Medicina e religione: su alcuni contributi teratologici in Sicilia in età moderna

Abstract

The essay summarizes the parable of the affirmation of a teratological perspective in Sicily through some of its protagonists. What explanation do science and naturalists mature in the face of the disorienting epiphany of monstrous births? What lags and discontinuities are generated - in this path that is anything but linear and continuous - by a religious discourse that insists for a long time on the sacramental question and on the baptism of this unusual creatures? These are upheavals that make explicit the attempt by theology to still maintain an active dialogue with a medical discipline that in the modern age is gradually becoming the protagonist of an impetuous development.