Girolamo Mercuriale

Girolamo Mercuriale, also written Mercuriali and known in Latin as Hieronymus Mercurialis, was an Italian philologist and physician of the sixteenth century. He was born in Forlì, the son of a doctor, studied at Bologna, Padua and Venice and received his doctorate in 1555. In Rome he gained free use of the Vatican Library and studied what Greek and Roman writers said about diet, exercise and hygiene. This led to his De Arte Gymnastica, published in Venice in 1569, which explains the principles of physical therapy and is regarded as the first book on sports medicine. The illustrations of its second edition of 1573 were largely speculative reconstructions of ancient athletics.