirabile). Berengario wrote in 1521 that he had dissected more than a hundred heads for the sake of finding it. See his Commentaria, (Bologna, 1521), fols. 6v–7r.13. Regarding focal epilepsy, Vesalius preceded Hughlings Jackson. Before him, Johan Dryander (1500–1560) had illustrated the anatomy of the brain, specifically the dura mater separating the right and the left brain, in Anatomiae, hoc est, Corporis humani dissectionis pars prior (Marburg, 1537).14. In William Damper, A History of Science and Its Relations to Philosophy and Religion (Cambridge, 1971), 122. For a historical excursus on brain injuries, see Clifford Rose, "The History of Head Injuries: An Overview," Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 6, no. 2 (1997): 154–80.15. On the well-known rivalry between Catherine de' Medici and Diane of Poitiers, see, e.g., Sheila ffolliott, "Casting a Rival into the Shade: Catherine de' Medici and Diane de Poitiers," Art Journal 48, no. 2 (1989): 138–43.16. Henri was afflicted by hypospadias and chordee, a urologic abnormality in which the opening of the urethra is not at the tip but on the underside of the penis. It is treated today by surgery. Catherine, however, was inexpert and had to be coached on how to "do it" by Diane de Poitiers, her cousin since both were of the La Tour d'Auvergne stock. Diane was herself unable to have children with Henri, although she had two daughters during her marriage. Fearing that her position at court would be lost if Henri, who needed male heirs, would remarry, she chose to support Catherine in this triangulated relationship. On Henri's sexual problem, see M. Hatzinger, S. Al-Shajlawi, and M. Sohn, "Die Hypospadie und Infertilität von Heinrich II von Frankreich (1519–1559)," Geschichte der Urologie 53 (2014): 375–78; and Jennifer Gordetsky, Ronald Rabinowitz, and Jeanne O'Brien, "The 'Infertility' of Catherine de' Medici and Its Influence on 16th Century France," Canadian Journal of Urology 16, no. 2 (2009): 4584–88. See also Jean Fernel, On the Hidden Causes of Things: Forms, Soul and Occult Disease in Renaissance Medicine, ed. John Forester and John Henry (1542; Leiden, 2004).17. In 1525, during the Battle of Pavia in the Italian Wars, François I was captured by the forces of Charles V and held prisoner. For his release, he pledged that his two sons would be sent to Spain as captives to ensure that he would keep the terms of the Treaty of Madrid, signed in 1526. François was in no rush to make good on his promise, and the imprisonment of the two boys became increasingly harsher as a result.18. In Frederic Baumgartner, Henry II, King of France 1547–1559 (Durham, NC, 1988), 218. Gout was a general term used in the period to refer to rheumatism, which was thought to come from an imbalance of humors.19. The prediction was in a letter in Latin that warned the king "to avoid all single combat in an enclosed space, especially near his forty-first year, for in that period of his life he was menaced by a wound in his head which might rapidly result in blindness and even in death." In Edgar Leoni, Nostradamus and His Prophecies (New York, 1982), 27n. Gaurico died one year before the tournament.20. "Le Lion jeune le vieux surmontera / En champ bellique par singulier duel: / Dans cage d'or ses yeux lui crèvera: / Deux plaies une puis mourir, mort cruelle." The quatrain 35 is in Nostradamus, Century I, in Les Prophéties (Lyon, 1555). Nostradamus also divined the chilling end of all the Valois's children, although it seems that Catherine only knew that her three boys would become kings in due time.21. The woodcut, reprinted many times, was published in Quarante Tableaux (1569–70). The collection illustrated thirty-nine events related to disorders, massacres, and wars. Three of these tables concern Henri's joust and death.22. C. Haton and F. Bourquelot, Mémoires de Claude Haton contenant le récit des évènements accomplis de 1553 à 1582, principalement dans la Champagne et la Brie (Paris, 1857).23. Andreas Vesalius, "The Tragic Termination of the Royal Injury," in O'Malley, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 396–98, at 396. The original report has been lost, but there is a copy at the