16th century nose job

There were many ways to lose your nose in the 16th century.

The village bully insults your honor. Flash of knives. The nub of your nose falls to the ground.

A road trip to Venice for an evening with a courtesan. Years later, an angry, syphilitic ulcer rots your nose to the bone.

So you travel to Tropea, Callabria to meet the surgeons Pieto and Paulo Vianeo. They run a thriving practice in surgical nose repair, based on methods from 6th century Hindu physicians.

After copious sedation with wine and opium, they slice the skin between your elbow and shoulder then separate it from muscle with pincers.

Hopefully you faint from pain as they pull your arm to your face and stitch the skin from your arm to your nose.

Then, for 40 days, you lie in bed, arm fixed next to nose by a brace as the skin forms a graft. Plenty of time to reflect on if the defense of your honor or evening with the courtesan were really worth the effort.

For more information on the life of a physican in the 16th century, see the source for this post: “The Professor of Secret: Mystery, Medicine and Alchemy in Rennaisance Italy” By William Eamon. Which I read while researching for “Hand of the Ghost”, my current work in progress. The novel features a young, jewish physician from the Venetian ghetto, year of 1630