Minerva Meets Vulcan: Scientific and Technological Literature – 1450–1750

disease’, he told his students in January 1577. (p. 36) Unfortunately for the Venetians, Mercuriale believed that anything short of a full-blown catastrophe with high mortality was not plague. The fact that one of the most well-respected physicians of the Renaissance could fail his society so dramatically is a reminder of the fragility and fallibility of human knowledge. Mercuriale was a dedicated, erudite, and intelligent physician; he had much good advice to offer but that did not mean that he was always right. Craig Martin’s excellent and accessible translation (which includes a valuable glossary defining key medical terms) has certainly enriched our ability to teach plague. I can think of no better decision during COVID than to put one’s scholarly abilities to use and expand our understanding of how medicine struggled to understand disease and pandemic in the past.