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The influence of the text “De Arte Gymnastica” on the resurgence of medical gymnastics in
Renaissance Italy: Girolamo Mercuriale (1530-1606)
Philippe Campillo
Daniel Caballero
Lille, France

The physicians of ancient Greece were aware that muscular exercise was a source of health and strength, as well as
achieving corporal beauty through a balanced relationship between different parts of the body. Ancient statues, such
as those of Polykleitos (460 to 420 BC), attest to how such beauty and harmony could be attained in the form of stone
sculptures. Like the rest of nature, the human body was believed to be governed by a certain harmony of proportion
and symmetry, also corresponding to a health-based ideal of longevity.1

As health was believed to depend on both physical activity and diet, these were prescribed in combination as the ideal
way of maintaining good health and of restoring it to sick patients.2 The importance of maintaining health through
physical exercise ebbed with the decline of the Greek and Roman civilizations, and gymnastics was no longer a way of
life. During the Middle Ages, beauty was perceived as pure vanity and temptation. People had to show modesty and
humility, concealing beauty to avoid vindictiveness from the God-fearing masses.

During the Renaissance of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Italian artists brought the Greek and Roman heritage
back into the spotlight. They analyzed human and intellectual values by studying ruins and artifacts, and by reading
the translations of ancient texts.

The liberal arts, revered

Figure 2. De arte gymnastica, 1573, p. 89. Public Domain, Source:
gallica.bnf.fr/Bibliothèque nationale de France
(https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k882576b/f109.item.r=De%20arte%20gymnastica#). Galen (c. 131. 201), erudite minds rediscovered forgotten concepts of
in antiquity and then
largely neglected, were
salvaged and Figure 1. Hieronymous Mercurialis (1530–
1606). Line engraving by Theodor de Bry, 1528-
reinvented during the 1598. Credit: Wellcome Collection
Renaissance. Art was (https://wellcomecollection.org/works/scnpe8ms).
(CC BY 4.0)
rigorously based on
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
geometry and optics, on
relative size based on viewpoint and body proportions, and on knowledge of
anatomy and body movements. Beauty was now codified in art through
precise mathematical proportions. Ideal measurements for the body and
the face were updated and established. Humans became the measure of all
things, and artists represented them more willingly; naked when it came to
mythological characters. The resurgence of humanism in sixteenth-century
Europe also inspired physicians to recognize the place of man and human
values above all others, and this philosophy spawned an intellectual
movement inspired by the study of ancient texts. The rediscovery of Greco-
Roman literature then became inseparable from a certain ideology of
progress. Referring to Hippocrates of Cos (460-c. 370 BC) and Claudius
hygiene and health.

Girolamo Mercuriale (1530-1606)

As a consequence of these changes, gymnastics was now no longer seen as
art but as science, establishing the supremacy and hegemony of doctors over
coaches and athletes. It became, in a way, the science of physical exercise,
allowing people to evaluate its effects on the body and its performance. This
heightened Galenism was reflected in several treatises, notably by Antoine
Gazi (1449-1528), Symphorien Champier (1471-1539), and Léonhart Fuchs
(1501-1566), who regarded bodily exercises as a way to stay healthy.
Particularly important and comprehensive was the work of Hieronymus
Mercurialis. His goal was to give gymnastics its former importance and
ground it in medicine by connecting specific conditions and exercises. This
plan implied a return to Galen, who believed gymnastics had a purely medical
function. Mercurialis also valued gymnastics as a way to maintain and
improve health rather than for the pleasure of popular games or war, seeking
to determine the line between exercises and medical aims.
Girolamo Mercuriale is best known by his Latinized name, Hieronymus Figure 3. De arte gymnastica, 1573, p. 127. Public Domain, Source:
Mercurialis.2 This erudite and illustrious man was born in Forli (Romagna) on gallica.bnf.fr/Bibliothèque nationale de France
(https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k882576b/f147.item.r=De%20arte%20gymnastica).
September 30, 1530. After attending medical school in Bologna, he became a
doctor in Padua and then returned to Forli. It was then that his wide
knowledge earned him the esteem of Cardinal Alexander Farnese (1520-1589), who persuaded him to settle in Rome. This greatly benefitted his research, particularly
through access to the Vatican library and the richest private libraries. He spent seven years there, devoting himself to teaching medicine and studying the gymnastics of
antiquity.

