Encounter of Petrarch and Guy de Chauliac outside the castle of the Popes in Avignon. Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar and poet in Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists. His rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited for initiating the 14th century Renaissance. Guy de Chauliac (1300-1368), was a French physician and surgeon. Chauliac's seminal work on surgery, Chirurgia magna, was finished in 1363. In seven volumes, the treatise covers anatomy, bloodletting, cauterization, drugs, anesthetics, wounds, fractures, ulcers, special diseases, and antidotes. Illustration from Vies Des Savants Illustrates, Savants Du Moyen-Age by Louis Figuier, 1883. |