"The first of NETDIS goals was to map early modern medical religious dissent by considering the experience of Girolamo Donzellini, a relevant example of a heretical doctor scarcely examined by historiography. Reconstructing and visualising this network through digital humanities tools is crucial to understand the relations between medicine and heresy and its relevance for the growth of European cultural identity.
Donzellini's case was far from being exceptional in 16th century Italy. Many more heretical physicians were inserted in a network of medical practice, cultural exchange, and religious dissent. After having reconstructed the case-study’s network, NETDIS maps other heretical physicians’ professional and religious bonds, stemming from the Republic of Venice. The expanded research stemmed from four case studies of physicians included in my database: Girolamo Donzellini, Teofilo Panarelli, Decio Bellebuono and Gian Battista Gemma. Some of the contacts that they had in common were scholars, writers, and alchemists involved in what I called “the great utopia network”: from the intersection of cultural and professional connections among scholars, doctors, alchemists and printers, we can draw the existence of a community which shared the same inclination towards philosophy, science and religion.
NETDIS has tracked the ultra-venetian ties of the physicians active in Venice and the ulterior links that exiled physicians built with relevant figures in the European medical and religious frame. This final map visualises the personal, cultural, religious, and professional bonds of Italian heretical physicians all over Europe, considering also their religious inclination, a crucial aspect to understand the link between medicine and heresy as an essential factor in the rise of freedom of thought. The result has been very promising: historical network analysis allowed to seize gender and class dynamics in the heretical movement and in the perpetuation of cultural/scientific activities.
The research in the archives in Veneto has been accomplished, providing the NETDIS database with important details about the biographies of the heretical physicians that are at the core of NETDIS project, and of those of their accomplices (not necessarily doctors). In addition to Inquisition records, NETDIS has widened its scope to include other kind of sources, in particular notary ones, the typical sources of social history research. They have shown to be useful in widening our perspectives about the life of heretical individuals and communities in 16th century Venice. This methodology also allowed to reflect upon the interactivity between historical frames and the concrete existence of communities of dissent in the past: how they existed, how they shaped and reshaped themselves, who were the leading figures within them, what was the role of specific social and professional categories like doctors, who were the most central nodes, for what reason, and so on. The medical-heretical network had specific and homogenous cultural and religious characteristics, while it was varied in social respects. This information supplies the material for a further iteration of the maps produced at Stanford.
NETDIS methodologies and preliminary results have been largely disseminated in the US and in Italy. Moreover, a documentary on NETDIS's themes, titled ""Criminal thoughts in 16C Venice"" has been produced. I have shared with the university of Verona the international connections I had acquired during the outgoing phase and thanks to my participation in numerous international conferences (by organizing seminars on Netdis’ themes and by creating a new international research group based in Verona, DEaMoNs). This asset has been crucial for the successful organization of the final 2-days international workshop held in Verona."
