The Life path of the Italian Doctor, Anatomist, Surgeon and Theoretician of Medicine Guido Guidi

Abstract

The name of Guido Guidi appears in the histories of medicine as that of the author of a beautifully illustrated book on surgery and as one of the innumerable anatomical eponyms. Guido Guidi practiced medicine and surgery in his native city Florence and made such a reputation that he was in 1542 invited by Francis I, King of France, to come to Paris. The King appointed him one of his personal physicians and permitted him to give public lectures in medicine and surgery at the newly founded College de France. Guidi was about to publish a surgical treatise, based on a Greek manuscript of the tenth century preserved in the Laurenzian Library at Florence. Among the notable features of this manuscript were thirty full-sized plates illustrating the commentary of Apollonius of Kitium on the Hippocratic treatise on dislocations and other pictures accompanying a copy of Galen's treatise on bandaging. These illustrations represented the genuine Hippocratic traditions of surgical practice as transmitted through later Greek channels to Byzantium. In Paris, Guidi lived with Benvenuto Cellini, who became his friend and who has many laudatory references to him in his autobiography. In 1544 Guidi's book on surgery appeared. It is a splendid folio volume, beautifully printed and containing remarkable woodcut copies, or rather adaptations, of the original tenth-century drawings. Guidi's Chirurgia was the best illustrated work on surgery that had appeared up to its date. It comprises translations of six works by Hippocrates, one by Galen and two by Oribasius, together with commentaries by Galen and by Guidi himself. The treatment of all varieties of fractures and dislocations is described in great detail and is very clearly illustrated. Some three years after the publication of his Chirurgia Guidi was recalled to Italy to become chief personal physician to Cosimo de Medici. He practiced and taught medicine at Pisa, took Holy Orders, received high' ecclesiastical preferment, and was in 1557 raised to the nobility. He died at the height of his renown on 26 May 1569 and was buried in the tomb of his ancestors in Florence. For some years before his death he had been occupied in writing a comprehensive work on medicine. This great work was completed and published by his nephew in three huge volumes between 1596 and 1611. This study is based on original research and it corrects many errors that have been perpetuated in standard reference books.