Contributions on the diffusion of Humanism in the Golden Age: the social reception of Medicine
Gonzalo Gómez García
Department of Humanities
Francisco de Vitoria University, Madrid
ORCID: 0000-0001-8827-3609
Published: 21/12/2024
DOI: https://doi.org/10.31338/ahi.2024.3.7
ABSTRACT: The key point to understanding the success or otherwise of humanistic studies is their irradiation, their diffusion in the social sphere. Only analysing what and how they studied in Spain in the 16th and 17th centuries would not imply that this humanism apprehended in the classrooms would radiate socially and not only academically. That is if they reached the other, the recipient or beneficiary of that knowledge. Know whether or not there was diffusion to be able to consider whether this humanism remained only among those who had gone through a university institution or whether it came to permeate among the socially lower strata. In this study, we want to discuss and reflect on a branch of humanism: medicine. How was a patient received and treated by a doctor trained in the Spanish Golden Age? Specifically, the ones taught by the University of Alcalá, the institution that promoted philosophical studies and offered Europe and America a golden generation of humanist doctors.
KEYWORDS: humanism, Renaissance medicine, royal doctors, Spanish Golden Ages, universities.
