Recreation in the Renaissance

38 Recreation in the Renaissance
cians who stood outside the Galenic orthodoxy, such as Duchesne, who
was a Paracelsian; while on the other hand, that Galen’s authority
on the matter did not go unchallenged throughout the period. The
sixteenth-century Italian polymath Girolamo Cardano (1501–76) offers,
in his books De sanitate tuenda a fairly uncommon but authoritative
example of criticism directed against Galen. He openly criticized the
ancient Greek authority, accusing him of proposing intensive athletic
exercise, appropriate more to a soldier’s than to a civilian’s requirements.
Consequently, Cardano confirmed that physical exercise favours
human health, but he denied that it helps in prolonging life. One has
to understand – says Cardano – that vigorous physical condition and
long life are two incompatible goals: if you are strong you will be in
excellent health, but will exhaust your resources more quickly; if, on
the contrary, long life is what you desire (and that, as we have seen,
was a very popular topic in Renaissance culture), you will have to aim
for a lower standard of physical vigour. 38 Although Cardano and his
followers were making a point against Galen, they did nevertheless
share with him some fundamental opinions. Criticizing excessive
body-building and proposing, rather, a mean model between muscular
strength and weakness was not a novelty in the field of medical literature.
Galen himself had constructed the type of harmoniously developed
body by referring to the body of the athlete or gladiator as a
negative example: according to Western medical tradition, a healthy
body should not look like that of a modern bodybuilder’s. 39
The literature on the preservation of health was a very important
component of the cultural scenario and of the scientific knowledge
and practice of its age. It differs from modern preventive medicine
particularly in the fact that today’s prophylaxis provides a set of
rules which aim to avoid particular diseases, while early hygiene was
supposed to keep the human body in a general balance that would
have prevented the development of any health problem. The literature
on the subject came in a variety of genres, from the strictly professional
and academic to those addressing the general public, and various
levels of literacy (from the learned book to the almanac). Generally
speaking, it contained a strong self-help element: by following reliable
health advice you were expected to stay well without the need to
resort to the help of a doctor. A confirmation of the importance of
this relevance to a wider audience can be found in the fact that a significant
number of authors of representative texts in this tradition –
among them Elyot, Cornaro and Ranzow – were laymen rather than
physicians.