Innumerable Melancholies: Medicine, Mental Health, and Human Nature in Renaissance Italy, 1450-1650

Jessica Hogbin is a Ph.D. candidate in the History Department, where she studies the relationship between medicine, narratives around health, and politics in early modern Italy.

Her research considers melancholy, a now-defunct category from humoral theory, as a means of comprehending Renaissance thought around mental and physical well-being, along with conceptions of human nature and the wider natural world. Over the past two years, she has conducted research in Italy as a Fulbright fellow and with the support of the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation’s Venetian Research Program.

Through the combination of archival materials, such as court cases, Inquisition records, letters, avvisi, supplications, and necrologies, and early printed materials, such as medical treatises and travel accounts, her dissertation produces a more dynamic and rich comprehension of early modern perspectives on mental health and disability.

Through the combination of studying individual cases and conducting demographic analysis on large sets of medical data, her scholarship follows the complexity of early modern concerns around mental illness, which simultaneously demonized and glorified certain aspects of melancholia.

Jessica has been an active member of the History Department’s graduate community, having previously served as the History Graduate Student Organization’s president. She was a member of the History Department’s Future Professoriate Program for two years, and she earned a certificate of undergraduate teaching.

Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC) Multi-Country Research Fellowship (2024-2026)

Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC) Mary Ellen Lane Multi-Country Travel Grant (2024-2026)

Fulbright Fellowship for Italy (2024-2025)

Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation Venetian Research Program Fellowship (2024-2025)

Syracuse University Research Excellence (SURE) Dissertation Grant (2025-2026)

H.P. Kraus Fellowship, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University (2024-2025)

Barbara Rootenberg Short-term Research Fellowship in the History of Medicine and the Life Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles (2024)

Roscoe Martin Fund for Graduate Research, Syracuse University (2023-2024, 2022-2023)

Goekjian Center for European Studies Award, Syracuse University (2024, 2023)

Perryman Center for European Studies Research Grant, Syracuse University (2025)

“Review of Anastasia Stouraiti, War, Communication, and the Politics of Culture in Early Modern Venice,” Renaissance Quarterly 78, no. 1 (Spring 2025): 239–240.

“Recording Melancholic Deaths: Necrologies and Healthcare in Early Modern Venice and Padua,” Scientiae, Istanbul, September 19, 2025.

“Medicating the Mind: Pharmaceutical Cures for Melancholy in Renaissance Italy,” Renaissance Society of America 2025, Boston, March 22, 2025.

“Melancholic Monsters: Italian Physicians and Late Renaissance Medical Conceptions of Werewolves,” Fellows’ Talks, Science History Institute, Philadelphia, August 15, 2024.

“The Source of Fear, Genius, and Madness: Melancholy and Mental Health in Renaissance Italy,” Lecture, UCLA Library Special Collections, June 26, 2024.

“Coded Illnesses: Medical Practice and Political Manipulation of Melancholic Women in Early Modern Ciphered Letters,” American Association for the History of Medicine, Kansas City, May 11, 2024.

“Identifying a Melancholy Sultan: Physiognomy and Cross-Cultural Perception in the Late Renaissance,” Renaissance Society of America 2024, Chicago, March 22, 2024.

“Melancholy and Possession: A Case of Spiritual Poisoning in Sixteenth-Century Florence,” Lightning Talks, Global Premodern Studies Faculty Working Group, Syracuse University, December 1, 2023.

“‘Grande dolore e malinconia’: Melancholy and Medicine in Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron,” 2^nd Annual Romance Languages Colloquium, Syracuse University, November 3, 2023.

“Melancholy Kings: Loss, Mourning, and Politics Recorded in Renaissance Italy,” History Graduate Student Organization Research Exposition, Syracuse University, November 3, 2023.

“Death in Cortona: Debate on Proper Medical Care in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany,” 73^rd Annual Meeting of the New York State Association of European Historians, St. Francis College, October 14, 2023.

“Two Melancholy Habsburgs: Familial Loss and Loneliness in Seventeenth-Century Avvisi,” 5^th “Loneliness” International Interdisciplinary Conference, InMind Support, September 29, 2023.

“Sad, Sullen, Solitary, and Full of Black Choler: Reporting on Melancholic Moods and Illnesses within Tuscan Epistolary Networks, 1532-1650,” Early Modern Connected Histories Workshop, Syracuse University, April 21, 2023.

“Paying for Care, Participating in Politics: Women and Hospital Donations in 16th Century Rome,” 14th Annual Graduate Conference of the Department of History, Syracuse University, March 24, 2023.

“Innumerable Melancholies: Italian Physicians and Late Medieval Care for the Body and Mind,” 22nd Vagantes Conference on Medieval Studies, Harvard University, March 16, 2023.

Hotchkiss Scholar, Syracuse University

Honorable Mention for Shryock Medal Essay Contest for “Deadly Remedies: Medical Malpractice and Law in Seventeenth-century Tuscany”

Barbara J. Blaszak Prize, New York State Association of European Historians