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Bad air at the Collegio Romano: physicians and the health of communities in Counter Reformation Rome
| Scholarship on life in early modern convents is thriving. These, however, were just one of many Catholic institutions in which people shared a confined space and which were regulated by detailed regimes. How such regimes intersected with contemporary notions and practices of health is the focus of this paper. In the 1610s the Jesuits of the Collegio Romano took to court a neighbor whose new house allegedly prevented the circulation of winds, causing illness in the young students. The system of Roman Canon law allowed the Jesuits and their neighbor to turn to physicians for expert witnessing. Their testimonies offer tantalizing glimpses into the layout of the space inhabited by the students, and hygienic practices at the College. Physicians’ concern for the health of such communities was the result of the increasingly vital Hippocratic tradition, with its emphasis on morbity and mortality patterns, as well as on the effects on health of geographical location and architectural layout of buildings. However, Counter Reformation regimes primarily aimed at fostering spiritual rather than bodily health. The medical and the devotional perspectives intersected in various ways: following the legal case will allow discussion on how boundaries between different notions and practices of health were negotiated at the heart of the Catholic world.
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