Banned Books Week Lecture: Censoring Medicine in the Age of Galileo

The Roman Index of Prohibited Books (1559) banned not only the works of Reformation theologians like Luther and Melanchthon; it also made it illegal for physicians in Italy to read many medical books written and published in Northern Europe. While some of these books were burned, many others were selectively censored and licensed to learned readers. This talk, given by history of science professor Hannah Marcus, reveals how physicians in Italy read prohibited medical books and maintained their medical libraries in the years following the Reformation.

About the Speaker

Hannah Marcus is an assistant professor in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University. Her research focuses on the scientific culture of early modern Europe between 1450 and 1700. Her lecture will draw on research for her a current book project, Forbidden Knowledge: Medicine, Science, and Censorship in Early Modern Italy, which explores the censorship of medical books from their proliferation in print through the prohibitions placed on many of these texts during the Counter-Reformation. Marcus teaches courses on the changes in scientific ideas and practice between the medieval and early modern periods, especially focusing on the early history of science, medicine, and the body, communication technologies, and the relationship between faith and science.