University of Salerno

“ With the turning of attention to education in the later Middle Ages, the Southern Italians were brought almost at once in contact with Greek sources, and the earlier Renaissance began. With this in mind, it is comparatively easy to understand the efflorescence of culture in Southern Italy, and the development of the important University of Salerno and its great accomplishment, particularly in scientific matters, though all this came almost entirely as a consequence of the opportunity for Greek influence to have its effect there. ”

“ The simplest account of the new university origins is the most correct. It would appear that certain active-minded men of marked eminence began to give instruction in medical subjects at Salerno, and in law at Bologna, in a spirit and manner not previously attempted, to youths who had left the monastery and cathedral schools, and who desired to equip themselves for professional life. Pupils flocked to them; and the more able of these students, finding that there was a public demand for this higher specialized instruction, remained at headquarters, and themselves became teachers or doctors. ”

“ Great as it was, the reputation of the University of Naples has been eclipsed by the superior renown of the Medical College of Salerno. There the study of surgery and medicine was pursued under the eyes of the most learned and distinguished practitioners of every nation familiar with the healing art. Ignorance of any language could scarcely be an impediment to the student, for instruction was given in Latin, Greek, German, Hebrew, Arabic. Scientific methods were invariably observed in its curriculum. ”

“ Special circumstances led to the selection of the original university centres. One of these circumstances was the specialisation of the learning of the time. A mass of learning and tradition on subjects of interest to man and essential to his welfare, had grown up in a particular locality. Students who desired to possess themselves of this knowledge were attracted to the place. Thus, the schools at Bologna developed into specialised law schools about 1100 to 1130; Salerno became famous for the study of medicine; Paris became celebrated as the main centre of scholastic philosophy. ”

“ Through local conditions, a course in medicine arose at Salerno; in civil and canon law at Bologna; and in theology at Paris. Bologna became the pattern for numerous universities in the South; and Paris for many in the North.
Popes and sovereigns granted privileges by charter to the various universities. The term ‘university’ originally signified a ‘corporation’ of students and teachers, and the students were usually grouped according to ‘nations.’ The teaching body was divided into four or five ‘faculties.’
The course in arts included the seven liberal arts and portions of Aristotle ”

“ During the Middle Ages, in the Empire of the West, arose the School of Salernum, which became so celebrated that, like that of Alexandria, it deserves special mention. The modern city of Salerno is situated on the Neapolitan Gulf, about thirty miles southeast of the city of Naples, with a population of but a few thousand souls. ”

“ One naturally inquires, then, what was the source of the wide-spread fame of Salerno as a school, since it was distinguished neither by notable discovery in science nor by celebrated teachers, and the predominant element was doubtless one of obstinate conservatism and unswerving devotion to ancient doctrines. Founded during the dark period of the Middle Ages, at a time when ignorance, bigotry, and superstition prevailed, it preserved, amidst the gloom that had settled upon Europe, a few rays of that intellectual light which had shown so brightly in the golden ages of Roman history. ”

“ In the 9th century Salernitan physicians were already spoken of, and the city was known as Civitas hippocratica. A little later we find great and royal personages resorting to Salerno for the restoration of their health, among whom was William of Normandy, afterwards the Conqueror. The number of students of medicine must at one time have been considerable, and in a corresponding degree the number of teachers. Among the latter many were married, and their wives and daughters appear also in the lists of professors. The most noted female professor was the celebrated Trotula in the 11th century. ”

“ Learned men, whose tastes led them this way, naturally sought to inform their minds by procuring translations of the Arabic works on medicine. The just fame of Salerno, a medical school which had been founded in the closing years of the eleventh century by Robert Guiscard, depended on the intelligent zeal with which this plan of research was then pursued. [219] The kingdom of Sicily indeed occupies as important a place in the progress of the healing art as Spain itself does with regard to the history of philosophy and of science in general. ”

“ Behind the long line of lofty well-built houses facing the Bay, the streets are gloomy, narrow and crooked, a labyrinth of dark mysterious lanes that contain no palaces or churches of note, and but few artistic “bits” to catch the eye and delight the soul of a painter. As in the case of Amalfi, the Cathedral of San Matteo at Salerno is almost the sole monument left standing of a past that is peculiarly rich in historical associations. [pg 174] Ever since the accession of the Angevin kings Salerno has remained a quiet provincial town, neither rich nor poor, but stagnant and without commerce. ”

“ Salerno was particularly rich in its medical literary products. Very often we have not the names of the writers. Apparently there is good reason to think that a number of the professors consulted together in writing a book, and when it was issued it was considered to be a text-book of the Salernitan school of medicine rather than of any particular professor. This represents a development of co-operation on the part of colleagues in medical teaching that we are likely to think of as reserved for much later times. ”

“ We were thoroughly tired out when we arrived at Salerno, which is less picturesquely situated than Amalfi, the shore around being low. When Amalfi was a great commercial sea-port, the medical school of Salerno was famous for its knowledge of the healing art. The students went to study in Arabia and Spain; and they returned to their native town to dispense, among crowds of rich and noble patients, the treasures of their skill. Salerno in those days was regarded as illustrious among the cities of modern Italy—the women were beautiful, and the men were honest ”

“ Salerno full of interest to the traveller who loves the past. One is, its position as a seat of learning daring the middle ages. Here once arose the greatest school of medicine in, the world, the chairs of which were thrown open, to Jewish and Arabian professors, who at that time far outstripped the students of the Christian world in scientific attainments. ”

