Boccaccio, Giovanni (1313-75), Italian writer and humanist, one of the great authors of all time.
Boccaccio was perhaps born in Paris, the illegitimate son of a Florentine merchant and a French noblewoman. Reared in Florence, he was sent to study accounting in Naples about 1323. He abandoned accounting for canon law and gave that up for classical and scientific studies. He took part in the life of the court of Robert d’Anjou, king of Naples. The king is supposed to have had an illegitimate daughter, Maria de Conti d’Aquino. Although proof of her existence has not been established, she is said to have been Boccaccio’s mistress and to have inspired a great deal of his work. She is, perhaps, the Fiammetta immortalized in his writings.
Returning to Florence about 1340, Boccaccio performed various diplomatic services for the city government, and in 1350 he met the celebrated poet and humanist Petrarch, with whom he maintained a close friendship until Petrarch’s death in 1374. In 1362 Boccaccio was invited to Naples by a friend, who promised him the patronage of Queen Joanna of that city. A cold reception at the court of the queen led him to seek the hospitality of Petrarch, who was then in Venice (1363). Rejecting Petrarch’s offer of a home, however, he returned to his estate in Certaldo (near Florence). Boccaccio’s last years, in which he turned to religious meditation, were brightened by his appointment in 1373 as lecturer on Dante. His series of lectures was interrupted by his illness in 1374, and he died the next year.
Boccaccio’s most important work is Il Decamerone (Ten Days’ Work), which was begun in 1348 and completed in 1353; it was first translated into English, as The Decameron, in 1620. This collection of 100 witty, high-spirited stories is set within a framework. A group of friends, seven women and three men, all “well-bred, of worth and discretion,” to escape an outbreak of the plague have taken refuge in a country villa outside Florence. There they entertain one another over a period of ten days (hence the title) with a series of stories told by each member of the party in turn. Each day’s storytelling ends with a canzone; these canzoni represent some of Boccaccio’s most exquisite lyric poetry. At the conclusion of the 100th tale, the friends return to their homes in the city. The Decameron is the first and finest prose masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance. It is notable for the richness and variety of the tales, which alternate between tragedy and earthy humor, for the brilliance of the craftsmanship, and for its penetrating character analysis. In this work Boccaccio gathered material from many sources: the French fabliau, Greek and Latin classics, folklore, and observations of contemporary Italian life.
Boccaccio’s other writings include three works thought to be inspired by his love for Maria d’Aquino: his first long prose romance Il filocolo (circa 1336), L’amorosa Fiammetta (Amorous Fiammetta, 1343-44), both stories of rejected lovers; and Il corbaccio (The Old Crow, c. 1354). His Il filostrato (c. 1338) and Teseida (1340-41) are poems in ottava rima, a verse form he brought to perfection (see Versification). He also wrote a life of Dante, with a commentary on the Divine Comedy, and a number of scholarly, scientific, and poetic works in Latin, including De Claris Mulieribus (Concerning Famous Women, 1360-74). Among illustrious English writers who were influenced by Boccaccio’s works and used them as source material are Geoffrey Chaucer, Shakespeare, and John Dryden. The structure of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, for example, which also employs the frame story device, is modeled after that of The Decameron.
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Boccaccio's Life and Works
1313
Boccaccio is born (June or July) in Certaldo or in Florence to an unknown woman and Boccaccino di Chellino, a wealthy merchant who officially and without hesitation recognizes him.
1319-20
Boccaccino marries Margherita de' Mardoli, noblewoman. Birth of Boccaccio's step-brother, Francesco.
1327
Boccaccio travels to Naples with his father, agent of the Bardi Bank.
1330
Possibly attends lessons of Cino da Pistoia, jurist-poet and friend of Dante and Petrarch, and takes up the study of canon law.
1332
Boccaccino moves to Paris. Giovanni, with greater freedom, pursues his humanistic interests in literature as is attested by his first essays in Latin (the Elegia di Costanza and the Allegoria mitologica, both certainly composed before 1334) and his first vernacular poetry.
