Accountability, Autobiography and Belonging: the Working Journal of a Sixteenth-Century Diplomatic Physician between Venice and Damascus

Abstract

Damascus, 29 August 1542. Cornelio Bianchi, physician to the Venetian Consul, returns to his lodgings in his nation’s fondaco after attending a local court hearing. Once there, he fetches his journal and summarizes the morning’s unpleasant events. The presiding Ottoman judge (kadı) had just settled an accusation of misconduct presented against him by a resident ‘Turk’, by ordering the foreign doctor to pay 8 maidini in ‘forced alms’ or, as Bianchi computed, Lire 1 soldi 12. The claim concerned the payment for a standard purgative treatment Bianchi had ordered for his patient at the consular apothecary’s, a laxative drink made with dates and two syrups. Whereas the Turk claimed the doctor had pocketed the money meant for the apothecary and demanded reimbursement, Bianchi believed the real reason for the quarrel to be his own unwillingness to enter into a contract of cure (patto di guarir) with the man. As a ‘French disease’ sufferer, the latter probably promised an undesirably long and uncertain case. Bianchi followed this entry with a ‘Resolution’: never again to treat ‘Turks or Moors or similar scoundrels’. This vow was destined to be short-lived, however, and Damascene Muslims continued to form part of his clientele alongside Christians and Jews. Similarly, his commitment to contracts remained low.