The origins and development of food policies in Europe

of "calling" in early seventeenth-century Denmark not only shaped Bartholin's theology, he argues, but also his medicine (p. 78). One of the strands in the story that Grell weaves is the relationship between Providence and physick: "what use ... is dittany and panacea?" Bartholin asks, "if God is not present and pours strength into herbs" (p. 79). This theme forms the focus of David Harley's study of medical and lay ideas in late sixteenth-and early seventeenth-century England. Drawing upon an impressive range of sources, Harley shows how illness could be seen as a visitation from God and yet still be considered treatable by medical means. The point being, of course, that the boundary between religion and medicine was nothing like as sharply drawn then as it is now, and for reasons that Harley makes very clear. Richard Palmer provides a fascinating account of the tribulations of Protestant physicians in late sixteenth-century Italy, in particular concentrating on Girolamo Donzellini in Venice. Donzellini corresponded with many leading Protestants throughout Europe and acted as an agent for distributing prohibited books throughout Italy. Repeatedly in trouble with the Inquisition from 1553 onwards, he was finally executed by drowning in 1587. In order to understand why Donzellini persisted in taking risks throughout his career as a physician, Palmer, like Webster, Grell and Harley points to the close connection between medicine and Reformed religion. Donzellini's undoubted deep piety and his belief in medicine as his calling seem to have led him to a Protestant view of Providence, and in particular to views close to those of Melanchthon. He evidently came to hold these beliefs so dear that he could not give them up. David Gentilcore looks at another group of risk-takers, the "living saints" or, depending upon your point of view, the witches of the Kingdom of Naples under the Tridentine Church. The story is reminiscent of disputes between regular and irregular practitioners, but here it is the Church, rather than Colleges of Physicians, who decide who is a legitimate healer. An illegitimate healer was held to be one who gained her efficacy from the Devil, and so was guilty of witchcraft. At a time when the Catholic Church considered it crucial to define and regulate notions of sacredness, to be regarded as a living saint required much more than simple piety. Similarly, as Luis Garcifa-Ballester demonstrates, a successful Morisco physician in late sixteenth-century Spain was …