Professor John Henderson
Research interests* Teaching interests* Publications* Areas of research supervision* Contact details
Research interests
My main area of research is Tuscany from the renaissance to the early modern period. Over the years my research has ranged from the study of popular religious practices to poor relief and welfare to the history of epidemic disease, including plague and syphilis. My most recent research interests include an inter-disciplinary reconstruction of the medical, religious, architectural and artistic environment of the Italian renaissance hospital (Yale University Press, 2006); the medical worlds of patient and practitioner in early modern central Italy; and changing ideas and policies towards public health, disease and the environment in urban and rural Tuscany, 1550-1750.
Teaching interests
Renaissance and Early Modern Europe, with especial emphasis on Italy: cultural, religious, and medical history. I teach comparative courses on plague, welfare and medical practice in Italy and England and am planning courses on the social and cultural history of both Renaissance Florence and more generally Renaissance Italy.
Publications
Books* Popular religion in medieval Italy* Social History: charity and welfare in renaissance and early modern Italy* Plagues in renaissance and early modern Italy* Medical History in renaissance and early modern Italy
1. Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1994, xviii + 545 pages; revised paperback ed.: Chicago University Press, 1997, xviii + 533 pages.
Italian translation: Pieta’ e carita’ nella Firenze del Basso Medioevo, Casa Editrice Le Lettere, Florence, 1998, pp. 545.
2. The Great Pox. The French Disease in Renaissance Europe, with J. Arrizabalaga and R. French, Yale University Press, 1997, xv + 352 pages.
3. [ed.], Charity and the Poor in Late Medieval and Renaissance Europe: England and Italy Compared in Continuity and Change, 3.ii (1988), 176 pages.
4. [ed. with T.V. Verdon], Christianity and the Renaissance, Syracuse University Press, 1990, xviii + 611 pages.
5. [ed. with R. Wall], Poor Women and Children in the European Past, Routledge, 1994, xiii + 347 pages.
6. [ed. With A. Pastore], Medicina dell’Anima , Medicina del Corpo: l’Ospedale in Europa tra Medio Evo ed Età Moderna in special number of Medicina e Storia, III (2003), 134 pages.
7. The Renaissance Hospital. Healing the Body and Healing the Soul (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006), xxxiv + 458 pages.
8. The Impact of Hospitals in Europe 1000–2000: People, Landscapes, Symbols, ‘Introduction’ and edited by John Henderson, Peregrine Horden, and Alessandro Pastore (Forthcoming: Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang, Autumn 2006).
Popular religion in medieval Italy
'The Flagellant Movement and Flagellant Confraternities in Central Italy, 1260-1400', Studies in Church History, xv (1978), pp. 147-160.
'Le confraternite religiose nella Firenze del tardo medio evo: patroni spirituali e anche politici?', Ricerche storiche, xv (1985), pp. 77-94.
'Society and Religion in Renaissance Florence: A Review Article', The Historical Journal, 29 (1986), pp. 213-225.
'Confraternities and the Church in Fifteenth-century Florence', Studies in Church History, xxiv (1986), pp. 69-83.
'Confraternities and Death in Renaissance Florence', in Florence and Italy. Renaissance Studies in Honour of Nicolai Rubinstein, ed. P. Denley and C. Elam (London, 1988), pp. 383-394.
'Religious Confraternities and Politics in Fifteenth-century Florence', Collegium Medievale (1990), pp. 53-72.
'Penitence and the Laity in Fifteenth-Century Florence', in Verdon and Henderson, eds., Christianity and the Renaissance (Syracuse, USA, 1990), pp. 229-249.
[with P. Joannides] 'A Franciscan Triptych by Fra Angelico', Arte Cristiana (1991).
Social History: charity and welfare in renaissance and early modern Italy
'The Parish and the Poor in Florence at the time of the Black Death: the case of S. Frediano', Continuity and Change, 3 (1988), pp. 247-272.
'Charity in late medieval Florence: the role of religious confraternities', in C.H. Smyth and G.C. Garfagnini, eds., Florence and Milan: comparisons and relations (Florence, 1989), pp. 67-84.
'Women, Children and Poverty in Florence at the time of the Black Death', in Henderson and Wall, eds., Poor Women and Children in the European Past (London, 1994), pp. 160-179.
'Charity and Welfare in Sixteenth-century Tuscany', in A. Cunningham and O. Grell, eds., Charity and Medicine in Southern Europe (London, 1999), pp. 56-86.
‘Introduction’ and ed., ‘Living and Dying in the City’ in Living in the City, ed. E. Sonnino (Rome, 2004).
Plagues in renaissance and early modern Italy
'Epidemie nella Firenze del Rinascimento: teoria sanitaria e provvedimenti governative', in Sanità e Società. Emilia Romagna, Toscana, Marche, Umbria, Lazio, secoli xvi-xx, ed. A. Pastore and P. Sorcinelli (Udine, 1987).