1333-34
Boccaccio's first exposure to the poetry of Petrarch.
1334-37
Composition of La caccia di Diana.
1336-39
Boccaccio finishes the Filocolo. During this time, he ends his period of study.
1339
Giovanni writes the following Latin epistles: The Crepor celsitudinis, dedicated to Carlo, duke of Durazzo; the Mavortis milex, dedicated to Petrarch; the Nereus amphitribus and the Sacre famis, to unidentified friends.
1339-40
Composition of the Teseida.
1340
The Filostrato is completed (other scholars fix the date as circa 1335) between fall and winter.
1340-41
Boccaccio returns to Florence.
1341-42
Composition of the Comedia Ninfe (also known as the Commedia delle ninfe fiorentine and later with the uncertain title Ninfale d'Ameto) dedicated to Niccolò di Bartolo Del Buono. First draft of De vita et moribus domini Francisci Petracchi.
1342-43
First version of the Amorosa visione.
1343-44
Composition of the Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta.
1344-45
Composition of the Ninfale fiesolano.
1347-48
Boccaccio travels to Forlì and resides at the court of Francesco Ordelaffi where he exchanges sonnets and carmina with the grammarian Checco di Meletto Rossi. It is during this period that Boccaccio first learns news of Dante's last years. Composition of the first eclogues which will later be collected in Buccolicum carmen.
1348
Florence suffers the initial effects of the Black Death which takes the lives of his father, step-mother and numerous friends.
1349-51
Composition of the Decameron...
1350
First meeting with Petrarch in Florence. Work begins on the Genealogia deorum gentilium, a work which is not finished until 1374.
1351
Boccaccio moves to Padua where he again meets Petrarch. He joins the court of Louis of Bavaria as embassador from the city-state of Florence. The first draft of the Trattatello in laude di Dante reaches completion.
1355
Boccaccio returns to Naples. Earliest feasible date of the second draft of the Amorosa visione which is definitively completed in 1360. Work begins on the De casibus virorum illustrium and the De montibus, silvis, fontibus et de nominibus maris liber finished respectively in 1363 and 1364.
1357
Boccaccio, in Ravenna, probably receives the Invective contra medicum from Petrarch.
1359
Third meeting with Petrarch, this time in Milan. Boccaccio named ambassador to Lombardy, perhaps at the court of Bernabò Visconti.
1360
First complete version of the De casibus and first abridged edition of the Trattatello. Pope Innocent VI inducts Boccaccio into the clergy. In an aborted coup d'état in Florence, several of Boccaccio's friends and acquaintances are implicated, some of whom (including Niccolò di Bartolo Del Buono and others) are subsequently executed. For the next four years, Boccaccio receives no further official Florentine appointments.
1361
Boccaccio withdraws to Certaldo. Work begins on De mulieribus claris.
1361-62
Return, for unidentified reasons, to Ravenna. Here he collects information regarding San Pier Damiani for Petrarch who is working on De vita solitaria.
1362
Definitive version of the De mulieribus. Composition of Vita sanctissimi patris Petri Damiani.
1363
Following a serious crisis of faith, Boccaccio dedicates himself exclusively to spiritual pursuits. He travels again to Naples but stays there only for a relatively short period on account of his luke warm reception. After returning to Florence, he goes to Padua to see Petrarch but eventually meets him in Venice where the latter had moved. In July Boccaccio proceeds to Certaldo. The final version of the Genealogie is brought to its conclusion.
1364-65
Boccaccio engages in an enduring epistolary debate with Petrarch on compositions in the vernacular.
1365
Travels to the papal court of Urban V in Avignon as Florentine ambassador. Composition of the Corbaccio. Boccaccio dedicates himself to the second abridged edition of the Trattatello.
1367
Visit to Venice where Boccaccio does not have the opportunity to meet with Petrarch but does find Petrarch's daughter and son-in-law. Boccaccio takes ambassadorship to the papal court in Rome.
1368
Meeting with Petrarch in Padua around whom many intellectuals and literary figures have gathered.
1369-70
Boccaccio oversees the publication of the Buccolicum carmen.
