Salvatore De Renzi

Salvatore De Renzi was born in Paternopoli, province of Avellino, on 19 January 1800 and was raised by his parents, Donato and Maria Rosaria del Grosso.

In January 1821, while still an undergraduate, De Renzi won a contest for the office of "Ufficiale Sanitario di Terra", an official responsible for the communal health board of Naples, charged with hygiene and prophylaxis vigilance, serving as a medical assistant for Guglielmo Pepe, a protagonist of the 1820–1821 Neapolitan revolution.

Whilst dealing with disappointment and bitterness of these failures, he began his professional career at the Hospital of San Giuseppe and Santa Lucia, where he was appointed as "Instructor of the blind" in 1824.

His activity was not limited to the Kingdom of Naples: he also deserves credit for introducing the practice of vaccination to the Papal States, which would receive official recognition in 1842, when he was awarded a gold medal by Pope Gregory XVI himself.

These influences undeniably give his Storia della medicina in Italia a distinctly political approach: de Renzi had a consistent motivational role during the Springtime of the Peoples in 1848: one of the purposes of his magnum opus was to highlight the professional distinction of Italian physicians, in order to fuel proud revolutionary uprisings which would then lead to the unification of Italy.

De Renzi's great work as a scholar was finally acknowledged when, with the unification of Italy, a new contest for the professorship in History of Medicine of the University of Naples was organized.

The temper which had characterized him throughout his vast researches and his tireless editorial activity was severely undermined: the last years of his life were afflicted by recurring cardiovascular incidents.