Dietetics and Mental Disorders in Giorgio Valla and His Sources

In ancient and Byzantine medicine, dietetics played a key role in both preventing and treating disorders of the cognitive faculties. In his posthumous De expetendis et fugiendis rebus (1501), the Italian humanist Giorgio Valla devoted particular attention to these conditions by translating the entire sixth book of Aetius of Amida’s Libri medicinales (6th c.), dedicated to “diseases of the head”. The same interest is reflected in his earlier De victu ratione (1498), a translation of Theophanes Chrysobalantes’ Perì diaítes, which includes dietary prescriptions concerning “foods that harm the head” (quae caput offendunt) and “those that generate black bile” (quae atram bilem generant). This paper offers a comparative reading of the relevant sections from these translations alongside other passages in Theophanes’ works dealing with dietetic and pharmacological approaches to mental disorders, namely (a) the Epitome de curatione morborum sections derived from Aetius (especially the one on mania), and (b) the still unedited De remediis, preserved in a rich manuscript tradition.