Abstract Summary
Despite medical advances, healthy living advice in the eighteenth century conveys a strong impression of continuity with the regimen genre from the late-middle ages and Renaissance. Indeed, most continued to be informed by a Galenic understanding of the body, particularly as regards the framework of the six non-naturals. Drawing on my previous research on the vernacular Italian regimen between the 1480’s and the 1650’s this paper will explore shifts in the genre by examining a number of Italian medical texts published after 1650 and before 1800. These are either explicitly ‘regimen’ or other medical tracts which include advice on how to live healthily, avoid illness and extend one’s life, such as Ramazzini’s much republished and widely translated ‘On the Diseases of Tradesmen’. On the one hand I will aim to explore some of the broader trends, such as the ever-increasing focus on the importance of the air to health, and an apparent decline in the emphasis on exercise. On the other hand I will focus on some more nuanced developments within these broader changes, such as in their understandings of, and advice pertaining to, the management of the air and the role of the skin in health.