1370-71
After a last trip to Naples, Boccaccio retires to Certaldo.
1372
Boccaccio is increasingly troubled by obesity, and also by a form of dropsy which impedes his movement, together with attacks of scabies and high fevers.
1373
Dedication of the definitive version of the De casibus to Mainardo Cavalcanti. Continuation of revisions of the Genealogie. Boccaccio is entrusted by Florence to conduct a series of readings and lectures on the Divina Commedia.
1374
In a state of financial troubles and ailing health, Boccaccio returns to Certaldo where he learns of Petrarch's death. The passing of his long-time friend inspires the last sonnet of his mature poems. Work continues on the Genealogie.
1375
Boccaccio dies on December 21 at his home in Certaldo.
(G.M., M.P.) Adapted from: Muscetta, Carlo. "Giovanni Boccaccio". Letteratura italiana Laterza. Bari: Laterza, 1989. Ferroni, Giulio. Storia della letteratura italiana vol. I "Dalle origini al Quattrocento" Turin: Einaudi, 1991.
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The Death
From: Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Decameron. Richard Hooker, trans. Cited in “World Civilizations.”1996. Web. August 1, 2004. http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MA/DECINTRO.HTM
NB. Giovanni Boccaccio was a resident of Florence who survived one of the worst ravages of the Black Death, in 1348. In the space of less than 5 months, he notes, over 100,000 people died in Florence and its surrounding regions alone. He thus presents us one of the finest accounts of eyewitness testimony to the horrors of the plague. What follows is the introduction to his famous book, The Decameron, which is a collection of classic stories told to pass the time by a group of young people who have fled to a country villa, hoping to escape the plague.
Thirteen hundred and forty-eight years had passed since the fruitful Incarnation of the Son of God, when there came into the noble city of Florence, the most beautiful of all Italian cities, a deadly pestilence, which, either because of the operations of the heavenly bodies, or because of the just wrath of God mandating punishment for our iniquitous [sinful] ways, several years earlier had originated in the Orient, where it destroyed countless lives, scarcely resting in one place before it moved to the next, and turning westward its strength grew monstrously. No human wisdom or foresight had any value: enormous amounts of refuse and manure were removed from the city by appointed officials, the sick were barred from entering the city, and many instructions were given to preserve health; just as useless were the humble supplications [begging in prayer] to God given not one time but many times in appointed processions, and all the other ways devout people called on God; despite all this, at the beginning of the spring of that year, that horrible plague began with its dolorous [tremendously bad] effects in a most awe-inspiring manner, as I will tell you. And it did not behave as it did in the Orient, where if blood began to rush out the nose it was a manifest sign of inevitable death; but rather it began with swellings in the groin and armpit, in both men and women, some of which were as big as apples and some of which were shaped like eggs, some were small and others were large; the common people called these swellings gavoccioli. From these two parts of the body, the fatal gavaccioli would begin to spread and within a short while would appear over the entire body in various spots; the disease at this point began to take on the qualities of a deadly sickness, and the body would be covered with dark and livid spots, which would appear in great numbers on the arms, the thighs, and other parts of the body; some were large and widely spaced while some were small and bunched together. And just like the gavaccioli earlier, these were certain indications of coming death.
To cure these infirmities neither the advice of physicians nor the power of medicine appeared to have any value or profit; perhaps either the nature of the disease did not allow for any cure or the ignorance of the physicians (whose numbers, because men and women without any training in medicine invaded the profession, increased vastly) did not know how to cure it; as a consequence, very few were ever cured; all died three days after the appearance of the first outward signs, some lasted a little bit longer, some died a little bit more quickly, and some without fever or other symptoms. But what gave this pestilence particularly severe force was that whenever the diseased mixed with healthy people, like a fire through dry grass or oil it would rush upon the healthy. And this wasn't the worst of the evil: for not only did it infect healthy persons who conversed or mixed with the sick, but also touching bread or any other object which had been handled or worn by the sick would transport the sickness from the victim to the one touching the object. It is a wondrous tale that I have to tell: if I were not one of many people who saw it with their own eyes, I would scarcely have dared to believe it, let alone to write it down, even if I had heard it from a completely trustworthy person. I say that the pestilence I have been describing was so contagious, that not only did it visibly pass from one person to another, but also, whenever an animal other than a human being touched anything belonging to a person who had died from the disease, I say not only did it become contaminated by the sickness, but also died literally within the instant. Of all these things, as I have said before, my own eyes had experience many times: once, the rags of a poor man who had just died from the disease were thrown into the public street and were noticed by two pigs, who, following their custom, pressed their snouts into the rags, and afterwards picked them up with their teeth, and shook them against their cheeks: and within a short time, they both began to convulse, and they both, the two of them, fell dead on the ground next to the evil rags.
