"I Owe my Salvation to Setaccio". Perceptions and Scientific Suggestions between Literature and Medicine

Abstract

The article aims to show that in the second half of the XIX th Century the European Romantic trend in literature became even in Italy part of the launch pad for the first “Fanta-clinic” and “Medical-thriller” novels. According to the lesson of the coeval French literature it also baptized a kind of modern poetry turned to épater le bourgeois through the transfiguration of Anatomy and later through the use of the scientific method in composing verses and novels. This paper aims to focalize some links between Literature and Medicine by concerning literary inspirations felt by many coeval writers about Paolo Gorini (1813-1881) and Efisio Marini (1835-1900). The paper tries to demonstrate that the dark suggestions offered by the two scientists to some well known names of the Italian Literature (from Carlo Dossi to Matilde Serao) grew up strong in the Northern part of Italy as well as they did ....