Further documents for the biography of Arnau de Vilanova

In 1935, drawing on the arcliival research that eventually resulted in his «La cultura catalana durant el regnat de Jaume 11)) (awarded the Premi Francesc Vives in 1936 by the Institut d'Estudis Catalans), Father Martí de Barcelona published two contriburions of the first importance to tlie biography of Arnau de Vilanova: first, a set of 43 previously unedited documents from the Archivo de la Corona de Aragón (ACA) rnaking reference to Arnau's career; then, a ((Regesta de documents arnaldians coneguts)), summarizing the contents of these and 135 other texts kno~rn to bear on Arnau's activities (1). Nearly fifty years later, relatively few documents have been discovered that should be added to Father Martí's list, showing how extensive were the archival investigations into Arnau's career carried on during the Catalonian renaissance of the early twentieth century. A new version of the ((Regesta)) today would add only a few recent publications of archival materials (2) and a tiny number of earlier references overlooked by Father Martí (3)

Resolving the Evolutionary History of Campanula (Campanulaceae) in Western North America

Recent phylogenetic works have begun to address long-standing questions regarding the systematics of Campanula (Campanulaceae). Yet, aspects of the evolutionary history, particularly in northwestern North America, remain unresolved. Thus, our primary goal in this study was to infer the phylogenetic positions of northwestern Campanula species within the greater Campanuloideae tree. We combined new sequence data from 5 markers (atpB, rbcL, matK, and trnL-F regions of the chloroplast and the nuclear ITS) representing 12 species of Campanula with previously published datasets for worldwide campanuloids, allowing us to include approximately 75% of North American Campanuleae in a phylogenetic analysis of the Campanuloideae. Because all but one of North American Campanula species are nested within a single campanuloid subclade (the Rapunculus clade), we conducted a separate set of analyses focused specifically on this group. Our findings show that i) the campanuloids have colonized North America at least 6 times, 4 of which led to radiations, ii) all but one North American campanuloid are nested within the Rapunculus clade, iii) in northwestern North America, a C. piperi – C. lasiocarpa ancestor gave rise to a monophyletic Cordilleran clade that is sister to a clade containing C. rotundifolia, iv) within the Cordilleran clade, C. parryi var. parryi and C. parryi var. idahoensis exhibit a deep, species-level genetic divergence, and v) C. rotundifolia is genetically diverse across its range and polyphyletic. Potential causes of diversification and endemism in northwestern North America are discussed

Both “illness and temptation of the enemy”: melancholy, the medieval patient and the writings of King Duarte of Portugal (r. 1433–38)

Recent historians have rehabilitated King Duarte of Portugal, previously maligned and neglected, as an astute ruler and philosopher. There is still a tendency, however, to view Duarte as a depressive or a hypochondriac, due to his own description of his melancholy in his advice book, the Loyal Counselor. This paper reassesses Duarte's writings, drawing on key approaches in the history of medicine, such as narrative medicine and the history of the patient. It is important to take Duarte's views on his condition seriously, placing them in the medical and theological contexts of his time and avoiding modern retrospective diagnosis. Duarte's writings can be used to explore the impact of plague, doubt and death on the life of a well-educated and conscientious late-medieval ruler

The Medieval Appropriation of Maimonides

Institució Milà i Fontanals, IMF-CSIC. Working Papers, nº.1Between 1295 and 1305 two rather diff erent individuals —one the nephew of Arnau de Vilanova, an academic physician trained at Montpellier, the other a Jew converted to Christianity and practicing at the papal court— undertook independently to translate into Latin all the medical works of Maimonides, above all his short works on asthma, on poisons, on coitus, and on hemorrhoids. In these works, taken as a whole, Maimonides passed along details drawn from the whole spectrum of life in Egypt in his day, ca. 1200. A comparative study of the translations of these two individuals allows us to study the kind of picture of Islamic life that they chose to present, and how they depicted Maimonides himself, to a European readership.Peer reviewe