Because of all these things, and many others that were similar or even worse, diverse fears and imaginings were born in those left alive, and all of them resorted to the most cruel precaution: to avoid and run away from the sick and their things; by doing this, each person believed they could preserve their health. Others were of the opinion that they should live moderately and guard against all excess; by this means they would avoid infection. Having withdrawn, living separate from everybody else, they settled down and locked themselves in, where no sick person or any other living person could come, they ate small amounts of food and drank the most delicate wines and avoided all luxury, refraining from speech with outsiders, refusing news of the dead or the sick or anything else, and diverting themselves with music or whatever else was pleasant. Others, who disagreed with this, affirmed that drinking beer, enjoying oneself, and going around singing and ruckus-raising and satisfying all one's appetites whenever possible and laughing at the whole bloody thing was the best medicine; and these people put into practice what they heartily advised to others: day and night, going from tavern to tavern, drinking without moderation or measure, and many times going from house to house drinking up a storm and only listening to and talking about pleasing things. These parties were easy to find because everyone behaved as if they were going to die soon, so they cared nothing about themselves nor their belongings; as a result, most houses became common property, and any stranger passing by could enter and use the house as if he were its master. But for all their bestial [animal-like] living, these people always ran away from the sick. With so much affliction and misery, all respect for the laws, both of God and of man, fell apart and dissolved, because the ministers and executors of the laws [the leaders and rulers] were either dead or ill like everyone else, or were left with so few officials that they were unable to do their duties; as a result, everyone was free to do whatever they pleased. Many other people steered a middle course between these two extremes, neither restricting their diet like the first group, nor indulging so liberally in drinking and other forms of dissolution like the second group, but simply not going beyond their needs or satisfying their appetite beyond the necessary, and, instead of locking themselves away, these people walked about freely, holding in their hands a posy of flowers, or fragrant herbs, or diverse exotic spices, which sometimes they pressed to their nostrils, believing it would comfort the brain with smells of that sort because the stink of corpses, sick bodies, and medicines polluted the air all about the city. Others held a more cruel opinion, one that in the end probably guaranteed their safety, saying that there was no better or more effective medicine against the disease than to run away from it; convinced by this argument, and caring for no one but themselves, huge numbers of men and women abandoned their rightful city, their rightful homes, their relatives and their parents and their things, and sought out the countryside, as if the wrath of God would punish the iniquities [sins] of men with this plague based on where they happened to be, as if the wrath of God was aroused against only those who unfortunately found themselves within the city walls, or as if the whole of the population of the city would be exterminated in its final hour.
