Hippocrates

Profile

Dante places Hippocrates in Limbo, among the great spirits who dwell in the castle of the ancient sages. In Canto IV of the Inferno (v. 143), the poet names him alongside Avicenna and Galen, within a tercet that brings together scientists, mathematicians, and physicians of antiquity and of the Arab world, together with Euclid and Ptolemy. The notes to the canto identify Hippocrates as the most celebrated ancient physician, who lived in the 4th century BC, a native of the island of Cos, whose Aphorisms were widely studied in medieval schools and are also recalled in Paradise (XI 4). The name also returns indirectly in Canto XXIX, where the physician St. Luke is described as a follower of Hippocrates, a sign of the enduring authority of the Greek physician in Dante's culture.