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Medical Pluralism in the Iberian Kingdoms: The Control of Extra-academic Practitioners in Valencia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 November 2012

María Luz LÓpez Terrada
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Medical History , Volume 53 , Supplement S29: Health and Medicine in Hapsburg Spain: Agents, Practices, Representations , 2009 , pp. 7 - 25
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Copyright © The Author(s) 2009. Published by Cambridge University Press

References

1This subject has been clearly explained in Robert Jütte, ‘Introduction’, in Robert Jütte, Motzi Eklöf and Marie C Nelson (eds), Historical aspects of unconventional medicine: approaches, concepts, case studies, Sheffield, EAHM and Health Publications, 2001, pp. 1–10; David Gentilcore, Healers and healing in early modern Italy, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1998; idem, ‘Was there a “popular medicine” in early modern Europe?’, Folklore, 2004, 115: 151–66; Laurence Brockliss and Colin Jones, The medical world of early modern France, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1997; Willem de Blécourt and Cornelie Usborne, ‘Situating “alternative medicine” in the modern period’, Medical History, 1999, 43(3): 283–5.

2This circumstance is characteristic not only of medicine, but is also applicable to other scientific disciplines. See William Eamon, Science and the secrets of nature: books of secrets in medieval and early modern culture, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1994. It has been recently dealt with for the case of astrology in the Spanish monarchy during the seventeenth century by Tayra Lanuza Navarro, ‘Astrología, ciencia y sociedad en la España de los Austrias’, PhD thesis, Universitat de València, 2005.

3A comprehensive account of these studies does not fall within the limits of this analysis; the works in the previous note are worthy of mention and contain more complete bibliographies. For the case of Spain, see also Enrique Perdiguero, ‘“Con medios humanos y divinos”: la lucha contra la enfermedad y la muerte en el Alicante del siglo XVIII’, Dynamis, 2002, 22: 121–50; María Luz López Terrada, ‘Las prácticas médicas extraacadémicas en la ciudad de Valencia durante los siglos XVI y XVII’, Dynamis, 2002, 22: 85–120; Alfons Zarzoso, ‘El pluralismo médico a través de la correspondencia privada en la Cataluña del siglo XVIII’, Dynamis, 2001, 21: 409–33.

4‘Introduction’, in Marijke Gijswijt-Hofstra, Hilary Marland and Hans de Waardt (eds), Illness and healing alternatives in western Europe, London and New York, Routledge, 1997, pp. 4–5.

5Jütte, op. cit., note 1 above, pp. 2–4, where previous studies are analysed. In this respect, see also the introduction to W F Bynum and Roy Porter (eds), Medical fringe and medical orthodoxy 1750–1850, London, Croom Helm, 1987; and Margaret Pelling and Scott Mandelbrote (eds), The practice of reform in health, medicine, and science, 1500–2000: essays for Charles Webster, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2005.

6Perdiguero, op. cit., note 3 above, pp. 126–7; López Terrada, op. cit., note 3 above, pp. 88–9; Gijswijt-Hofstra, Marland and De Waardt (eds), op. cit., note 4 above, p. 2.

7This is the case in the better part of the studies collected by Jütte, Eklöf and Nelson (eds), op. cit., note 1 above, and Gijswijt-Hofstra, Marland and De Waardt (eds), op. cit., note 4 above, which mostly refer to northern Europe; or the book by David Gentilcore, Medical charlatanism in early modern Italy, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006, where information about Italian charlatans is taken from the licences granted by the Protomedicato.

8Enrique Perdiguero, ‘Protomedicato y curanderismo’, Dynamis, 1996, 16: 91–108, p. 106.

9See María Luz López Terrada, ‘The control of medical practice under the Spanish monarchy during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’, in Víctor Navarro Brotóns and William Eamon (eds), Más allá de la leyenda negra: España y la revolución científica/Beyond the black legend: Spain and the scientific revolution, Valencia, Instituto de Historia y Documentación López Piñero, 2007, pp. 281–94.

