Amalfi & Salerno

Amalfi cathedral

Salerno has put some intelligent work into promoting its role as the first western medical school. The records of multicultural professional medical Guild date from 1040 although their reputation goes back about a century before that. Salerno’s stability and increasing trade under the Longobards continued under the Normans after 1077 creating wealth and attracting the service professions. Salernitan doctors provided advice to wealthy families, probably assessed slaves for health (there was an active trade) and treated the returning crusaders for unhealed injuries. They organized the existing medical knowledge so it was cohesive and helped recruit a North African familiar with Arab medical texts. Constantine the African translated the best available medical encyclopedia about 1080. His texts, together with some translations from Greek by Alfanus, the Archbishop of Salerno, made up the first western curriculum in medicine. Trauma surgery and ophthalmology were also adopted from the Arabs. The Salernitan traditions of women’s medicine was written down by Trocta, a female clinician. The study of anatomy was compulsory but was on pigs because human dissections were banned. And while the Greek Dioscurides provided the initial source for medical herbs, in the late 13^th century, a medical family created the first medical herbarium for teaching students and for treatments. All this was beautifully illustrated using medieval illuminations and the reconstructed herbarium.

Terrace of infinity

Arabesques at Rafulo

The first day of walking around Amalfi has been absolutely perfect. We made an early start, gradually climbing up behind the town, which is jammed into a narrow valley mouth. It is difficult to understand how such a small place (70,000 in the 10^th & 11^th centuries) became a world trading power competing with Genoa, Pisa and Venice. The Amalfitani used galleys built with local timber and manned by locals but were also early adopters of the Arab lateen sail that allowed them to sail into the wind and improvers of the compass. In the 13^th century, they followed the Muslims at Seville in making paper from cloth and there are perhaps 20 water-powered paper mills up the valley – almost all abandoned. We climbed up though terraced olives and vines, past small villages to Revello. Revello’s carefully contrived 19^th century gardens were terraced above sheer drops so they give onto magnificent views up and down the coast. Our penalty for such perfection was to lose the 400 meters in altitude very quickly down knee-pounding steps. Thank heavens we’d got ourselves fit in Spain!

The second day was also perfection. We walked between sheer limestone cliffs from Scala to Pogerola and then down 750  much more gradual steps to Amalfi.