An Interactive Annotated World Bibliography of Printed and Digital Works in the History of Medicine and the Life Sciences from Circa 2000 BCE to 2022 by Fielding H. Garrison (1870-1935), Leslie T. Morton (1907-2004), and Jeremy M. Norman (1945- ) Traditionally Known as “Garrison-Morton”

15961 entries, 13944 authors and 1935 subjects. Updated: March 22, 2024

BENEDETTI, Alessandro (Alexander Benedictus)

4 entries
  • 12846

Diaria de bello Carolino, with a dedication letter from the author to the Doge Augustinus Barbadicus, Venice 21.3.1496, to the Venetian Councilors Sebastianus Baduarius and Hieronymus Bernardus, Venice 27.8.1496, and two poems on the Gauls and on the work of Quintius Aemilianus Cimbriacus.

Venice: Aldus Manutius, 1496.

An eyewitness account of the retreat from Italy of Charles VIII of France in 1495, written by a physician of Verona, who was chief surgeon of the Venetian troops in the campaign. Although the book is not written primarily from the medical standpoint, it exemplifies a physician’s eye for detail and provides information about health conditions and diseases prevailing in the camps of the French troops.

This is probably the first published narrative written by a physician that concerns military history and military medicine of the Renaissance. Notably, it was relatively current information, being published one year after the retreat.

ISTC No. ib00320400. Digital facsimile from Bayerische Staatsbibliothek at this link.



Subjects: MILITARY MEDICINE, SURGERY & HYGIENE › Renaissance
  • 12771

Historia corporis humani sive anatomiae.

Venice: Bernardino Guerraldo Vercelli, 1502.

 "... a descriptive anatomy in the style of Mundinus. It concludes with a final chapter on the praise of dissection. He expresses the need for a clinical examination rather than uncritical trust in the authorities “since in it we see the truth and contemplate its revelations as the works of nature lie under our eyes… but those who trust only the monuments of literature… are often deceived and entrust opinion rather than truth to their minds.”[1] He later describes a postmortem examination of a woman who had died of syphilis and the disease’s effects on her bones.[2] Benedetti critiqued those anatomists who trusted in the authorities more than their own experience: “Aristotle has had so much authority for so many centuries that even those things which [physicians] have not seen they will affirm to exist, even without experiment.”[3] Benedetti valued personal observation over blind trust in the authorities and even, shockingly for the time, corrected Aristotle. “Aristotle believes that the nerves first arise from the heart… but almost all of them (as is more evidently established) are perceived to originate in large part from the brain….”[4]  (Wikipedia article on Alessandro Benedetti, accessed 5-2020). 

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: ANATOMY › 16th Century
  • 12845

Diaria de bello Carolino (Diary of the Caroline war). Edited and translated by Dorothy M. Schullian.

New York: Frederick Ungar, 1967.

Latin text with parallel English translation.



Subjects: MILITARY MEDICINE, SURGERY & HYGIENE › Renaissance
  • 461.3

Studies in pre-Vesalian anatomy. Biography, translation, documents by L. R. Lind.

Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1975.

Includes  English translations of texts by Alessandro Achillini, Alessandro Benedetti, Berengario da Carpi, Gabriele Zerbi, Niccolo Massa, Andrés de Laguna, J. Dryander and G. B. Canano.



Subjects: ANATOMY › 16th Century, ANATOMY › History of Anatomy