A Career in Manuscripts: Genres and Purposes of a Physician’s Writing in Rome, 1600–1630

Following the stellar career of papal physician Giulio Mancini, the article brings into focus learned doctors’ uses of, and relationships with, manu- scripts. Manuscripts were the main outcome of their practice — as letters of consultation to patients and colleagues, as consilia of various kinds, including for use in courts of law, and also in the form of key professional tools such as casebooks. Clues found in Mancini’s rich paper-trail shed light on material aspects of his professional writing and on the role that circulating knowledge in manuscript had in creating and sustaining medical networks. The article also argues that even in a domain as shaped by print as early modern medicine, physicians’ use of this medium should not be taken for granted; especially in courtly settings, scribal, as opposed to print, publishing provided them with an effective means of building the social relationships on which their careers depended.