Bibliothèque Nationale, mss. fr. vol. 10190. It was first published by Alphonse de Ruble, Antoine de Bourbon et Jeanne d'Albret, I (Paris, 1881), 432–35, and republished with corrections in Ferdinand Wagenseil, "Vesal beim Tode Heinrichs II von Frankreich," Archiv fur Geschichte fur Medizin 46 (1962): 336–39.24. Letter of June 30, 1559, in Archivio di Stato di Modena (hereafter ASMo), "Alfonso II," cited in Lucien Romier, "Mort de Henri II," Revue du Seizième Siècle 1 (1913): 99–152, at 140. English translations here and throughout are mine. Alfonso d'Este (1533–97), who later that year became Duke of Ferrara as Alfonso II, was the son of Ercole II d'Este and Renée de France and led the war in Flanders for Henri II, who gave him the command of one hundred knights. A year earlier he had married Lucrezia de' Medici, thus strengthening his relationship with Catherine too. See Marion Leathers Kuntz, Anointment of Dionisio: Prophecy and Politics in Renaissance Italy (Philadelphia, 2001), 87.25. This report, dated July 10, 1559, comes from an "Aviso" in Venice. Aurelio Fregoso letter from Urbino to Duke Cosimo I is in the Archivio di Stato di Firenze (hereafter ASF), Mediceo del Principato, vol. 479, fol. 489. Fregoso had been in the service of Henri for a number of years, but in 1557 he passed to the service of Cosimo de' Medici as his army general fighting the French in Lombardy. Biographical information is in Jean-François Dubost, "Fregoso, Aurelio," Dizionario biografico degli italiani, vol. 50 (1998), https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/aurelio-fregoso_(Dizionario-Biografico).26. In Patrick Forbes, A Full View of the Public Transactions in the Reign of Elizabeth (London, 1741), 161 n. 6. See also, more generally, Seymour Schwartz, The Anatomist, the Barber-Surgeon and the King: How the Accidental Death of King Henry II of France Changed the World (Amherst, NY, 2015).27. Caracciolo's letter, "A Monsignor Cornelio Musso Vescovo di Bitonto," is in a collection put together by Luigi Michele, titled Delle lettere di principi le quali o si scrivono da principi o a principi o ragionano di principi. Libro terzo (Venice, 1581), 194v–198r, at 195v. Caracciolo had moved to France in his teens and later was employed by Henri as ambassador to Pope Paul IV. For biographical information, see Giovanni Parenti, "Caracciolo, Antonio," Dizionario biografico degli italiani, vol. 19 (1976), https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/antonio-caracciolo_res-e5455c79-87e9-11dc-8e9d-0016357eee51_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29. See also Charles O'Malley and J. Saunders, "The 'Relation' of Andreas Vesalius on the Death of Henry II of France," Journal of the History of Medicine (1948): 197–213, at 202–3.28. Vesalius, "Tragic Termination," 396.29. Letter by Alfonso d'Este to the Duke of Ferrara, June 30, 1559, in ASMo, "Francia," cited in Romier, "Mort de Henri II," 141.30. The report is from Maréchal de Vielleville who wrote, however, many years later, now in V. Carloix, Mémoires de la vie de François de Scépeaux, sire de Vieilleville et compte du Durestal, marechal de France, in Nouvelle collection des mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de France, vol. 9.1 (1838), 284. Cited in I. M. L. Donaldson, "The Injury and Death of Henri II: The Contributions of Amboise Paré and Andreas Vesalius," in Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh 43 (2013), online version.31. "Hor messo in letto, gli medici deliberorno di darci una medicina di reubarbaro et momia et ucolepo rosato, se ben mi raccordo, laqual tenuta tre o quatro hore la vomitò tutta." From a letter by Luigi Gonzaga to the duke of Mantua, dated July 1, 1559, in Archivio di Stato di Mantova (hereafter ASM), "Francia," cited in Romier, "Mort de Henri II," 143. Luigi (Lodovico) Gonzaga-Nevers (1539–95), born in Mantua, was sent to France at age ten to claim the assets of his French grandmother and thus became the founder of the cadet branch of the Gonzaga, the Nevers. He fought for Henri II in the battle of St. Quentin, where he was taken prisoner by the Spanish. Many historians make him one of the courtiers most responsible