THE TEXT THAT STARTED SPORTS MEDICINE

De arte gymnastica , written in 1569 by the Forlì-born physician Girolamo Mercuriale, was the text that marked the birth of sports medicine, reevaluating the role of this discipline in the medical and therapeutic fields. The work appeared in its first edition in Venice in 1569, with a dedication to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. A subsequent reprint was published between 1569 and 1573, expanded and modified, with a dedication to Emperor Maximilian II. These were followed by a Paris edition (1577) and two Venice editions (1587 and 1601), published during the author's lifetime. Only after Mercuriale's death did two reprints come to light, dated 1644 and 1672 respectively, the latter of which was interpolated.

Mercuriale's second work is also interesting. It is a collection of "various lectures" in which Mercuriale critically analyzes the texts of the major authors of ancient medicine, especially Hippocrates, Galen, and other Greco-Roman physicians. The objective is not only medical, but also philological: the author compares the different readings in the manuscripts, corrects translation errors, and interprets difficult passages. The work is set in the climate of sixteenth-century medical humanism, in which the study of medicine was based on a direct return to classical texts in the original language. Mercuriale thus seeks to reconcile philological erudition and medical practice, demonstrating how a correct understanding of ancient authors is fundamental to medical science.