10The studies cited in note 1 above, and the bibliographies they contain, provide helpful points of departure. To these should be added the classic chapter by Margaret Pelling and Charles Webster, ‘Medical practitioners’, in Charles Webster (ed.), Health, medicine and mortality in the sixteenth century, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1979, pp. 165–235.

11According to María Soledad Campos Díez, El Real Tribunal del Protomedicato castellano: siglos XIV– XIX, Cuenca, Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 1999, p. 17.

12José Antonio Maravall, Estado moderno y mentalidad social, Madrid, Alianza, 1982, pp. 103–4.

13A number of scholarly works document the activities of the tribunals of the Protomedicato established by the Spanish crown in its American territories. A magnificent overview is the classic study by John T Lanning, The Royal Protomedicato: the regulation of the medical professions in the Spanish empire, ed. John Jay TePaske, Durham, Duke University Press, 1985.

14The studies by Campos Díez (op. cit., note 11 above) have, as she herself indicates, been undertaken from a legal perspective, rather than from the perspective of the history of science. For this reason, her principal object has been the analysis of the Real Tribunal del Protomedicato as an administrative institution, its relationship to other bodies, and its role within the huge bureaucratic machine of the Spanish monarchy of the ancien régime.

15Rafael Muñoz Garrido and Carmen Muñiz Fernández, Fuentes legales de la medicina española (siglos XIII – XIX), Salamanca, Ediciones del Seminario de Historia de la Medicina Española, 1969; Luis S Granjel, La medicina española renacentista, Salamanca, Universidad de Salamanca, 1974; and Campos Díez, op. cit., note 11 above.

16There is an extensive bibliography dealing with the Protomedicato. Works published before 1994 are collected in María Luz López Terrada, ‘Los estudios historicomédicos sobre el Tribunal del Real Protomedicato y las profesiones y ocupaciones sanitarias en la monarquía hispánica durante los siglos XVI al XVIII’, Dynamis, 1996, 16: 21–42. For studies after that date, see the bibliography referred to by Campos Díez, op. cit., note 11 above.

17López Terrada, op. cit., note 9 above, includes a detailed analysis comparing the distinct systems of control.

18Luís García-Ballester, Michael R McVaugh and Agustín Rubio-Vela, ‘Medical licensing and learning in fourteenth-century Valencia’, Trans. Am. Philos. Soc., 1989, 79(6): 1–128, p. 73. Concretely, the first regulatory legislation of professional medical practice in Valencia is contained in the Furs granted by Alfonso IV of Aragon (1327–1336) in the Cortes de Valencia celebrated in 1329–1330.

19On early modern medicine in Valencia, see José María López Piñero (ed.), Estudios sobre la profesión médica en la sociedad valenciana (1329–1898), Valencia, Ajuntament de València, 1998. On the local University (Studi General), see Mariano Peset (ed.), Historia de la Universidad de Valencia, 3 vols, Valencia, Universitat de València, 2000. On doctors and the medical school, see José María López Piñero, La Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad de Valencia, Valencia, Facultad de Medicina, 1980; idem, La medicina y las ciencias biológicas en la historia valenciana, Valencia, Ajuntament de València, 2004.

20Mariano Peset Reig and Mariano Peset Mancebo, ‘El Real Protomedicato y el ejercicio médico’, in Peset (ed.), op. cit., note 19 above, vol. 2: La universidad ilustrada, Valencia, Universitat de València, 2000, pp. 244–7.

21This procedure existed unchanged from the Middle Ages. See García-Ballester, McVaugh and Rubio-Vela, op. cit., note 18 above.