for the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of the Huguenots in 1572.32. "spesso dimanda a bere, ma non gli danno senon un pocho di giolippo con aqua ben mescolato, et ciò gli danno molto raro; perodimanda quasi ad ogni mezzhora a lavarse la bocha di aqua et gli concedono." From a letter by Luigi Gonzaga to the Duke of Mantua, July 1, 1559, in ASM, "Francia," cited in Romier, "Mort de Henri II," 144.33. As Leone Ricasoli writes to Cosimo in Florence, on July 2, 1559, "Trovandomi lontano da Parigi XV poste, passò un cavalcatore del Re che andava con gran diligenza per un medico a Lione, et disse che il Re era stato ferito d'una lanciata in giostra." In ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 4564, fol. 13, in Romier, "Mort de Henri II," 142. Ricasoli had just been sent to Paris by Duke Cosimo I to congratulate him for the signing of the peace agreement, as a letter informing Catherine states. See ASF, Mediceo del Principato, "Cosimo 1 de' Medici," vol. 211, fol. 2.34. Ambroise Paré, Les Oeuvres de M. Ambroise Paré (Paris, 1565). In English, see Paré, The Workes of That Famous Chirurgion Ambrose Parey. Translated out of Latine and Compared with the French, trans. T. Johnson (London, 1649). Paré was such an expert on brain injuries that, as Simpson writes, "it seems that of his 18 cases of head injury, only five died." In Donald Simpson, "Paré as a Neurosurgeon," ANZ Journal of Surgery 67 (1997): 540–46, at 544.35. The method was found by chance when Paré had to become inventive after his supply of oil ended, but it later changed radically the way he dealt with traumatic wounds. See Cyril Mauffrey, "'Finally I had run out of oil': Ambroise Paré and the Birth of Modern Trauma Surgery," Trauma 8 (2006): 1–3, at 2.36. As Simpson writes, it is "a very gross anachronism to speak of neurosurgery in the 16th century … nevertheless Paré did perform many procedures that we see as neurosurgical." In Simpson, "Paré as a Neurosurgeon," 543. The neurological effects of skull injuries were also noticed by Leonardo Botallo, a student of Gabriele Falloppio at the University of Padua, who later became a military surgeon with the French army and a royal physician to Henri's son, Charles IX, in De curandis vulneribus sclopettorum (Lyon, 1560).37. Ambroise Paré, La methode curative des playes et fractures de la teste humaine. Avec les pourtraits des instruments necessaires pour la curation d'icelles (Paris, 1561).38. "non si lamenta nè parla quasi mai, senon che a pena risponde una paroletta quando li vien adimandato qualche cosa; dorme assai e non guarda quasi mai niuno col bon occhio, tenedolo di continuo serrato." Letter to the Cardinal of Ferrara, in ASMo, "Francia," cited in Romier, "Mort d'Henri II," 145. Piovene entered the service of Henri II as equerry in 1555. Two years earlier he had brought to Paris some excellent horses to present to the king on behalf of the Duke of Ferrara. See Lucien Romier, Les origines politiques des guerres de religion (Geneva, 1974), 102.39. From a letter of July 2, 1559, of G. Roviglio to the Duke of Ferrara, in ASMo, "Francia," cited in Romier, "Mort de Henri II," 145–46.40. "non so che geliada artificiata et altre cosete apartenenti a simili mali." Letter of Luigi Gonzaga to the Duke of Mantua, July 1, 1559, in ASM, "Francia," cited in Romier, "Mort de Henri II," 145.41. "La cose di S. Mtà, Iddi gratia, vanno ogni di megliorando … S. Mtà, per recrearsi un puoco, hà addimandato hoggi la musica laquale si gli è fatta et hà mostrato di cio molto contento." Letter of G. Roviglio of July 3, 1559, in ASMo, "Francia," cited in Romier, "Mort de Henri II," 146–47.42. Vesalius, "Tragic Termination," 396.43. For this account and the reconstruction of the episode, see O'Malley, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 285. Vesalius does not mention the test in his autopsy. The expression "chironium vulnus" comes from Erasmus's Adagia 2.8.21, and refers to the story of the centaur Chiron, who was unable to cure himself, although he was a healer, when he was shot by a poisoned arrow.44. "Vesalio dixo su parecer con aquel latin y con aquela facilidad que en muchas juntas." In Chacón, Practica