Il medico Tommaso Giannotti Rangone (1493-1577) nell’economia della cura ovvero un trionfo di libri, segreti e regimen sanitatis

The stacks of books that Giannotti has laid out at his funeral, and especially the array of eight open volumes that surround the coffin, are emblematic of a confidence in the possibilities of the book as an instrument of scientific progress typical of the sixteenth century. It was a trust fated to substantially diminish in the centuries to come. Starting from the books involved in Tommaso Giannotti’s funeral, we go over the nuclei of his personal library, as reconstructed thanks to its surviving inventory, in order to grasp the substrate that gave rise to Tommaso’s works on regimen sanitatis and his predilection for constantly seeking out new substances, often shipped to Europe in the wake of the manifold geographical discoveries of the time, to develop medicinal secrets together with other physicians and apothecaries. These secrets were as important as his books, secrets that he ordered placed into a small box to act as his pillow after his death.