ce the declaration of any secondary writer on
history. This is particularly true of the medieval period. We must go
back to the writers of those times.

If it seems surprising that the University of Bologna should have come
into such great prominence as an institute for higher education at this
time, it would be well to recall some of the great work that is being
done in this part of Italy in other departments at this time. Cimabue
laid the foundation of modern art towards the end of the thirteenth
century, and during Mondino's life Giotto, his pupil, raised an artistic
structure that is the admiration of all generations of artists since.
Dante's years are almost exactly contemporary with those of Giotto and
of Mondino. If men were doing such wondrous work in literature and in
art, why should not the same generation produce a man who will
accomplish for the practical science of medicine what his friends and
contemporaries had done in other great intellectual departments.

In recent years we have come to think much more of environment as an
influence in human development and accomplishment than was the custom
sometime ago. The broader general environment in Italy, with genius at
work in other departments, was certainly enough to arouse in younger
minds all their powers of original work. The narrower environment at
Bologna itself was quite as stimulating, for a great clinical teacher,
Taddeo Alderotti, had come, in 1260, from Florence to Bologna, to take
up there the practice and teaching of medicine. It was under him that
Mondino was to be trained for his life work.

To understand the place of Mondino, and of the medical school of
Bologna, in his time, and the reputation that came to them as world
teachers of medicine, we must know, first, this great teacher of Mondino
and the atmosphere of progressive medicine that enveloped the university
in the latter half of the thirteenth century. In the chapter on "Great
Surgeons of the Medieval Universities" we call particular attention to
the series of distinguished men, the first four of whom were educated at
Salerno, and who came to Bologna to teach surgery. They were doing the
best surgery in the world, much better than was done in many centuries
after their time; indeed, probably better than at any period down to our
own day. Besides, they seem to have been magnetic teachers who attracted
and inspired pupils. We have the surgical contributions of a series of
men, written at