Main description (English)

Rome, 1656-1657. Three of the sons of Vincenzo Berlinsani, a doctor from Lucca, were in Rome working in the rioni of Campitelli, S. Eustachio and the Quirinale. Ludovico, also a doctor and future successor of Paolo Manfredi as chair of medicine at La Sapienza, was entrusted by the Congregazione di Santià with control of the rioni Colonna and S. Eustachio. Cosimo, a member of the Clerics of the Mother of God in the parish of S. Maria in Campitelli, contracted the plague while administering the sacraments to the dying and spent a brief period in the Lazaretto of S. Eusebio. Giovanni lived in the Ospedale dei Lucchesi, near the church of S. Croce, and exercised the profession of “nurse”, welcoming and helping fellow citizens who had remained in the city. The documentary sources in the State Archive of Lucca and in various archives in Rome (State Archives, Archives of the Clerics of the Mother of God, Archives of the Oblates of the Child Jesus, Vicariate Archives) allow us to reconstruct the lives of these three brothers, obtaining data on the community of Lucca in Rome during the plague and, more generally, to document the reactions of the population to the epidemic.