On Pestilence: A Renaissance Treatise on Plague

Mercuriale's advice to the Venetian government illustrates the dynamics of medical expertise in sixteenth century Italy. The episode provides an example of experts' inability to agree and of a divided government that opted for the advice of a prominent, well-connected physician over the recommendations of a government body, the Health Office, that was commissioned to protect Venetians' lives. On Pestilence offers slightly hidden justifications and rationales, if not rationalizations, for Mercuriale's diagnosis, yet its historical significance does not end there. Mercuriale put forward a deeply learned understanding of plague that employed historical analyses of epidemics and made extensive recommendations for public health measures, a relative novelty for plague treatises"--