y Teorica de Cirugia (Madrid, 1678), 205. Chacón was later involved with Vesalius, then residing in Madrid, for a consult on brain fracture involving Don Carlos, son of Philip II, who broke his skull when falling down a set of stairs. Don Carlos survived a subsequent infection, and his recovery was considered miraculous. See Andrew Villalon, "The 1562 Head Injury of Don Carlos: A Conflict of Medicine and Religion in Sixteenth-Century Spain," Mediterranean Studies 22, no. 2 (2014): 95–134.45. See O'Malley, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 285. Paré also knew the importance of meninges for the nutrition of the brain. See Paré, The Workes of That Famous Chirurgion Ambrose Parey, 128.46. O'Malley, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 285.47. O'Malley, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 286.48. Hippocrates had already identified and described five cases of fractures: linear fracture, contusion, depressed fracture, dent occurring with or without fracture, and contrecoup fracture. See De capitis vulneribus (a translation into Latin of works by Hippocrates, Galen, and Oribasius from a Byzantine source by Guido Guidi) (Paris, 1544).49. As the Spanish surgeon Francisco Arceo writes, "The third day after a wound is made, it shal be expedient to use the office of the trepan or percer." In Arceo, A Most Excellent and Compendius Method for Curing Woundes in the Head and Other Parts of the Body (London, 1588), chap. 4. See also B. Nathan and G. Evans, "The Treatment of Head Injury during the Renaissance," Journal of Accident and Emergency Medicine 15 (1998): 119–20. Trephination was performed as early as 5000 BCE. For explanations on the techniques used and for an archeological study of skulls, see John W. Verano, "Differential Diagnosis: Trepanation," International Journal of Paleopathology 14 (2016): 1–9. More generally, see Charles G. Gross, A Hole in the Head: More Tales in the History of Neuroscience (Cambridge, 2012).50. Andrea Della Croce, Della cirurgia […] libri sette (Venice, 1574). See also Cynthia Klestinec, "Translating Learned Surgery," Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 72, no. 1 (2016): 34–50.51. Jacopo Berengario da Carpi's neurosurgical treatise Tractatus de Fractura Calvae sive Cranei (1518) specifically addressed all varieties of head traumas following battlefield injuries together with the instruments needed for craniocerebral surgery. See Berengario da Carpi, On Fracture of the Skull or Cranium, trans. L. R. Lind, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 80 (Philadelphia, 1990); and Antonio Di Ieva et al., "Berengario da Carpi: A Pioneer in Neurotraumatology," Journal of Neurosurgery 114 (2011): 1461–70.52. As in Vesalius's postmortem examination in O'Malley, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 287. Now we know that it would have been useful because even without a skull fracture "there was a secondary rebound trauma resulting in a subdural haematoma in the occipital area." See J. Tainmont, "A Historical Vignette (19). An Orbital Trauma in the 16th Century," B-ENT 6, no. 3 (2010): 229–36. See also Kian Eftekhari et al., "The Last Ride of Henry II of France: Orbital Injury and a King's Demise," Survey of Ophthalmology 60, no. 3 (2015): 274–78.53. Vesalius, "Tragic Termination," 397.54. Vesalius, "Tragic Termination," 397.55. For more on Vesalius's neuroanatomy, see John M. S. Pearce, "Anatomical and Neurophysiological Phenomena," in Fragments of Neurological History (London, 2003), 1–66; and Malcom Hast and Daniel Garrison, "Vesalius on the Variability of the Human Skull: Book 1 Chapter 5 of De Humani Corporis Fabrica," Clinical Anatomy 13, no. 5 (2000): 311–20. Unlike Vesalius, Paré believed in the existence of the Galenic rete mirabile, but he too knew that convulsions could take place on the opposite side of a cerebral injury. See his The Workes of That Famous Chirurgion Ambrose Parey, 275.56. From a letter of July 7 from Lione Ricasoli to Duke Cosimo I in Florence, in ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 4594, fol. 21. Ricasoli was in France as Cosimo de' Medici's ambassador. The letters he wrote to his duke