Medicine and Humanism in Late Medieval Italy

Francesco Novello, the last prince of Padua’s edition of Serapion the Younger’s herbal, known as the Carrara Herbal (BL Egerton 2020), attests to the growing influence of Arabic medicine both inside and outside the University. Its contents speak to the Carrara family’s historic role as patrons and protectors of the Studium. Yet, its form - as a luxury manuscript written in Paduan dialect and illuminated with illustrations of plants and of Carrara heraldry - locates the pharmacopeia in court culture. In particular, the Herbal’s form connects Serapion’s text to patterns of book collection and rhetorics of self-making encouraged by Petrarch and practiced by Francesco’s forefathers.