Gentile da Foligno’s Consilium contra pestilentiam and its Hebrew Translation

Abstract

Due to his first-hand experience with the Black Death, the Italian physician Gentile da Foligno (d. 1348) became a famous authority in this field. He devoted various writings to the pestilence; one of them was a Consilium addressed to the city of Pisa. This same Advice on the Plague was then rendered into Hebrew by an anonymous translator. The practical character of the Consilium, which contains numerous instructions and recipes to prevent contagion and treat the disease, might have aroused the interest of Jewish physicians who, excluded from academic education, were looking for useful treatments. In this paper, the Latin text and its Hebrew translation are analyzed, and in the appendix the edition of both versions is provided.