Of all these people with these various opinions, not all died, nor did they all survive; on the contrary, many from each camp fell ill in all places, and having, when they were healthy, set an example to all those who remained healthy, they languished in their illness completely alone, having been abandoned by everybody. One citizen avoided another, everybody neglected their neighbors and rarely or never visited their parents and relatives unless from a distance; the ordeal had so withered the hearts of men and women that brother abandoned brother, and the uncle abandoned his nephew and the sister her brother and many times, wives abandoned their husbands, and, what is even more incredible and cruel, mothers and fathers abandoned their children and would refuse to visit them. As a result, of that innumerable number of those, men and women, who fell ill, there remained no-one to care for them except for friends, which were very few, or avaricious [greedy] servants, who, despite the high salaries and easy service, became very scarce. And there were some men and women of such vulgar [common, with a negative connotation] mind, that most of them were not accustomed to service, and did nothing other than serve things whenever the sick person asked and watch while they died; and the wages of this service was often death. And some of the sick were totally abandoned by neighbors, relatives, and friends, and, on account of the scarcity of servants, turned to a custom no one had ever heard of before: no sick woman, even if she were a svelte, beautiful, and gentle lady, would care if she were being served by a man, young or otherwise, and would have no shame exposing every part of her body to him as if he were another woman, if the necessity of her sickness required her to; and this is why the women who were cured were a little less chaste afterwards. Moreover, many people died by chance who would have survived had they been helped. And so, because of the shortage of people to care for the sick, and the violence of the disease, day and night such a multitude died that it would dumbfound any to hear of it who did not see it themselves. As a result, partly out of necessity, there arose customs among those surviving that were contrary to the original customs of the city.
There used to be a custom, which is today still followed, where the women relatives and neighbors of a dead person would gather in the house and there mourn; on the other hand, there would gather at the front of the dead man's house neighbors and other citizens as well, whose numbers followed from the quality of the deceased man, and along with these priests in their finery, and with all the funeral pomp and candles and singing, he would be carried by those closest to him to the church of his choice. When the ferocity of the pestilence began to mount, for the most part people ceased with this custom and replaced it with a far different one. For not only did many people die without women surrounding them, most passed away from this life without anyone there to witness it at all; there were very few who departed amid the pious wailing and beloved tears of those close to them; far from this, most took up the custom of laughing and partying while their loved ones died; this latter usage, the women, who formerly had been so merciful and concerned with the health of the deceased one's soul, especially mastered. Also, it became rare for the body to be borne to the church accompanied by more than ten or twelve men, who were not noble and cherished citizens, but a kind of grave-digger fraternity made up of the least [lowest in status] men of the city (they demanded to be called sextons, and demanded high wages) who would bear them away; and these would bear the body quickly away, not to the church the dead man had asked for, but to the nearest one they could find, with four to six priests, maybe with a candle but sometimes not, in front; and with the help of these sextons, without fatiguing themselves with any long ceremony or rite, in any old tomb that they found unoccupied they'd dump the corpse.
As for the lesser people, who were for the most part middle class, they presented the most miserable spectacle: for these, who had no hope or who were seized with poverty, had to remain in the area, and fell ill by the thousands every day, and since they had no servants or any other kind of help, almost without exception all of them died. And many would meet their end in the public streets both day and night, and many others, who met their ends in their own houses, would first come to the attention of their neighbors because of the stench of their rotting corpses more than anything else; and with these and others all dying, there were corpses everywhere. And the neighbors always followed a particular routine, more out of fear of being corrupted by the corpse than out of charity for the deceased. These, either by themselves or with the help of others when available, would carry the corpse of the recently deceased from the house and leave it lying in the street outside where, especially in the morning, a countless number of corpses could be seen lying about. Funeral biers [carts or wheeled platforms] would come, and if there was a shortage of funeral biers, some other flat table or something or other would be used to place the corpses on. Nor did it infrequently happen that a single funeral bier would carry two or three people at the same time, but rather one frequently saw on a single bier a husband and a wife, two or three brothers, a father and a son, or some other relatives. And an infinite number of times it happened that two priests bearing a cross would be going to bury someone when three or four other biers, being born by bearers, would follow behind them; the priests would believe themselves to be heading for a single burial, and would find, when they arrived at the churchyard, that they had six or eight more burials following behind them. Nor were there ever tears or candles or any company honoring the dead; things had reached such a point, that people cared no more for the death of other people than they did for the death of a goat: for this thing, death, which even the wise never accept with patience, even though it occur rarely and relatively unobtrusively, had appeared manifestly to even the smallest intellects, but the catastrophe was so unimaginably great that nobody really cared. There was such a multitude of corpses that arrived at all churches every day and every hour, that sacred burial ground ran out, which was especially a problem if each person wanted their own plot in accordance with ancient custom. When the cemeteries were for the most part full, they excavated great pits in which they'd place hundreds of newly arrived corpses, and each corpse would be covered with a thin layer of dirt until the pit was filled.
