Paleopathology in Italy

The early developmental history of Italian paleo-pathology is not well known. Italian contributions to the discipline began at the end of the 19th cen-tury, but since papers were generally published in Italian journals, they were not recognized by the international scientifi c community. Stefano Delle Chiaie (1794–1860), professor of Morbid Anatomy and director of the Anatomo-Pathologic Museum of the Royal University of Naples, was the fi rst Italian researcher interested in paleopathology. When examining skeletal remains excavated at Pompeii, he paid particular attention to the bones that presented pathological alterations (Delle Chiaie 1854). Th is work, which was widely disseminated in Europe, represents the fi rst example of extensive paleopathological work in Italy. Although it was preliminary and without a paleoepidemiological perspective, it was a study of an archaeological skeletal series, when most paleo-pathologists were presenting case studies of single skeletons. Paleopathology started in Italy with studies of mummies, probably due to international attention paid to Egyptian mummies acquired in Europe aft er the Napoleonic campaign (1798–1801). Studies began in the fi rst half of the 19th century, with a pio-neering work on the Venzone mummies (Marcolini 1831). Publications on these mummies (Zecchini 1861; Gallassi 1950), on those from Ferentillo (Badaloni 1895), as well as other Egyptian mum-mies curated in Italian museums continued until the fi rst half of the 20th century (Berruti 1860; Tulli 1928a, b; 1929; Baglioni 1933). A particularly innovative study was carried out on a mummy found in Cagliari, Sardinia, by Gaetano Corrado (1858–1934), ophthalmologist and legal physician (Corrado 1899). His forensic activities, which were carried out in Naples and Cagliari, allowed him to draw signifi cant conclusions about the anthropological features of mummifi ed remains, cause of death, and chronological placement of this individual. Corrado established that the mummy belonged to a fi ft y-to sixty-year-old female, in con-trast with the public rumors of a murdered pregnant woman. He noticed skin lesions and high gastroin-testinal antimony levels, ascribed to the use of desic-cants and emetic tartrate for a presumed pneumonia. Such fi ndings allowed him to date the mummy back to the beginning of the 19th century. Analogous to studies on the mummies from Ferentillo and Venzone, he stressed the role of mites (Acarus sp.) in the mummifi cation process. Archaeological excavations were also provid-ing abundant skeletal material for researchers. Pioneers in skeletal paleopathology included physical anthropologists such as Piero Messeri (1916–1991) in Florence (Messeri 1959, 1962, 1965) and Cleto Corrain (1921–2007) in Padua (Corrain 1961; Corrain and Graziati 1963), who reported paleopathological features of case stud-ies. Th e Florentine anatomist and pathologist Antonio Costa (1902–1983) also collaborated with his colleague Giorgio Weber from Siena (Costa and Weber 1955) in a paleopathological study of the skeletal remains of the Medici family members buried in San Lorenzo in Florence from the 15th to 18th centuries; these important remains have recently been revisited using advanced medical techniques (Fornaciari et al. 2006). Another fi gure of fundamental signifi cance in Italian paleopathology was Antonio Ascenzi (1915–2000), whose main interests were in human anatomy. His research, published in prestigious national and international scientifi c journals, ranged from biology and bone biomechanics to hematology and congenital heart diseases. However, Ascenzi devoted himself not only to human anatomy, but also to physical anthropol-ogy (including paleopathology).