PhD Dissertation: Neither Sinner Nor Outcast: Leprosy in Bologna Italy, 1100-1348 [Tentative Title & Abstract]

This dissertation analyzes the medical, civic, and individual responses to leprosy in Bologna during the High Middle Ages. Specifically, it examines the relationship between Bologna’s leprosarium (leprosy hospital) of San Lazaro, the city government, the studium (university) of Bologna, and the citizens of the commune between 1100 and 1348. This project significantly extends the boundaries of research on the history of leprosy in the Middle Ages into southern Europe. Previous scholarship has been largely limited to England, France, and Germany and, as there are already a number of documented differences between Northern and Southern Europe in the medieval period, the comparative lack of research on leprosy and leprosaria in the Mediterranean region is a substantial gap. By examining the response of one Italian commune to a disease that has long been heralded as the defining disease of the Middle Ages, my project enhances our knowledge of how medieval society understood leprosy and responded to its presence in their city before the Black Death.

Through a detailed analysis of civic records in Bologna, including city statutes, last wills and testaments of citizens, and other documents, this study demonstrates that, much in the same way as in Northern Europe, Bologna sought to protect and care for its vulnerable citizens. Indeed, in this sense, this dissertation also continues the work begun in the 1990s to challenge, dismantle, and recontextualize the traditional narrative of leprosy that conceived of those with the disease as social pariahs who were forcibly excluded and shunned from ‘healthy’ society. Through a close reading of the medical writings on leprosy of the physician Gentile da Foligno (d. 1348), as well as other important doctors, surgeons, and masters from the Bolognese studium, I further argue that the presence of a faculty of medicine in the city shaped how the Bolognese city government understood, cared for, and regulated leprous citizens from the commune as well as foreign leprosy sufferers. Gentile, one of the most noted physicians and teachers to come out of Bologna’s studium in the fourteenth century, was deeply concerned with the qualitative changes occurring in a leprous body. He did not moralize the disease in his writings and showed no particular anxiety about its communicability. Instead, Gentile saw leprosy primarily as a physiological and pathological condition that rendered the body disabled. We see this understanding of leprosy reflected in the city statutes which are similarly unconcerned with the transmission of the disease.

My project considers leprosy sufferers and leprosaria as elements in an economy of charity that developed in the thirteenth century. I argue that civic responses to leprosy in Bologna aimed to protect the health and safety of both its leprous and non-leprous citizens by ensuring that persons with leprosy could gain admittance to San Lazaro and that the leprosarium would be supported. City officials also discouraged persons who might be ‘faking’ the disease from entering the city and collecting alms. The city government’s nuanced approach to the leprosarium demonstrated a high degree of concern, seeking to protect both the ‘true’ leprosy sufferers, who needed to collect alms to support their leprosarium, and citizens of Bologna, who were increasingly worried about the spiritual impact of their charity. My research deepens our understanding of the balance between public health and the economy of charity by showing how the leprosarium of San Lazaro provided a place for leprosy sufferers to find a community and also ensured that the citizens of Bologna were able to reap the spiritual benefits of their charity.

​Through a comprehensive analysis of the leprosarium of San Lazaro in Bologna and its relationship with local communities and individuals, this dissertation raises a number of critical questions. How do communities protect the sick and the well? Who is responsible for the sick members of a society? How do governments persevere their resources? What constitutes a community and who is entitled to care? By situating the leprosarium within the social, political, religious, and medical contexts and developments of this period, this dissertation adds a detailed exploration of the complexities of leprosy, leprosy sufferers, and leprosaria south of the Alps — a much needed addition to the historical understanding of leprosy in the Middle Ages.

Department of History & Classical Studies
McGill University
855 Sherbrooke St West
Montreal, Quebec
H3A 2T7
Canada
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