[ETHICS IN PSYCHIATRY: FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE RENAISSANCE]

Ethical issues always played an important role in the historical development in psychiatry. As wll known, many ancient cultures associated mental illness with gods and divine punishments. In the first centuries of the Christian Era, mental illness is often interpreted according to demonological views and in connection with theological conceptions of sin. The article briefly examines the history of mental illness medical and cultural interpretations, focusing on medieval medicine and the treatment of psychiatric patients from Antiquity to the Early modern Period.