22Maria Luz López Terrada, ‘El control de las prácticas médicas en la monarquía hispánica durante los siglos XVI y XVII: el caso de la Valencia foral’, Cuadernos de Historia de España, 2007, 81: 91–112. See also José Pardo Tomás, ‘El control de las profesiones y ocupaciones sanitarias en una ciudad renacentista: la Valencia del siglo XVI’, in Horacio Capel Sáez, José Maria López Piñero and José Pardo Tomás (eds), Ciencia e ideología en la ciudad. I Coloquio Interdepartamental, Valencia, Generalitat Valenciana, 1992, pp. 47–55.

23There are a number of studies about the creation of this kind of corporation, but no proper monographs. See Brockliss and Jones, op. cit., note 1 above; Sofia Ling, ‘Physicians, quacks and the field of medicine: a case study of quackery in nineteenth-century Sweden’, in Jütte, Eklöf and Nelson (eds), op. cit. note 1 above, pp. 87–102.

24It was on 14 February 1631 that the Collegi began its suit against a number of people accused of unlicensed practice. See Archivo del Reino de Valencia (hereafter ARV), Valencia, Real Audiencia. Procesos, Parte 1a, Letra S, n° 3119, year 1631.

25Pascual Marzal Rodríguez, Los claustros de doctores y catedráticos del Estudio General (1675–1741), Valencia, Universitat de València, 2003, pp. 60–7.

26ARV, Valencia, Real Audiencia. Procesos, Parte 2a, Letra S, n° 163, year 1561; Parte 1a, Letra S, n° 122, year 1621, and 126, year 1618.

27“… versus et contra impiricos seu personas sine examine exercentes, practicantes et usentes fisica et chirurgia in quibuscumque civitatibus, villi et locis presentis regnis faciendum, instandum et requirendum, … ad littes large cum plena et libera potestate.” Archivo Colegio del Patriarca, Valencia, Protocolos de Nicolau Desllor, 9709.

28On the College of Surgeons, see María Luz López Terrada, ‘El Colegio de Cirujanos de Valencia en los siglos XVI y XVII’, in Simposio 2002 sobre historia de la medicina valenciana. Doce trabajos históricos sobre la medicina valenciana, Valencia, Instituto Médico Valenciano, 2002, pp. 191–201. On the College of Apothecaries, see José L Valverde López and Agustín Llopis González, Estudio sobre los fueros y privilegios del antiguo Colegio de Apotecarios de Valencia, Granada, Universidad de Granada, 1979.

29Concerning the protomédicos of Valencia, see María Luz López Terrada and José Pardo Tomás, ‘El Protomédico y Sobrevisitador Real a la València del segle XVI’, Afers, 1988, 5–6: 211–22; López Terrada, op. cit., note 22 above.

30Concerning the importance of the Vesalian anatomist Collado, see López Piñero, La medicina y las ciencias biológicas, op. cit., note 19 above, pp. 165–7; on Coçar, see next section.

31This is made abundantly clear in the writings associated with one case, where the king’s representative to the realm of Valencia states: “It is His Majesty's express wish that the aforementioned Coçar be named Protomédico, and that as such he will not only have the authority due to this rank while he holds this position and practice, but also that he will do and provide all that he considers to be useful and beneficial for the public health in everything that relates to the arts and practice of medicine, surgery and pharmacy.” (“Es de la expresa y determinada voluntat de sa Magestat que lo dit doctor Coçar sia Protomédico, y que com a tal no sols tinga preminència que al dit official se li deu, per engara que tinga lo ús y exercici de aquel, y puixa fer y provehir totes les coses que parexeran convenir benefici e salut pública en tot lo que tenga respecte a les arts e facultats de medicina, chirurgia e farmacopolia.”). See ARV, Valencia, Real Audiencia. Procesos, Parte 1a, Letra S, n° 3074, year 1630, fols 58–59.

32On medicine and physicians in Valencia during this period, see note 19 above.

33A good example of the use of documentary sources to understand the “other” through the mechanisms of control, are the studies included in Jütte, Eklöf and Nelson (eds), op. cit., note 1 above; Gijswijt-Hofstra, Marland and De Waardt (eds), op. cit., note 4 above. This is valid for the period that concerns our study as well as for more recent periods.

