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Published on: March 28, 2025
A Case of Sudden Death in Decameron IV.6: Aortic Dissection or Atrial Myxoma?
Fabrizio Toscano1, Giovanni Spani1, Michael Papio1
1From the University of Siena, Post-Graduate School of Public Health, Siena, Italy (F.T.); College of the Holy Cross, Modern Languages and Literatures, Worcester, MA (G.S.); University of Massachusetts Amherst, Languages Literatures and Cultures, Amherst (M.P.); and University of Zurich, Institute of Evolutionary Medicine, Winterthurerstrasse, Zurich, Switzerland (F.J.R., F.M.G.).
Abstract:
Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron contains a novella that details the sudden death of a young man called Gabriotto, including a portrayal of the discomfort that the protagonist experienced and a rudimentary autopsy performed by local physicians. The intriguing description of symptoms and pathologies has made it possible to read a 7-century-old case through the modern clinical lens. Thanks to the medical and philological analysis of the text-despite the vast difference between modern and medieval medicine-2 hypothetical diagnoses have emerged: either an aortic dissection or an atrial myxoma.
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