And beyond all the particulars we suffered in the city, I will tell you not only about the ill times passing through the city, but also mention that the countryside was not spared these circumstances. For here, in the fortified towns, similar things occurred but on a lesser scale than in the city, through the small villages and through the camps of the miserable and poor laborers and their families, without any care from physicians or help from servants, and in the highways and the fields and their houses, day and night at whatever hour, not like humans but more like animals they died; and because of this, they came to neglect their customs, as did the people in the city, and had no concern for their belongings. Beyond all this, they began to behave as if every day were the day of their certain death, and they did no work to provide for their future needs by caring for their fields or their animals, but rather consumed everything they owned. Because of this, it happened that oxen, asses, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, and dogs, the most faithful human companions, were driven from the houses, and in the fields, where the crops had been abandoned, not even reaped let alone gathered, they would wander about at their pleasure; and many, as if they possessed human reason, after they had pastured all day long, would return satiated [full, satisfied] to their houses without any guidance from any shepherd.
Let us leave the countryside and return to the city; how much more can be said of the cruelty of heaven, and possibly, in part, that of humanity, which between March and July of that year, because of the ferocity of the pestilence and the fact that many of the sick were poorly cared for or abandoned in their hour of need by people frightened for their health, killed off one hundred thousand human creatures for certain within the walls of the city of Florence. Who, before this fatal calamity, would have thought there were so many within the city? Oh, how many grand palaces, how many beautiful homes, how many noble dwellings, filled with families, with lords and ladies, became completely emptied even of children! Oh, how many famous families, how many vast estates, how many renowned fortunes remained without any rightful successors! How many noble men, how many beautiful ladies, how many light-hearted youth, who were such that Galen, Hippocrates, or Asclepius would declare them the healthiest of all humans, had breakfast in the morning with their relatives, companions, or friends, and had dinner that evening in another world with their ancestors! As I think over these miseries, sorrow grows inside me . . .
I.e., the year 1348 CE.
The positions and movements of the planets and stars were believed to affect human health and affairs (thus the beliefs of astrology).
By “the Orient” Bocaccio means Asia Minor or Mesopotamia, where the plague did in fact hit, but in reality it originated much further east, in China.
Many cities saw huge processions of their entire populace, led in prayer by the city’s priests, in the hope that God would take pity on them.
These swellings are called “buboes”; hence the name “bubonic plague.”
This was blood congealed beneath the skin; hence the name “black death.”
The full text of Boccaccio’s Decameron, of which this is but the introduction, is comprised of tales told by a group of young people to pass the time while they are enclosed in a country villa, hoping to avoid catching the plague which has attacked their city.
“Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die.”
Hence the children’s song: “Ring around the rosies”—a pink circle around a large pink buboe on the skin was the first sign of infection—“Pocket full of posies”—posies of flowers to guard against the stench of the unburied dead—“Ashes, ashes”—from the Christian funeral rite’s phrase “ashes to ashes, dust to dust”—“We all fall down”—dead.
Medieval standards of modesty demanded that respectable women not expose any parts of their bodies (apart from face, neck, and hands) to any man not their husband. Because of the circumstances of the plague, of course, this was no longer possible to maintain. Boccaccio is suggesting that because of this, women who survived lost their moral standards and became promiscuous.
A sexton is a paid laborer who buries corpses; like most occupations in the Middle Ages, it was a profession and had its own guild , similar to a trade union. The fellows here, however, would be considered by Boccaccio's audience as "non-professional" opportunists.
Many cities were forced to resort to huge mass graves, simply because there were so many corpses and the bodies could not be buried fast enough before they started to rot.
These are the three great physicians of antiquity. Galen wrote several works on science including one on medicine; Hippocrates lived in ancient Greece and a number of medical writings, mostly written by his followers, were collected under his name; Asclepius is a legendary figure who cured death and was punished by Apollo for going too far with his medical knowledge. The standard medical textbook in Boccaccio's time was Galen's.
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