The case of a physician and surgeon of the hospital of St. John Lateran, all the more grisly for being reported in the unemotional monotone of John Burchard, master of ceremonies of the papal court, whose daily record is the indispensable source, reveals Renaissance life in Rome. He “left the hospital every day early in the morning in a short tunic and with a cross bow and shot everyone who crossed his path and pocketed his money.” He collaborated with the hospital’s confessor, who named to him the patients who confessed to having money, whereat the physician gave these patients “an effective
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