Elena Percivaldi

• Centro Studi Storico Archeologici del Gargano

The present article reviews the major historical plague epidemics that characterised human history by combining data derived from historical sources and biomedical evidence emerged in recent years thanks to advancements of palaeogenetics and palaeopathology. Notes are offered on the Plague of Athens, the Antonine Plague, the Plague of Cyprian, the...

Recognised since antiquity, gout is still a relevant pathology with rising prevalence and incidence. This study aims to assess the reference accuracy in journal articles mentioning the early use of the word ‘gout’. Specifically, it investigates whether the term was indeed coined in the 13th century by the Dominican monk Randolphus of Bocking, as wi...

F.M. Galassi, L.Ingaliso, E.Percivaldi, E.Varotto, Le antiche pestilenze: uno sguardo paleopatologico alle catastrofi del passato. In: Schemata. La città oltre la forma. Per una nuova definizione dei paesaggi urbani e delle loro funzioni: urbanizzazione e società nel Mediterraneo pre-classico. Età arcaica, a cura di Rodolfo Brancato, Luigi Maria Ca...

This article summarises the main historical and palæopathological aspects of chickenpox and shingles, two diseases caused by the same pathogen, the varicella zoster virus (VZV). The history of these two diseases is traced back from historical and literary sources, including medical biographies of famous patients of the past (as in the case of Louis...

Siculorum Gymnasium Issn: 2499-667X LXXIII, VI, 2020

This paper aims to present some of the most important animal depositions excavated in northern Italy, dating back to the Roman and medieval period. It was also considered to include the Canton Ticino in the analysis because, in the Middle Ages, together with the Varese territory and part of the area around Como, in was part of the “Contado del Sepr...

In 612 A.D. Columbanus arrived at Milan, where he was kindly welcomed by the Lombard king Agilulf and queen Theodelinda. Here the Irish saint wrote a libellum to confute Arianism and, requested by the king, a long Epistula to Pope Boniface on the debated subject of “The Three Chapters”. What were the conditions of Milan, once capital of the Roman E...