Raphael killed by pneumonia aggravated by medical error

Nipped by pneumonia aggravated by a medical error: it may seem like a news story linked to Covid-19, and instead it is the latest reconstruction of the mysterious death of Raffaello Sanzio, elaborated 500 years later by the experts of the University of Milan- Bicocca. Their analysis, based on direct and indirect testimonies of the time, leads to excluding malaria, typhoid and syphilis as causes of death, going so far as to point the finger at the practice of bloodletting that would further weaken the Divine painter already tried by fever. The results are published in Internal and Emergency Medicine, the journal of the Italian Society of Internal Medicine (Simi).
    To find a solution to the mystery of Raphael's death, the researchers compared the information contained in Vasari's 'Lives' with testimonies of historical figures coeval with the painter and present in Rome at that time, such as that of Alfonso Paolucci, ambassador of the duke of Ferrara Alfonso I d'Este or some documents rediscovered in the nineteenth century by the art historian Giuseppe Campori. "The course of the disease combined with other symptoms would lead us to think of a form of pneumonia," explains Michele Augusto Riva, a researcher in the history of medicine of the University of Milan-Bicocca. "We cannot say it with certainty nor can we hypothesize whether it was of bacterial or viral origin like the current Covid-19, but among the various causes it is the one that most corresponds to what we are told: an acute but not immediate course, the lack of of loss of consciousness, absence of gastrointestinal symptoms and continuous fever ". To worsen the clinical picture there would also have been a medical error: the practice of bloodletting, absolutely not recommended in case of lung fever. "Vasari tells us that the painter hid from the doctors that he often went out on previous nights for love raids. Not knowing the patient's conduct and not being able to better understand the origin of the fever - Riva speculates - the doctors would have been wrong to insist on the bloodletting "