CODONCHI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA. - Italian physician, born in Imola in 1547, died in 1628. He studied at the University of Bologna and practiced in his hometown, where he held very important positions. After becoming a widower in 1618, he entered the priesthood, following the impulse of the mystical ideas he had always cultivated. A friend and in contact with the leading physicians of his time, he cultivated medicine in all its branches, excelling, however, in legal medicine—a discipline in which he must be considered a pioneer along with Ingrassia and Fedele—and in deontology, medical morality, and ethics. He was also a pioneer in laryngology, having written a *De vitiis vocis* (Frankfurt 1597).
His main works are: in legal medicine, the *De morbis venefici ac venefici, etc.* (Venice 1595) and the *Metodus testificandi* (1597); in deontology and medical ethics, the *De christiana ac tuta medendi ratione, etc.* (Ferrara 1591), in which he bases the physician’s work on the strictest observance of Christian morality. This same work had previously been written by him in Italian under the title *Casi di coscienza pertinenti a medici, principalmente e anco a infermi, infermieri, e sami, etc.*, and published in Venice in 1589 in *Viaggi spirituali dell'uomo, etc.* by d. Tiberio Codronco.
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