The Schools of Salerno— Medical and Artistic

Abstract

Somewhere in his education a medical student learns that the first school of medicine, in the modern sense, was formed at Salerno, in southern Italy, during the Middle Ages. Students of medieval art, on the other hand, are becoming increasingly aware of the same city as a remarkably seminal crossroads of artistic tendencies, one which had the most important consequences for the development of Western European art in the 12th and 13th centuries. No one has yet asked the question whether these contemporary innovations in science and art might not have occurred for closely similar reasons. Why a particular professional specialty happens to flourish at one locality rather than another, at a particular moment in time, must surely reflect a large element of chance; but there might also be specific determining factors. In the case of early medical centers, for example, certain physical aspects of the situation might be quite