34The fact that licences were granted to other practitioners is not unique to Valencia. Indeed, these were regularly granted in other places as well, such as Castile (see Anastasio Rojo Vega, Enfermos y sanadores en la Castilla del siglo XVI, Valladolid, Secretariado de Publicaciones, Universidad de Valladolid, 1993, p. 44), Italy (Gentilcore, op. cit., note 7 above) and Denmark (see Gerda Bonderup, ‘Danish society and folk healers, 1780–1825', in Jütte, Eklöf and Nelson [eds.], op. cit., note 1 above, pp. 73–85).

35There is a long list of recent studies dedicated to this subject; an excellent starting point is the section on women and health edited by Montserrat Cabré i Pairet and Teresa Ortiz Gómez, ‘Mujeres y salud: prácticas y saberes’, Dynamis, 1999, 19: 17–400; also worthy of mention are the works collected by Hilary Marland and Anne Marie Rafferty (eds), Midwives, society and childbirth: debates and controversies in the modern period, London, Routledge, 1997; Gianna Pomata, ‘Practicing between earth and heaven: women healers in seventeenth-century Bologna’, Dynamis, 1999, 19: 119–43, shares an approach similar to the one outlined here.

36ARV, Valencia, Real Audiencia. Procesos, Parte 1a, Letra S, n° 1003, year 1595.

37ARV, Valencia, Gobernación. Caja 416, n° 325, year 1549.

38Archivo Rodrigo Pertegás (hereafter ARP), Valencia, Varios. Siglo XVI.

39ARP, Valencia, Efemérides.

40For their characterization, see Fabián Alejandro Campagne, ‘Charismatic healers on Iberian soil: an autopsy of a mythical complex of early modern Spain’, Folklore, 2007, 118: 44–64.

41“… dizen que sanan con su saliva de la boca y con su aliento, diziendo ciertas palabras: y vemos que mucha gente se va tras ellos a se saludar … El hecho de los saludadores principalmente se emplea en querer sanar, o preservar a los hombres, y bestias, y ganados del mal de la ravia.” Pedro Ciruelo, Reprovación de las supersticiones y hechicerías, Salamanca, Pedro de Castro, 1538, fol. 49v. See Fabián Alejandro Campagne, ‘Medicina y religión en el discurso antisupersticioso español de los siglos XVI a XVIII: un combate por la hegemonía’, Dynamis, 2000, 20: 417–56, p. 433.

42For Portugal, see Timothy Walker, ‘The role and practices of the curandeiro and saludador in early modern Portuguese society’, História, Ciências, Saúde. Manguinhos, 2004, 11 (supplement 1): 223–37. For the Basque country, see Iñaki Bazán Díaz, ‘El mundo de las supersticiones y el paso de la hechicería a la brujomanía en Euskal-Herria (siglos XIII–XVI)’, Vasconia, 1998, 25: 103–33. In Murcia, saludadores were contracted by the municipalities to put an end to plagues of locusts, see María del Carmen Zamora Zamora, ‘Aprovechamientos forestales en la comarca del Campo de Cartagena durante la Edad Media’, Scripta Nova, 1997, no. 13, http://www.ub.es/geocrit/sn-13.htm. Lastly, in Aragon, saludadores were believed to be able to identify witches, see María Tausiet, Ponzoña en los ojos: brujería y superstición en Aragón en el siglo XVI, Madrid, Turner, 2004, pp. 325–32.

43ARP, Valencia, Profesiones médicas. Siglo XVII.

44José Rodrigo Pertegás, ‘Los “saludadors” valencianos en el siglo XVII’, Revista Valenciana de Ciencias Médicas, 1906, 8: 219–20.

