SALERNITAN, SCHOOL. — In Salerno, this school embodies the purest classical spirit and monastic medicine, which is transformed there into secular medicine while remaining free from magical or superstitious practices. Although it produced nothing new, the Salernitan School has the undisputed merit of having preserved medical thought in its purest expression and of being the first flourishing school in the Christian West.
The earliest records date back to 904, when, according to documents, a Salernitan was a physician at the court of France; in 984, the bishop of Verdun, Adalbero, traveled to Salerno to seek treatment. Setting aside legends about the school’s origins, the debate narrows to the lay origin, asserted by De Renzi, and the monastic origin, supported by Puccinotti. According to modern views, the Benedictines were the first exponents and promoters of the school; more than in their other numerous monasteries, in Salerno they found a medical tradition and established hospital centers attached to monasteries, where pilgrims were also hospitalized by rule. In any case, during the first period (pre-Constantinian), the principal figures were predominantly ecclesiastics, beginning with Guarnipoto or Garipontus, who lived in the 11th century, regarded by Capparoni as a cleric and called *subdeacon* in the *Liber Constantium* of the Confraternity of the Crusaders of Salerno. Even his work, the *Passionarius*, reveals from its title a religious character. Peter Cleric was a contemporary of Guarnipoto and wrote a *Practica*, very similar to the work of the latter. Another figure from this period is Archbishop Alfano I (v.), who died in 1085. Alongside these ecclesiastics, however, there were notable lay figures who formed entire families such as the Cofoni and the Platearii; nor were women lacking who dedicated themselves to the medical art, among whom Trocta stands out, who devoted herself to obstetrics and left us the book *De mulierum passionibus ante, in et post partum*. Among the anonymous works written around the year 1000, the *Speculum hominis* in verse and the *Antidotarium Salernitanum*, a codification of recipes used in hospital practice, should not be forgotten. In this period, particularly noteworthy in medical thought and works—none of which are original—is the complete absence of magical or astrological doctrines.
The second period (the period of Constantinian splendor, 1100–1300) is characterized by the arrival of Constantine the African (v.), the greatest exponent of the Salernitan School, and a moderate Arabist influence, coinciding with the spread of the school’s fame and the consequent influx of students and renowned teachers. It should be added that the state intervened to regulate the school, granting it official status. Frederick II, in his *Constitutiones Federiciane*, established that the medical art could not be practiced without approval from a commission of Salernitan masters; the course of study had to last five years, preceded by three years of logic; finally, surgeons had to have attended at least one year of surgical lectures and demonstrate that they had followed anatomy lectures.
Even in this period, families of physicians continued to flourish; among those already mentioned, the Cofoni had their leading figure in Cofone the Younger, author of a short treatise on anatomy; the Platearii, with Giovanni II and III and Matteo the Elder; and the Ferrario family, descended from a certain Giovannaccio, of whom Giovanni II, a physician and lord of Gragnano, should be remembered. Among the independent physicians of this period, worthy of note are Giovanni da Procida, Giovanni Afflacio, and Niccolò Salernitano. A student of the Salernitan School was also Pierre Gilles de Corbeil, a pupil of Musandinus and Platearius, who flourished in the 12th century and, upon returning to his homeland, became court physician to Philip Augustus.
The Salernitan therapeutic system, though based on Hippocratic humoral theory, encompassed all branches then within the domain of medical practice. Particular attention was given to uroscopy, which studied urine in its most external aspects—quantity and color; the school contributed new diagnostic interpretations, steering uroscopy toward uromancy, a distinctly medieval science. Master Mauro wrote a treatise *De urinis*, and the subject was also treated by Masters Sacco, Ursone, Giovanni Platearius, and Pierre Gilles de Corbeil. In contrast, the occult sciences were cultivated by Master Zacharias, David the Armenian, author of the *Tractatus de oculis*, Camanosal, who dealt with nosology, therapy, and ocular surgery according to the Salernitan School; but Benvenuto Grasso or Grafeo excelled, in the second half of the 13th century, with his *Ars probata oculorum*.
The undisputed merit of the Salernitan School is that it restored anatomical thought and the study of anatomy to honor, which, since the time of Galen, had declined and nearly been forgotten. With the *Constitutiones Federiciane*, as mentioned, the study of anatomy was required of anyone wishing to practice surgery. However, from Frederick’s edict, it cannot be proven that human anatomy was studied through dissection, as the anatomical study was limited to knowledge of Galenic texts. The best-known Salernitan work in this field remains the *Anatomia porci* by Cofone the Younger, flourishing at the end of the 11th century; this brief treatise simply lists the principal organs and the position of those most conspicuous upon dissection, with brief personal observations, including mention of the "milky vessels" of the intestines, which would later be identified by Gaspare Aselli as the chyliferous vessels he discovered. Anatomy was also studied by Master Mauro (c. 1170) and Master Ursone, to whom a treatise previously thought to be anonymous is attributed.
A true boast of the school was its surgery, which saw notable progress due to the landing in southern Italy of wounded Crusaders returning from the Holy Land. Thus, in Salerno, surgery—which had fallen into decline and was practiced only by charlatan empirics—returned to the hands of illustrious masters. The first to rehabilitate surgery was Pietro Clerico, who lived after the year 1000 and authored a *Practica*. A major figure was Ruggero di Frugardo, a native of Parma who lived between the 12th and 13th centuries and wrote the work *Post mundi fabricam*, better known as the *Rogerina*. Even more renowned was Rolando da Parma, author of a *Cirurgia* better known as the *Rolandina*, a pupil of the former and flourishing around 1250. This was primarily external surgery, but when necessary, it did not shy away from resorting to true cavity surgery, albeit solely for reparative purposes.
Medical therapy was also highly advanced, and from the texts, one can infer that the best elements from the works of Galen and Avicenna had been assimilated, without, however, a clear distinction being drawn from hygienic norms. The Salernitan therapy and hygiene are summarized in the anonymous work *Regimen salernitanum* in leonine verse, which tradition holds was originally written for Robert of Normandy and was gradually expanded from its initial 356 verses.
A third period followed (one of decline), brought about both by the rise of universities as official schools and by the privileges granted by Frederick II to the Studium of Naples. Nevertheless, the school continued to exist with varying fortunes until the 19th century and was officially abolished only by Joachim Murat’s decree of November 29, 1811.