For Saint Mercurialis of Forli, see Saint Mercurialis. For the plant genus Mercurialis, see Mercury (plant).

Geronimo (or Girolamo) Mercuriali (or Mercuriale; also known by his Latin name of Hieronymus Mercurialis) (September 30, 1530-November 13, 1606), Italian philologist and physician, most famous for his work De Arte Gymnastica. Born in the town of Forli, the son of Giovanni Mercuriali, also a doctor, he was educated at Bologna and Padua, where he received his doctorate in 1555. Settling in his natal town, he was sent on a political mission to Rome. The pope at the time was Paul IV.

In Rome, he made favorable contacts and had free access to the great libraries, where with sweeping enthusiasm, he studied the classical and medical literature of the Greeks and Romans. His studies of the attitudes of the ancients toward diet, exercise and hygiene and the use of natural methods for the cure of disease culminated in the publication of his De Arte Gymnastica (Venice, 1569). With its explanations concerning the principles of physical therapy, it is considered the first book on sports medicine.

The work gave Mercuriali fame. He was called to occupy the chair of practical medicine in Padua in 1569. During this time, he translated the works of Hippocrates, and, armed with this knowledge, wrote De morbis cutaneis (“On the diseases of the skin”) (1572); De morbis mulieribus (“On the diseases of women”) (1582); De morbis puerorum (“On the diseases of children”) (1583); De oculorum et aurium affectibus; and "Censura e dispositio operum Hippocratis" (Venice, 1583). In De morbis puerorum, Mercuriali observed contemporary trends in child-rearing. He wrote that women generally finished breastfeeding an infant exclusively after the third month and entirely after around thirteen months.

In 1573, he was called to Vienna to treat the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian II. The emperor, pleased with Mercuriali’s treatment (although Maximilian would die three years later), made him Count Palatine.

Mercuriali was a prolific writer, though many books were ascribed to him that were compiled from the works of others. He remained in Padua until 1587, when he began teaching at the University of Bologna. In 1589, he was called by Cosimo de' Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, to Pisa. Cosimo wanted to increase the prestige of the university there and offered a record salary of 1,800 gold crowns, to become 2,000 gold crowns after the second year.

Mercuriali returned to Forli in 1605 and died there a year later.

Sources

• Catholic Encyclopedia article

1530 births | 1606 deaths | Italian philologists | Italian physicians | Natives of Forlì