between July 7 and September 11, 1559, are in Archivio Storico Italiano a cura della R. Deputazione di Storia Patria, vol. 26 (Florence, 1877).57. From a letter by Roviglio to the Duke of Ferrara of July 8, 1559, in ASMo, "Francia," cited in Romier, "Mort de Henri II," 148.58. From a letter by Niccolò Ferrante to Duke Cosimo I in Florence on July 8, 1559: "si dubita di morte, la qual cosa non so certa, ma alle piazza si dice per certa." In ASF, Mediceo del Principato, vol. 479, fol. 445.59. "Dipoi l'hanno sfasciata la testa per medicarlo et hanno trovato la piaga molto secca, et si stà aspettando che li uscisse l'anima." Letter of G. Roviglio to the Duke of Ferrara on July 9, 1559, in ASMo, "Francia," cited in Romier, "Mort de Henri II," 149.60. "Per ultimo rimedio li medici hanno trovato di farli alcune fumotationi per farlo addormentare e questo per trapanarlo et usare l'ultimo rimedio." From a letter by Roviglio to the Duke of Ferrara of July 9, 1559, in ASMo, "Francia," cited in Romier, "Mort de Henri II," 150.61. Purulent encephalitis can be treated with drainage or elimination of infected brain tissue. See C. Ernest West, "A Case of Purulent Encephalitis Treated by Drainage and Removal of Infected Brain-Tissue," Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 2 (1909): 15–18.62. Vesalius, "Tragic Termination," 398.63. In Michele, Delle lettere di principi, 196v. Further contemporary and schematic sources of the event figure in Louis Lafaist, Archives curieuses de l'histoire de France depuis Louis XI jusqu'à Louis XVIII, ser. 1, vol. 2 (Paris, 1834); J. A. C. Bouchon, Choix de chroniques et memories sur l'histoire de France (Paris, 1836); and Jean de Serres, Histoire des choses mémorables avenues en France, depuis l'an 1547 jusques au commencement de l'an 1597 (Paris, 1599).64. "fino a quest'hora non è entrata anchora Madama di Ventinois nella camera del Re per dubbio che hà che la regina non la cacciasse," writes G. Roviglio to the Duke of Ferrara, on July 1, 1559, in ASMo, "Francia," cited in Romier, "Mort de Henri II," 144. Diane de Poitiers was later vindictively despoiled by Catherine of almost everything Henri had given her throughout the many years of their liaison.65. The list was given by J. Alvarotti to the Duke of Ferrara on July 6, 1559: "Nella camera di S. Mtà vi entrano pochissime persone: la Regina, il Conestabile, il card. Lorena, M. di Guisa, il sr. principe nostro [Alfonso] e il sr. duca di Savoia." In ASMo, "Francia," cited in Romier, "Mort de Henri II," 144. The woodcut is one of the Quarante tableaux by Perrissin and Tortorel.66. There is also another man close to the king's bed with a handkerchief in his hand. He could be one of the nurses attending the king or another figuration of Vesalius holding the handkerchief with which he administered the test that made him think that there was nothing to do to keep Henri alive.67. The original urn was destroyed during the French Revolution, and a new one was made in the nineteenth century. It is now at the Louvre, held by three Graces.68. According to Simpson's analysis, Paré "seems to have seen the danger [of accumulation of blood] in a putrefactive change in the blood, rather than in the mechanical compression of the brain; the blood became corrupt and putrid (Paré, The Workes of That Famous Chirurgion Ambrose Parey, 273), which might go on to corrupt the brain, to disturb cerebral function and finally to cause respiratory failure. He evidently attached importance in the finding of a small area of 'corruption' in the king's brain; a modern reader might wonder whether this was an area of contusion rather than an abscess, but to Paré this would not have been an important distinction, because he believed that contusions necessarily went on to suppurate. For Paré a dangerous collection of fluid under the skull should be drained; better still, it could be prevented by operating on fractures before putrefaction took place. A modern neurosurgeon, aware of the role of microbial infection, would endorse this policy in compound fractures, but would see it as mistaken in closed head surgeries." Simpson, "Paré as a Neurosurgeon," 545.69. Paré, La methode curative des