'Plague in Renaissance Florence: medical theory and government response', Maladies et société‚ (xii--xviiie siècles), ed. N. Bulst and R. Delort (Paris, 1989), pp. 165-186.
'The Black Death in Florence: medical and communal reactions', in S. Bassett, ed., Death in Towns (Leicester, 1992), pp. .
'La peste nera a Firenze: teorie mediche e la politica governativa', in M.L. Betri and A. Pastore, eds., L'arte di Guarire. Aspetti della professione medica tra medioevo ed età contemporanea (Milan, 1993), pp. 11-29.
'The Mal Francese in Sixteenth-century Rome: The Ospedale di San Giacomo in Augusta and the "Incurabili"', in E. Sonnino, ed., La popolazione di Roma dal medioevo all'età contemporanea. Fonti, problemi di ricerca, risultati (Rome, 1999), pp. 483-523.
‘“La schifezza, madre di corruzione”: Peste e società a Firenze nella prima epoca moderna’, Medicina e Storia, 2 (2001), pp. 23-56.
‘The Black Death’, in The Times Medieval Atlas, ed. R. McItterick (London, 2003)
12. ‘Historians and Plagues in pre-industrial Italy over the longue durée’, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences (2004), pp. 481-99.
Medical History in renaissance and early modern Italy
'The Hospitals of Late-Medieval Florence: a preliminary survey', in The Hospital in History, ed. L. Granshaw and R. Porter (London, 1989), pp. 63-92.
[with K.P. Park] '"The First Hospital Among Christians": the Ospedale di Santa Maria Nuova in Early Sixteenth-century Florence', Medical History, xxxv (1991), pp. 164-188.
'"Splendide case di cura". Spedali, medicina ed assistenza a Firenze nel Trecento', in A. Grieco and L. Sandri, eds., Ospedali e città. L'Italia del Centro-Nord, XIII-XVI secolo (Florence, 1997), pp. 15-50.
'Cura del corpo e cura dell' anima. Ospedali a Firenze e in Italia', in E. Pieri Venturi and L. Sandri, eds., La nuova città, II n. 4 (1999), pp. 93-102.
‘Ospedali ed epidemie a Firenze nel Rinascimento: Peste e Mal Francese’, L’Ospedale e la Città. Catalogo della mostra, Palazzo Vecchio, dicembre 1998, ed. A. Aleardi, et al. (Florence, 2000), pp. 16-27.
‘“Antechambers of Death”? Poverty and Sickness in the Hospitals of Renaissance Florence’, in Forme di povertà e innovazioni istituzionali in Italia dal Medioevo ad oggi, ed. V. Zamagni (Bologna, 2000), pp. 111-129.
‘Ospedali Fiorentini ed opere d’arte nel rinascimento: valore storico e ruolo sanitario-devozionale’, Medicina nei secoli. Journal of History of Medicine, 2001, pp. 273-295..
‘Healing the Body and Healing the Soul: Hospitals in Renaissance Florence’, Renaissance Studies, 2001, pp. 188-216.
‘The material culture of health: hospitals in renaissance Italy’, in F. Steger, K. P. Jankrift, eds, Gesundheit - Krankheit. Kulturtransfer medizinischen Wissens von der Spadtantike bis in die Fruhe Neuzeit (Beihefte zum Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, 55), (Cologne, 2004), 155-66.
‘Medizin für den Körper und Medizin für die Seele – Hospitäler im Florenz der Renaissance’, in M. Matheus, ed., Strukturwandel spätmittelalterlicher Hospitäler in Europa (Stuttgart, 2006).
‘Santa Maria Nuova nel quadro europeo del rinascimento: bellezza e terapia’, in La bellezza come terapia. Arte e assistenza nell’ospedale di Santa Maria Nuova di Firenze, eds, E. Ghidetti and E. Diana (Florence, 2005), pp. 27-44.
‘Fracastoro, Mal Francese e la cura con il Legno Santo’, Girolamo Fracastoro. Fra medicina, filosofia e scienze della natura, eds, A. Pastore and E. Peruzzi (Florence, 2006), pp. 73-89.
‘The Art of Healing. Hospital wards and the sick in Renaissance Florence’, in P. Helas and G. Wolf, eds, Armut und Armenfürsorge in der italienischen Stadtkultur zwischen 13. und 16. Jahrhundert. Bilde, Texte und sozial Pratiken (Frankfurt am Main, 2006), pp. 79-96.
Areas of research supervision
I would be interested in supervising PhD students in the religious, cultural, social and medical history of medieval, renaissance, and early modern Italy, and especially Tuscany. In particular students would be welcomed with an interest in popular religion and ritual; the social and medical function of charitable and welfare institutions as well as their artistic role; and the practice and practitioners of medicine in Italy, from physicians and surgeons to apothecaries and herbalists
Contact details
Email: j.henderson@bbk.ac.uk
Tel: 020 7631 0686
Room: 662 (Malet Street)