Organizers: Carmel Ferragud (IILP-UV) and Juan Vicente García Marsilla (Department of Medieval History and Historiographical Sciences and Techniques, Faculty of Geography and History, UV)
April 29, 2026. Faculty of Geography and History, Room F3.5.
ZOOM: https://uv-es.zoom.us/j/95521842729
10.00 a.m. Antonio Conejo da Pena: “Salut i atenció sanitària a l'antiga Roma”.
In ancient Rome, the deity of Health was actually a kind of allegory with an ambivalent meaning: on the one hand, it was supposed to have attributes that allowed it to placate an epidemic or disease, and on the other, it had political connotations linked to community salvation and well-being. In the case of suffering from an illness, in the pagan world it was customary to resort to the miraculous healings of divinities such as Asclepius or Hygiea, but often there was no other choice than to request the services of a doctor who was the one who had the knowledge, or the ability, to cure someone. In this regard, the valetudinaria, a kind of field hospitals where wounded soldiers were cared for on the battlefield, were also of great relevance. Likewise, the Romans, and before that the Greeks, established the obligation to offer help or hospitality to any foreigner who asked for help —whether sick or not—, first in private homes, and over time, in buildings designed strictly for this purpose, the so-called xenodocheia or hostels for foreigners. With the triumph of Christianity, on the threshold of the fourth and fifth centuries, the institutions aimed at caring for the needy, the most vulnerable groups, the disabled and, logically, the sick multiplied, who would end up referring to hospitals that had already taken root in the medieval centuries.
10.45 a.m. Questions and discussion.
11.00 a.m. Andrea Martí Serrano: “Les dones i l’assistència als hospitals baixmedievals valencians (ss. XIV-XV)”.
In recent decades, several researchers dedicated to the history of hospitals in the Middle Ages have highlighted the need to highlight the presence of a plural healthcare practice in these institutions. Through this paper we propose to make a study of the multiplicity of curative pathways available in medieval hospitals through the rich documentation preserved in late medieval Valencian hospital institutions. The account books allow us to go into detail about the measures and mechanisms used in Valencian hospitals in the care of their inmates, which could range from the charcoal that was used to combat bed bug pests to the cultivation of medicinal plants that purified the environment, but which could also be used within the distillation processes or the preparation of remedies that were made within these centers. Both in its production and in its supply, the figure of women constituted a fundamental element, not only as internal workers, but also within the staff hired intermittently. Thus, the Valencian hospital institutions provide us with a very rich case study, which allows us to observe in more detail the particularities of the plurality of care that took place in them and the diversity of actors and actresses who intervened in it.
11.45 a.m. Questions and discussion.
May 6, 2026. López Piñero Interuniversity Institute (Palau de Cerveró), Assembly hall.
ZOOM: https://uv-es.zoom.us/j/93952220744
10:00 Maríaluz López Terrada: “Un espai renaixentista per a l’assistència pública: l’Hospital General de València”.
In this presentation, the General Hospital of Valencia during modernity will be analysed as a case study, understood from an open concept of culture and not reduced to a discourse of social construction, that is, as an institution where charity, assistance and politics exist. This hospital, like others during this period, must be seen as just another health resource, depending on the economic possibilities of the patient, but at the same time forming part of the complex healthcare panorama of the Modern Age, where the use of central figures such as the doctor, surgeon, healer or healer developed in a very different scenario. It should be borne in mind that in the period in question, a profound transformation of the hospital institutions that emerged during the Middle Ages took place throughout Europe. In general, there was a tendency towards the disappearance of small medieval institutions and the appearance of large centres where "general" assistance was provided. This evolution occurred as a result of the changes that arose throughout the West, including the emergence of the new monarchies, the growth of the population and the consequent increase in the number of poor, the processes of Reform and Counter-Reformation, which in turn influenced the existence of different models of hospital care, changes in medicine and treatment called morbo gallico) and the remission of others (such as leprosy).
10.45 a.m. Questions and discussion.
11.00 a.m. Josep M. Comelles: : “L’hospital contemporani i la identitat de la res publica local en la transició entre l’acollida i la terapèutica”.
Between the nineteenth century and the twenty-first century, the hospital system in the West has undergone a mutation from its cultural significance, between reception and diagnosis-therapy and its effects on the hospital. The presentation will revolve around these transitions based on examples mainly related to the Catalan and Valencian cases but also with comparative elements.
11.45 a.m. Questions and discussion.
Speakers:
Antoni Conejo da Pena is Associate Professor of Art History and Academic Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Geography and History (UB). His research has focused mainly on the historical, social and architectural study of medieval hospitals and the early modern period, the result of which he has published many publications. In this sense, since 2012 it has coordinated "Els Abrils de l'Hospital", an international scientific meeting promoted by the IRCVM to discuss and publicize new research on care spaces and practices during medieval and modern times. He is also the author of multiple publications on Gothic painting, sculpture and especially architecture in Catalonia and Sicily. Finally, he has collaborated in the drafting of technical reports for buildings such as the Cathedral of Palma de Mallorca, the Seu Vella in Lleida, the Cathedral of Tarragona, the Coll de Balaguer Hospital (Hospitalet de l'Infant), the Palace of the Generalitat and the old Hospital of the Holy Cross in Barcelona.
Andrea Martí Serrano has a degree in History from the University of Valencia, where she later completed a master's degree in Cultural Heritage and a master's degree in History of Formation in the Western World. She has worked as a research technician in the Department of Medieval History and the Department of History of Science and Documentation, thanks to a contract from the INVESTIGO program (2023-2024). Currently, she is a doctoral student in the doctoral program in Historical and Social Studies on Science, Medicine and Scientific Communication and a member of the research projects Sciència.cat and Hospitalibus.
Josep M. Comelles (Barcelona 1949), is M.D.; M.A. (Philosophy and Letters); Ph.D (Medicine), Ph.D (Anthropology). Specialist in Psychiatry (Autonomous University of Barcelona). Professor of Social Anthropology at the Rovira i Virgili University (URV, Tarragona) since 2003, currently emeritus and distinguished professor. Founder of the Master's Degree in Medical Anthropology and International Health and the Doctorate in Medical Anthropology at the URV. Member of the Medical Anthropology Research Center of the URV. He has published about twenty books and two hundred book chapters and articles in his fields of specialization: medical anthropology, the history of science, anthropology, medicine and psychiatry, mainly, and visual ethnography and documentalism, which he has been developing for a decade.
Marialuz López Terrada (Valencia, 1960), studied Geography and History at the University of Valencia, where in 1986 she obtained her doctorate in History with the thesis El Hospital de Valencia en el sjglo XVI (1512-1600). From 1990 to 2015 she was a CSIC scientific researcher at the López Piñero Institute for the History of Medicine and Science (UV-CSIC), of which she was director for two years. He currently works at INGENIO, a joint research institute of the Polytechnic University of Valencia and the CSIC. His work focuses on the social and cultural history of science in the Modern Age in three main lines. Firstly, to the historical study of medical cultures in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, specifically in the field of the Hispanic Monarchy. She has published several studies on the history of hospitals, the control of medical practice, preferably in the Valencian area, and healthcare resources and the presence of extracurricular forms of medicine in the society of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with special emphasis on the role of women as health agents in modern modernity. Also, as an approach to the medical cultures of the past, he has published different works on the representation of medicine in literature, particularly in the Spanish theater of the Golden Age. The second line of interest is natural history in relation to the discovery of America and the study of the process of introduction of American plants to Europe, in particular the tomato. Finally, he has worked on the creation of bibliographic catalogues and the edition of historical-medical sources.
