Amato Lusitano or João Rodrigues de Castelo Branco, name for which he remained known for posterity (1511-1568), was a Portuguese physician and humanist (at the time, he used the Latin form Amatus Lusitanus)).

He had a troubled course, suffered religious persecution, studied alongside the foremost masters of his time, he knew in depth the work of the ancient authors (Dioscorides, Hippocrates, among others), who he commented and divulged.

Some authors place him among the first to know the mechanisms of blood circulation. Today his writings and reflections allow us to"... observe the world in the sixteenth century beyond the purely medical aspects: eating habits, rhythms of everyday life, wars and economic and political tensions, social hierarchies, openness to the wonders of the world that was being discovered." (Wikipedia)

The CDI-Library includes in its historical collections several important editions of the work of Amato. Two of them were fully digitized by the National Library of Portugal, for inclusion in the National Digital Library, as well as in our Digitised Collections (see http://www.biblioteca.medicina.ulisboa.pt/)).

At the top, on the left, we can see an interesting detail of the title page of Johann Bauhin's Historia plantaarum universalis... (1541-1613) (from the CDI-Library with quota RES 1655), in which Amato appears alongside Pietro Andrea Mattioli (1500-1577) and Melchior Wieland (ca. 1520-1589), with the caption 'dissentimus', meaning, 'we disagree'. Amato was also involved in controversies of little known contours with some of his contemporaries, including Vesalius himself. Mattioli became very angry with the Portuguese doctor, who criticised him in lessons, as well as in his work, and to whom the Italian assigned his Adversus Amathum Lusitanum, cum censura in eiusdem enarrationes, meaning, "Against Amato Lusitano, with criticisms of his writings "(eg from the CDI-Library issue of 1598, quota RES. 356).

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Amato Lusitano, alias. (João Rodrigues de Castelo Branco)



Title: Curationum medicinalium centuria quarta. –

Place of edition: Venetiis [Venice] : apud Franciscum Storti [impressor], 1653. - 268 p. ; 8th

FMUL CDI-Library quota: RES. 7

Full text (digitalisation from the copy of FMUL CDI-Library):http: //purl.pt/23097

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André Rodrigues

Library and Information Area