In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, physicians treated love not as a metaphor, but as a pathological condition of the "estimative faculty".
: Medieval medical texts, such as those by Avicenna, suggested the brain was "misled" into believing one specific person was more noble and desirable than all others, causing the spirit to "wander through emptiness".
: Boccaccio specifically dedicated this work to women suffering from the "melancholy" of love, noting that they often suffered more than men because they were confined to their homes without the distractions of business or travel.
In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, physicians treated love not as a metaphor, but as a pathological condition of the "estimative faculty".
: Medieval medical texts, such as those by Avicenna, suggested the brain was "misled" into believing one specific person was more noble and desirable than all others, causing the spirit to "wander through emptiness". Malattia d'amore
: Boccaccio specifically dedicated this work to women suffering from the "melancholy" of love, noting that they often suffered more than men because they were confined to their homes without the distractions of business or travel. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, physicians treated