Arnaldus de Villa Nova and his ideological “cliché” as a physician, theologian and alchemist. On the question of the image in Russian-language biographies and the history of medicine

Abstract

In Russian historiography, the biography of Arnaldus de Villa Nova begins with the words “doctor and alchemist”, and then all the arguments go into myth-making, although Arnald’s writings are very well studied at the modern scientific level, but are inaccessible to reading due to the language barrier. An accurate understanding of the biography of Arnaldus de Villa Nova is important for researchers of the history of medicine, Medieval historians and historians of Church history, since the activity of this man influenced significant events of the late XIII — early XIV centuries, and he is known to the Russian-speaking environment only by the verses attributed to him.