De Arte Gymnastica (1569)

Mercurialis became known throughout Europe as an authority in medicine. According to a letter to the Italian cardinal Guglielmo Sirleto (1514-1585), the publication date
of the original edition of De Arte Gymnastica was July 28, 1569,4 making it the first Western book on gymnastics. Its first edition, in Latin, was dedicated to Cardinal
Alexander Farnese and the second, in 1573, to the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II (1527-1576). Publication continued for many decades, in 1587, 1601, and 1672,
with an Italian translation appearing in 1856.

De Arte Gymnastica is a scholarly work composed by studying the

monuments of antiquity and the books in the rich libraries of Rome. It
contains curious pieces of research on the gymnasiums of antiquity, on the
kinds of exercises and games they engaged in, and on their effects on illness
and health. It divides exercise into three groups: regular exercise, which
includes medical use; military exercise; and athletic exercise. It describes
dancing, ball games, walking, running, jumping, discus, dumbbell, throwing,
singing, horseback riding, swimming, wrestling, boxing, and even fishing and
hunting. Each form is described with its advantages.

In his compendium, Mercurialis largely borrows from the works of Galen, in

particular his six books entitled De Sanitate Tuenda. In his books, Galen
discusses the contribution of exercise to health. Mercurialis classifies
activities and exercises according to their effects on the body,5 with many
references scattered throughout his writing and quotations from more than
one hundred authors, listed at the beginning of the work.

The work is original mainly in its recommending physical exercise as general

debility as well as for kidney stones and varicose veins. Its title clearly
Figure 4. De arte gymnastica, 1573, p. 148. Public Domain, Source:
gallica.bnf.fr/Bibliothèque nationale de France indicated that it was addressed to everyone, not only to doctors. It confirmed
(https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k882576b/f168.item.r=De%20arte%20gymnastica). how humanist educators felt about the therapeutic value of physical
education. Renaissance Italy set in motion this resurgence of physical
exercise as a requirement for health.

In conclusion, the revival of knowledge during the Renaissance stimulated a new interest in original Greek and Roman sources about the theory and practice of medicine.
The gymnastics of Hellenic culture were brought back into the limelight by doctors versed in ancient texts and ideals. The spirit of the Renaissance gradually led to a
revaluation of therapeutic physical practice by distancing it from the vagueness in which it was immersed during the Middle Ages.

Yet in the midst of the great ruins of Italy’s arenas, amphitheaters, baths, and gymnasiums, these writers paid scarce attention to any form of exercise other than that
which made bodies agile, vigorous, and healthy. Mercurialis, however, rekindled interest in physical practice and framed it as both a preventive and curative measure.

References
1. Tobin, Richard. “The Canon of Polykleitos,” American Journal of Archaeology 79, no. 4 (1975): 307-321.
2. Thurston, Alan. “Art of preserving health: studies on the medical supervision of physical exercise,” ANZ journal of surgery 79, no. 12 (2009): 941-945.
3. Mercurialis, Hieronymi. De Arte Gymnastica. Venezia: Apud Iuntas, 1573.
4. Mercuriale, Girolamo. L’art de la gymnastique. Translated by Jean-Michel Agasse. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2006.
5. Peltier Leonard F. “Geronimo Mercuriali (1530-1606) and the first illustrated book on sports medicine,” Clin Orthop Relat Res 198, (1985): 21-24.

PHILIPPE CAMPILLO (mailto:philippe.campillo@univ-lille.fr)received a PhD at Montpellier on the biomechanical analysis of specific sport movements. His
perspectives and research interests include the analysis and optimization of motor performance and the history and epistemology of science and biomechanics of
locomotion. University of Lille, EA 7369 – URePSSS, Pluridisciplinary Research Unit, “Sport, Health and Society”, F-59000, Lille, France.

DANIEL CABALLERO (mailto:daniel.caballero-julia@univ-lille.fr) has a PhD in Science and Technology of Physical and Sports Activities (STAPS). His research topics
focus on two axes: 1) the development of scientific analysis methods (Biplot, multivariate analysis, statistical analysis of textual data, qualitative survey), and 2) the
sociological analysis of physical and sports activities from a gendered perspective (body socializations, institutionalization process, and careers of practitioners). University
of Lille, EA 7369 – URePSSS, Pluridisciplinary Research Unit, “Sport, Health and Society”, F-59000, Lille, France.

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