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RESEARCH PROGRAM

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Research Units
Similar research programs:
Scientific and education field classification
International Patent Classification
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Keywords
PALAEOPATHOLOGY; HISTORY OF DISEASES; FUNERARY ARCHAEOLOGY; MEDICI FAMILY; MUMMIES; RENAISSANCE; ANCIENT DNA; MOLECULAR GENETICS; INFECTIOUS DISEASES

DISEASES, ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIETY AT THE GRAND DUKE COURT OF FLORENCE: AN HISTORICAL, ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND PALAEOPATHOLOGICAL STUDY OF THE MEDICI FUNERARY DEPOSITIONS (XVI-XVIII CENTURIES)

Università di Pisa
Abstract
The reseach project aims to perform a historico-medical and palaeopathological research on the 49 funerary depositions of the Medici Grand Dukes, from Giovanni delle Bande Nere (+1526) to Anna Maria Luisa (+1743), buried in the famous Medici Chapels of the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence.
The historico-medical research will be structured on two levels:
individuation and classification of written sources, both published and unpublished, delineating the relationship between lifestyle, illness and therapies specific of the age to which the Medici individuals belong; reconstruction of the evolution of contemporary medical knowledge and therapeutical treatments for the pathologies diagnosed by the paleopathological équipes.
The aim is to integrate biomedical data with the chronological perspective of biographical data, and vice versa.
The palaeopathological research will include: funerary archaeology, anthropology, palaeonutrition (by spectroscopy and atomic absorption, infrared spectroscopy (for the study of macromolecules), parasitology, pathological anatomy, histology, histochemistry, immunohistochemistry, electron microscopy, molecular biology (study of ancient DNA) and identification of the different types of ancient pathogens.
We intend also to perform a molecular screening on the mummified and skeletal remains of the Medici for the presence of residual human, bacterial and viral DNA.
To obtain information on genetic >>>

Principal Investigator
Gino FORNACIARI Università di PISA
Research Objectives
About 50 bodies of the Medici Grand Dukes, in most cases embalmed and buried in the crypts of the Medici Chapels in Florence, are still in good state of preservation and have never been examined systematically. Only at the end of the 40's the corpses were submitted to a brief anthropological study.
The project entails a systematic palaeopathological research, carried out on the remains of the members of the Medici Family of the Grand-ducal branch and on the iconographic and literary-historical sources.
The historical and palaeopathological study will include the identification of all the stigmata that have left a sign on ancient human remains, both skeletonized and mummified, or that are documented by archive data.
The research will involve a number of specialistic approaches, including:
- a study of iconographic, archivistic and literary-historical sources;
- a study by means of imaging techniques so as to evidence morpho-structural alterations on bone segments, related to congenital and/or acquired modifications, or related to presumed diseases. The diseases diagnosed will be subdivided into two different classes. One will include "real diseases", defined as important pathologic conditions (tumours, tuberculosis, leprosy and some major infectious diseases that may have left a trace on the remains); the other will group "minor" pathologies, showing less severe features, but still conditioning the life of the person affected >>>

Timescale
24 months
National and international background
Palaeopathology, which studies the morphological remains of ancient diseases, has over the past decades become an independent discipline comprising history, archaeology, physical anthropology and pathological anatomy. Therefore, palaeopathology is different from the history of medicine, mainly concerned with the history of physicians, from both a biographical and theoretical point of view, and of the therapies, and based exclusively on historical and literary sources. Palaeopathology studies the diseases of a more or less recent past, through direct examination of ancient skeletal or mummified human remains. As concerns those periods for which written documentation is available, palaeopathology also resorts to historical sources, but only as an aid to the interpretation of pathological patterns obtained directly from the human remains.
Although a relatively recent science, a considerable number of researches and studies have given important results.
Palaeopathology has both a historical and medical interest:
1. Historical, because from the features and incidence of the different pathologies it is possible to go back, indirectly, to the habits and life-styles of ancient populations;
2. Medical, because study of the onset of some important present-day diseases, such as cancer and atherosclerosis, and the reconstruction of the origins and early diffusion of infectious diseases, have aroused a strong interest in the field of medicine.
Over >>>