The History of Salernitana Medical School embraces almost a millennium, with the legendary foundation that took place at the Lombard time until the beginning of the 10th century with its definitive closure.
The Salernitana Medical School is considered the oldest institution in Western Europe for teaching not only of
medicine, but also of other disciplines.
Very important is the link between the city and its School. The geographical position of Salerno in the heart of the Mediterranean places the city at the center of important marine exchanges with the East and Africa, mediated by Amalfi and Sicily. From the variety of cultures confluent in Salerno in the early Middle Ages the medical tradition inspired by the Greek Hippocrates is developed.
The city, inserted in the Lombard kingdom and connected strictly to the Roman Curia, keeps alive in southern Italy the Greek-Latin tradition, so as to be called “Urbs graeca” or “Hippocratica civitas”.
Salerno in the Middle Ages is known as a place of well-being: you come from other cities to regain health, trusting in the wisdom of its famous doctors. The elements of charm are already in the birth of the medical school of Salerno, wrapped in mystery and dispute between history and legend.
There’s a lot of hypotheses. The school was founded by four teachers of different nationalities: the Hebrew Elino, the Greek Pontus, the Arabic Adela and the Latin Salernus. This legend, reported by Antonio Mazza, a 17th-century prior of the medical college, is now set aside, but emphasizes well the international and perhaps secular character of the school, in a period, the medieval one, in which all the teaching was hung of the clergy.
The school was born around the 6th century AD, on the basis of a medical school operating in Velia, since the 5th century BC. Velia (now Ascea in the heart of Cilento) was a flourishing shopping and cultural center, founded by the Focei on the left bank of the river Alento, later known as Elea and as the seat of the famous Eleatic school of the philosopher and physician Parmenide. Some statues of doctors found in Velia in the 1960s would confirm the continuity between the school of Velia and Salerno.
The school has Roman origins, as indicated in a document found by the 19th century scholar Salvatore De Renzi. In this kind of treaty between Salerno and Count Ruggero, who took possession of the city after the death of Duke William (1127), in art.X it is established that the College of Doctors, founded by the Roman emperors, continues to confer medical degrees without interference from the Curia or the Regi officials.
The school has never been founded, but has slowly formed, increasing the medical knowledge inherited over the centuries. The first documents, in which evident traces of the medical knowledge of Salerno, diffused and integrated with other Italian and foreign medical teachings, date back to the 9th century.
The history of the Salernitan Medical School can be divided into three periods:
– from the beginning to the year about 1000
this period ends with the arrival of the Carthaginian monk Constantine the African, who introduces to Salerno his Latin translations of Arabic and Greek works;
– from the 11th to the 13th century.
begins with the Norman conquest and is the golden period of the school; in 1280 the school receives from Charles I the first statute of “Studium General” in medicine;
– from the first half of the XIII to the beginning of the XIX century.
the school continues its activity with less luck and other events until 1811. In this year, with the reorganization of public education of the Kingdom, Gioacchino Murat exclusively attributes to the University of Naples the faculty to confer degrees.
