Abstract
SummaryThis article examines the historical context and particular case of Italian merchant Guido Mondones (also named as ‘Modones’) who sold petroleum as medicine in Spain in the late sixteenth century. The first two-thirds of the article uses printed sources as a way to demonstrate that this merchant was likely not disadvantaged by being a foreigner and itinerant. Nor would he have been considered a suspect for selling oil with healing properties, as it was a fully accepted practice, including among university-trained professionals. All the materials for Mondones’s particular case are archival and contained within a lawsuit from Valladolid that contains a wealth of information about the merchant’s relationship with legal and medical authorities. Through these sources, we learn that he managed to be financially successful by navigating Spain’s particular medical–legal landscape at the time and skillfully defending himself against accusations of tax evasion and selling false medicine.
Highlights
Ted Lars Lennart Bergman*Some may have exploited an air of Italianness that was part of successful salesmanship, much like the charlatan in Mal Lara’s anecdote cited above who used German and Flemish phrases to bolster his authority
In 1614, according to the records of the Archivo del Reino de Valencia, there is a ‘Licence given in Valencia, granted by the doctors Jeroni Garcia and Melcior de Villena, royal examiners of the city of Valencia, in favour of the Italian, Domingo Manegati from Pesaro, after he had presented documents accrediting the practice of his profession in other kingdoms and that he had been licenced [‘examinado’].’33 As another example, we find the 1606 case of ‘Joseph Balsamo or Jusepe Valsamo . . . an Italian who, had arrived in Valencia after selling his medicine in various cities on the Peninsula, and who was authorized to sell as an itinerant merchant in the city a medicine called “medicinal of germania”, composed and manufactured by him’
The documents of the legal case list Guido Mondones as a ‘merchant’, nothing more, and his advertisement is vague about the ‘mines and springs from parts of Italy’ that are the source of his petroleum
Summary
Some may have exploited an air of Italianness that was part of successful salesmanship, much like the charlatan in Mal Lara’s anecdote cited above who used German and Flemish phrases to bolster his authority Whether or not they assumed an Italian identity or were authentic, it seems like many merchants of medicine in Spain saw no problem with presenting themselves as Italian despite written objections to them being a ‘weed’ that had spread too far. While Algarotti graduated in medicine from the University of Padua and later joined the College of Physicians in his home city of Verona, Quintilio appears to be nothing more than a salesman and follower.29 In this way, he belonged to an extensive tradition of Italian extra-academics who exploited others’ books of secrets..
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