45ARV, Valencia, Real Audiencia. Procesos, Parte 2a, Letra F, n° 695, year 1590. This trial has been studied in depth in María Luz López Terrada, ‘El pluralismo médico en la Valencia foral: un ejemplo de curanderismo’, Estudis, 1994, 20: 167–81.

46For the meanings of the Spanish word gracia (grace) see Julian Pitt-Rivers, ‘El lugar de la gracia en la antropología’, in Honor y gracia, Madrid, Alianza, 1993, pp. 280–321; José L Fresquet Febrer (ed.), Salud, enfermedad y terapéutica popular en la Ribera Alta (Valencia), Valencia, Instituto de Estudios Documentales e Históricos sobre la Ciencia, 1995. It must be remembered that in Spanish, besides meaning a gift from God as used in this context, it usually has the more commonplace meaning, i.e. that of the ability to develop certain skills.

47David Gentilcore, ‘The church, the devil and the healing activities of living saints in the kingdom of Naples after the Council of Trent’, in Ole P Grell and Andrew Cunningham (eds), Medicine and the Reformation, London and New York, Routledge, 1993, pp. 134–55, on p. 135.

48José L Fresquet Febrer, J A Tronchoni, F Ferrer and A Bordallo, Salut, malaltia i terapèutica popular: els municipis riberencs de l’Albufera, Catarroja, Ajuntament, 1994, pp. 164–5.

49Luis S Granjel, Aspectos médicos de la literatura antisupersticiosa española de los siglos XVI y XVII, Salamanca, Universidad de Salamanca, 1953, p. 61.

50There are numerous studies of curanderismo in Spain, but very few of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. I have found the following particularly valuable: Enrique Perdiguero, ‘Magical healing in Spain (1875–1936): medical pluralism and the search for hegemony’, in Willem de Blécourt and Owen Davies (eds), Witchcraft continued: popular magic in modern Europe, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2004, pp. 133–51.

51The word “botiga” refers to places open to the public where surgeons performed a variety of operations, but also those where people went for a shave or haircut, given the two-fold function of Valencian surgeons at this time.

52As in similar centres, the Hospital General de Valencia basically saw to the needs of those who had no resources beyond those that they earned while working. See María Luz López Terrada, ‘Health care and poor relief in the crown of Aragon’, in Ole Peter Grell, Andrew Cunningham and Jon Arrizabalaga (eds), Health care and poor relief in Counter-Reformation Europe, London and New York, Routledge, 1999, pp. 177–200.

53ARV, Valencia, Real Audiencia. Procesos, Parte 2a, Letra F, n° 695, year 1590.

54Andrew Wear, Knowledge and practice in English medicine, 1550–1680, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 436–7; Brockliss and Jones (op. cit., note 1 above, pp. 231–40) cite among others, during these very years, another Italian named Hieronimo de Bolonia who sold stones, unguents, and plants to cure toothaches and migraines in Paris.

55José Rodríguez Guerrero, ‘Vendedores de panaceas alquímicas entre los siglos XVI y XVII’, Azogue, 2002–2007, no. 5: 90–9.

56The information about Balsamo is taken from ARV, Valencia, Real Audiencia. Procesos, Parte 1a, Letra S, n° 1806, year 1607; and a propagandistic printed text (Biblioteca del Instituto de Historia de la Medicina y de la Ciencia “López Piñero”, Universitat de València–CSIC), C-31 (65).

57Gentilcore, op. cit., note 7 above, p. 6.

58A more detailed study of Balsamo and his suit with the College of Apothecaries is found in López Terrada, op. cit., note 3 above, pp. 85–120.

59Gaspar Escolano, Decada primera de la insigne y coronada Ciudad y Reyno de Valencia… Valencia, Pedro Patricio Mey, 1610–1611, libro 5°, col. 1042.

60“… sont molt dañosos y perjudicials per a una república, y que indistincte et indeterminante volen aplicar un remey a totes enfermetats com lo intent de aquell no sia mès que vendre.” ARV, Valencia, Real Audiencia. Procesos, Parte 1a, Letra S, n° 1806, year 1607.

