ABSTRACT
The Renaissance (the ‘rebirth’ of Antiquity) emerged as triumph over the darkness of the Middle Ages. It began in the fifteenth century in Italy and spread throughout Europe; we associate it with the beginnings of modern science and modern medicine. Crucial new insights were gained in the areas of anatomy and neurology, and although ventricle theory, for instance, remained highly influential for a while longer, the foundations for its demise were laid. The period from the Renaissance to the seventeenth century yields, for the first time, more detailed descriptions of aphasia and, in the eighteenth century, Gesner developed the first ‘theory’ of aphasia from his observations of people with aphasia.