“ Athens of the two Sicilies, was her boundless liberality toward scholarship and culture regardless of sex. For, with a chivalrous admiration for intellect, wherever found, and with a sense of intellectual justice that has put to shame all medical schools outside of Italy, until less than fifty years ago, the school of Salerno was the first to throw open its portals to women as well as men, and give to an admiring world a number of women—those celebrated mulieres Salernitanæ—who were eminent not only as physicians, but also as professors of the theory and practice of medicine. ”

“ Salerno continued to enjoy a reputation for training women physicians thoroughly, until well on in the fifteenth century, for we have the record of Constance Calenda, the daughter of Salvator Calenda, who had been dean of the faculty of medicine at Salerno about 1415, and afterwards dean of the faculty at Naples. ”

“ The traveler who to-day visits Salerno, in the hope of seeing some remains of the oldest medical school in Europe, will find there only a collection of squalid buildings which serve as dwellings for the poorer classes, a dirty and uncomfortable inn, and shops of nearly the same dimensions as those which once lined the narrow streets of Pompeii. ”

“ You must know, then, fairest lasses, that there was in Salerno, no great while since, a very famous doctor in surgery, by name Master Mazzeo della Montagna, who, being already come to extreme old age, took to wife a fair and gentle damsel of his city and kept better furnished with sumptuous and rich apparel and jewels and all that can pleasure a lady than any woman of the place. ”

“ At the northern end of this promenade, in what constitutes the most fashionable quarter of the place, is a tiny garden with palms and daturas, whilst hard by stands a large theatre, evidences of the gentility of modern Salerno. But the whole town appears sleepy and dead-alive to a stranger, though at the sunset hour a band occasionally plays in this open space, the music attracting hither a crowd composed of all the divers elements of society in the quiet old city. ”

“ I have said already that the mountains of the peninsula show their sternest face towards Salerno. The road which is carried along these precipices is of astonishing grandeur. From the very summit of the mountains the cliffs fall by wide steep slopes to the deep water washing round their feet. Farms or cottages scarcely exist; the ravines seem inaccessible. Beaches there are none, save at three or four points in the long distance to Amalfi; few fishermen dwell on this barren coast. Only at one or two points are the tunny nets spread upon the sea ”

“ The castle stands out finely in the shadow of the hill. The blue sea is warm and soft. Far away 329 towards Salerno a dim gleam from time to time betrays the mountains of Cilento, snow-capped and wreathed in clouds. The road climbs upward from the beach, winding round the headland with continually growing beauty. The rock forms are superb; and as the way rises on the flank of the sweet-scented mountain it passes ravine upon ravine, each one cleft down to the blue water's edge, a shadowy precipice fringed by the soft spring sunshine. ”

“ Led by the thought that Christianity was opposed to culture, and above all to science, they were quite willing to suggest any other influences than Christian as the source of so important a movement in the history of human progress as Salerno proved to be. The main influence at Salerno, however, was Greek, and the proof of this is, as insisted by Gurlt in his “History of Surgery,” that the great surgeons of Salerno do not refer to Arabian sources, but to Greek authors, and their books do not show traces of Arabian influences, but on the contrary have many Græcisms in them. ”

“ The only living being whom we saw was a little, pale, sickly herd-boy, with a starving dog, watching a few goats. The whole district is very unhealthy, but the soil is said to be rich, and they have just begun to cultivate it. The laborers remove during the summer to a village which we saw shining white up amongst the hills. We took our dinner in the shade of the columns and friezes of the temple of Neptune, and by evening we were again in Salerno. Five or six carriages were driving backwards and forwards on its Corso along the shore, with the beau monde of the city. ”

“ It seems, therefore, that the origin of the medical school of Salerno was somewhat on this wise: a lay spirit of science was developed, and many young men having no aptitude for the monastic life, but desirous to devote themselves entirely to the healing art as an honourable and lucrative profession, doubtless desired to form themselves into a society or school for this end ”

“ CHAPTER VIII SALERNO AND THE HOUSE OF HAUTEVILLE Backed by gentle slopes well wooded and well tilled, and screened from the northern blasts by its guarding amphitheatre of grey crags, Salerno occupies a delightful position upon the Bay to which it gives its own name. The long stretch of its Marina, tolerably clean to the eye if not at all points agreeable to the nostrils, follows the broad curve of the strand, and an idle hour or so may pleasantly be whiled away in watching the fishing craft moored beside the mole and the attendant sailors. ”

“ This productivity of Salerno, which may well be compared in quality and quantity with that of the best periods of our science, and in which no department of medicine was left without some advance, is one of the striking phenomena of the history of medicine. While positive progress was not made, there are many noteworthy original observations to be chronicled. It must be acknowledged that pupils and scholars set themselves faithfully to their tasks to further as far as their strength allowed the science and art of healing. ”

“ On the hill above the town are the ruins of a Lombard castle. Salerno markets wine, oil, fruit, cotton, tobacco, and silk, and manufactures cotton and woolen goods. The ancient Salernum, which at the time of the Second Samnite War still belonged to the Samnites, became later a Roman colony. After the fall of the Western Empire the town was successively held by the Lombards, the Normans, and the houses of Hohenstaufen and Anjou. Population (commune) , in 1881, 31,245; in 1901, 42,727. Consult Schipa, Storia del principato longobardo di Salerno (Naples, 1887) . ”

“ The sea-coast from Reggio to Gaeta is commonly believed to be well nigh the most delightful part of Italy, and therein, pretty near Salerno, is a hillside overlooking the sea, which the countryfolk call Amalfi Side, full of little towns and gardens and springs and of men as rich and stirring in the matter of trade as any in the world. ”