When, in 1494, the French under Charles VIII invaded Italy, war was just as horrible as it is now, even though the forces of destruction were relatively minuscule. Alessandro Benedetti, a physician of Verona, gives us an eyewitness account of much of this campaign. Although the book is not written primarily from the medical standpoint, it exemplifies a physician's eye for detail and provides abundant descriptions of medical facets.
The book, primarily a historical document, serves a dual function. For scholars who work in Renaissance history it provides a carefully edited Latin text of an important document, with superb notes in the fine scholarly tradition that we expect from Dr. Schullian. The Latin text and the English translation are on facing pages. The translation is excellently done, idiomatic, highly readable, and yet splendidly faithful to the original. A long bibliography is of inestimable value.
For those who are not primarily