61“… antes de la conquista, por las propias condiciones socioeconómicas, gran parte de la población practicaba formas empírico-creenciales de asistencia y era atendida por los consiguientes “profesionales” sanitarios. Y ello se mantuvo también tras la conquista. Pero el proceso de desintegración de la cultura islámica y la creciente marginación social de la masa musulmana y morisca hizo que la medicina por éstos practicada fuera acentuando las prácticas empíricas y creenciales … y disgregándose la propia figura del profesional … para dar paso a un florido y pintoresco mundo de “curanderos” que, por otra parte, hubieran existido igual de haberse mantenido la medicina científica y su profesional.” Luis García-Ballester, Los moriscos y la medicina: un capítulo de la medicina y la ciencia marginadas en la España del siglo XVI, Barcelona, Labor, 1984, pp. 64–5. All the information about the medicine of Valencian Moriscos is taken from this book in which García-Ballester analysed in depth, and from different perspectives, the medicine of Moriscos in the Iberian Peninsula during this period. Due to the large numbers of Morisco inhabitants in Valencia, the study includes many references to the region. See also Luis García-Ballester, ‘The Inquisition and minority medical practitioners in Counter-Reformation Spain. Judaizing and Morisco practitioners, 1560–1610’, in Grell and Cunningham (eds), op. cit., note 47 above, pp. 156–91.

62Llorenç Coçar, Dialogus veros medicinae fontes indicans, Valencia, apud Petrum Patritium, 1589. There is a facsimile edition and a study: José María López Piñero, El “Dialogus” (1589) del paracelsista Llorenç Coçar y la cátedra de medicamentos químicos de Valencia (1591), Valencia, Cátedra e Instituto de Historia de la Medicina, 1977.

63Ibid., pp. 9–25; José María López Piñero, ‘Coçar, Llorenç’, in José María López Piñero, Thomas F Glick, Víctor Navarro Brotóns and Eugenio Portela Marco (eds), Diccionario histórico de la ciencia moderna en España, 2 vols, Barcelona, Península, 1983, vol. 1, pp. 231–2; José Pardo Tomás, ‘Llorenç Coçar y la Inquisición Valenciana’, in Homenatge al doctor Sebastià Garcia Martínez, 3 vols, Valencia, Conselleria de Cultura, Educació i Ciencia, 1988, vol. 1, pp. 363–74; López Terrada and Pardo Tomás, op. cit., note 29 above; Allen G Debus, ‘Paracelsus and the delayed scientific revolution in Spain: a legacy of Philip II’, in Allen G Debus and Michael T Walton (eds), Reading the book of nature: the other side of the scientific revolution, Kirksville, Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1998, pp. 139–52; Mar Rey Bueno, Los señores del fuego: destiladores y espagíricos en la corte de los Austrias, Madrid, Corona Borealis, 2002. Coçar also appears in recent works on European Paracelsianism. See Allen G Debus, ‘Paracelsianism and the diffusion of the chemical philosophy in early modern Europe’, Ole Peter Grell (ed.), Paracelsus: the man and his reputation, his ideas and their transformation, Leiden, Brill, 1998, pp. 239–40; Allen G Debus, ‘The chemical philosophy and the scientific revolution’, in Marcus Hellyer (ed.), The scientific revolution, London, Blackwell, 2003, pp. 159–177, on p. 173; Allen G Debus, Chemistry and medical debate, Canton, MA, Science History Publications, 2001, p. 165.

64López Piñero, op. cit., note 62 above, pp. 9–25; idem, ‘Paracelsus and his work in 16th and 17th century Spain’, Clio medica, 1973, 8(2): 113–41.

65See note 63 above; José L Fresquet Febrer and María Luz López Terrada (eds), Archivo Rodrigo Pertegás. Siglo XVI, Valencia, Universitat de València–Fundación Marcelino Botín, 2002.