playes. English translation in Marc Zanello et al., "The Death of Henry II, King of France (1519–1559): From Myth to Medical and Historical Fact," Acta Neurochirugica 157, no. 1 (January 2015): 145–49, at 147.70. Eugene S. Flamm, From Skulls to Brains: 2500 Years of Neurosurgical Progress (New York: New York Academy of Medicine, 2008), 10.71. Vesalius, "Tragic Termination," 397.72. Vesalius, "Tragic Termination," 397. In O'Malley's explanation, "the initial vomiting and restlessness, the gradual loss of consciousness, the slow pulse, stertorous breathing and rising temperature, and finally the signs of contralateral paralysis and ipsilateral convulsions presaged a fatal issue." O'Malley, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 287.73. Inflammation of the meninges—that is, of the membrane surrounding the brain and the spinal cord—is called meningitis; inflammation of the brain itself is called encephalitis. Let's remember that Vesalius had diagnosed meningitis on his first visit to the king and felt that that inflammation was deadly.74. Konstantinos Markatos, Marianna Karamanou, Konstantina Arkoudi, and Georgios Androutsos, "Henri II of France (1519–1559) and His Death from Meningoencephalitis Following Cranial Trauma," World Neurosurgery 106 (October 2017): 442–45, at 443 and 447. Markatos is skeptical about the presence of both Paré and Vesalius at the king's bed before his death.75. Henri "died from periorbital cellulitis caused by a retained foreign body in the wound, complicated by a left interhemispheric haematoma." Zanello et al., "The Death of Henry II, King of France," 145 and 148.76. Vesalius, "Tragic Termination," 397.77. "Peri-orbital puncture wounds by sharp wooden objects are not rare, but can be dangerous when there is intracranial penetration by and retention of the wooden foreign body. Days to years after an apparently trivial initial wounding, serious intracranial complications can occur." C. F. Miller, J. S. Brodkey, and B. J. Colombi, "The Danger of Intracranial Wood," Surgical Neurology 7, no. 2 (1977): 95–103, at 95.78. Vesalius, "Tragic Termination," 396.79. For Stephen Liston, Paré's choice not to intervene through surgery to cure the sixteen-year-old François II likely testifies to the fact that one more time the surgeon felt unsure of his position at court. See Liston, "Ambroise Paré and the King's Mastoiditis," American Journal of Surgery 167 (1994): 440–42.80. Rodolphe Le Maistre, La santé du Prince. Ou le soing qu'on y doibt observer (Paris, 1616), 18. See also Jacob Soll, "Healing the Body Politic: French Royal Doctors, History, and the Birth of a Nation, 1560–1634," Renaissance Quarterly 12, no. 1 (2002): 1259–86.81. Paré, La Méthode curative des playes, dedication, 2nd leaf, r–v.82. See O'Malley, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 261–62.83. Vesalius had to interrupt his medical studies in Paris but subsequently graduated from the University of Padua in 1537. He was offered straight away the chair of anatomy there.84. David S. Chambers, "A Mantuan in London in 1557: Further Research on Annibale Litolfi," in England and the Continental Renaissance: Essays in Honour of J. B. Trapp, ed. Edward Chaney and Peter Mack (Woodbridge, 1990), 73–107, at 96. This was in reference to an autopsy of the Mantuan Ferrante Gonzaga that Vesalius performed in 1557, when he disagreed with the other doctors regarding the cause of the nobleman's illness and the reason for his death.85. Vesalius had responded to Sylvius's criticism with his "Letter on the China Root" (1546). See O'Malley, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 219–23.86. In Papiers d'état du Cardinal Granvelle, 5:182, cited in O'Malley, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 283.87. Zanello et al. also think that Vesalius's role at the bed of King Henri was limited. See Zanello et al., "The Death of Henry II, King of France," 145.88. A number of diagnoses have been made regarding Ivan and Henry VIII, including paranoia, bipolar disorder, and traumatic brain injury.89. The years of religious hostilities started in 1562, three years after Henri II died, and ended in 1598, when Henri IV was crowned king of France.