Biography

Elisa Andretta earned her Ph.D. degree in History from the “Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales” and from the “Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza” (december 2007).
Her current research focuses on cultural and practical medicine in Mediterranean Europe in the early modern age. It is inscribed within the framework of social and political history of the Medical practices in the post-Tridentin Catholic world. In particular, it focuses on Papal State and Spain in the 16th century. By adopting a comparative approach to these two cities, her goal is to shed more light on the relationship between science, political power and religion in the Early Modern period.
Her book “Roma Medica. Anatomie d’un système médical au XVIe siècle”, deals with the social and political history of science in the Catholic world, focusing on the centre of that world – Rome – and examining its capacity to redefine medical knowledge and to appropriate new practices within a particular context (pontifical and cardinal patronage) and a changing cultural paradigm (from Humanism to the Counter-Reformation).
Elisa Andretta is Research Fellow at the Institut d’histoire de la médecine et de la santé (Université de Genève) and Associate Research Scholar of the Centre Alexandre Koyré (Paris). She is currently working on the project «Itinéraires des savoirs et cultures médicales dans l’Europe méditerranéenne 1520-1650 (Subside Ambizione (Fonds National Suisse) PZ00P1_137943).
She is member of the RHUM (Réseau des historiens universitaires de la médecine) and the international research programme Hermes Medicus (XVe-XVIIe siècles), Interpréter les signes, interpréter les faits:herméneutiques et discours médical (XVIe-XVIIe siècles), ANR Research Programme.