66López Piñero op. cit., note 62 above, pp. 9–25; Debus and Walton (eds), Reading the book of nature, op. cit., note 63 above, p. 150; Pardo Tomás, op. cit., note 63 above, pp. 370–1.

67Coçar’s will is held in the Archivo del Colegio del Patriarca de Valencia, Protocolos de Martí de la Serna, R. 17135, and has been published in María Luz López Terrada, ‘Llorenç Coçar: protomédico de Felipe II y médico paracelsista en la Valencia del siglo XVI’, Cronos, 2005, 8: 31–66.

68ARV, Valencia, Real Cancillería 432, fols 169v–171v; Real Cancillería 363, fols 47r–48r, year 1589.

69The nominations say nothing of the responsibilities and competencies of the protomédico in matters related to the control of medical practice or vigilance against encroachment, the essential tasks of the tribunal of the Protomedicato in Castile.

70The salary was set at twenty Castilian reales for every day spent carrying out the inspections (ARV, Valencia, Real Cancillería 363, fols 47v–48r.)

71López Terrada and Pardo Tomás, op. cit., note 29 above.

72ARV, Valencia, Real Audiencia. Procesos, Parte 1a, Letra S, n° 3074, year 1630. For a detailed study of this process, see López Terrada, op. cit., note 67 above.

73ARV, Valencia, Real Audiencia. Procesos, Parte 1a, Letra S, n° 3074, year 1630, fols 16–17.

74Allegations that he was not a graduate of any university were repeated in the interrogation phase, despite the fact that Coçar was not only a graduate of the Valencian Studi, but that he held a chair in medicine there.

75This helps to undermine, to a certain extent, the suggestion that Spanish Paracelsianism has a generally courtly character. The relationship of Philip II and alchemy has been studied by F Javier Puerto Sarmiento, M E Alegre Pérez, Mar Rey Bueno and Miguel López Pérez (eds), Los hijos de Hermes: alquimia y espagiria en la terapéutica española moderna, Madrid, Corona Borealis, 2001; Rey Bueno, op. cit., note 63 above; Mar Rey Bueno and María Esther Alegre Pérez, ‘Los destiladores de su majestad. Destilación, espagiria y paracelsismo en la corte de Felipe II’, Dynamis, 2001, 21: 323–50.

76ARV, Valencia. Real Audiencia. Procesos, Parte 1a, Letra S, n° 3074, year 1630, fols 17–18.

77Coçar, op. cit., note 62 above, A4v.

78In fact, this does not appear in the Officina medicamentorum (1601), published by the College of Apothecaries, nor is it found in the 1590 inventory of the dispensary of Valencia’s general hospital. See López Terrada, op. cit., note 67 above.

79At the time of his declaration, he was canon of the cathedral of Valencia, in addition to being a member of the Inquisition. From 1611–1614 and again in 1629 he was dean of the Studi. He published a sermon in a work by Gerónimo Martínez de la Vega, Solenes i grandiosas fiestas, que la … ciudad de Valencia a echo por la beatificación de … D. Tomas de Villanueva …, Valencia, Felipe Mey, 1620. See Amparo Felipo Orts, La Universidad de Valencia durante el siglo XVII (1611–1707), Valencia, Generalitat Valenciana, 1991, p. 21.

80López Piñero, op. cit., note 62 above, p. 11.

81The fact that he was one of the few Spanish Paracelsians appears in every study of Coçar’s life and work. See note 63 above; and more recently, Mar Rey Bueno, ‘Los paracelsistas españoles: medicina química en la España moderna’, in Navarro Brotóns and Eamon (eds), op. cit., note 9 above, pp. 41–55. One cannot forget in this context the presence of Fioravanti at the court of Philip II during his trip to Spain. See William Eamon, ‘The charlatan’s trial: an Italian surgeon in the court of King Philip II, 1576–1577’, Cronos, 2005, 8: 1–30.