In tenebris adhuc versantes. the response of Spanish novatores to the invective by Pierre Régis

Pierre Régis, a French Calvinist physician exiled in Holland, made a disparaging mention to the Spaniards and the Portuguese in his foreword to M. Malpighi's Opera Posthuma (Amsterdam, 1698). Several Spanish physicians, especially Diego Mateo Zapata, replied to Régis's invective in an attempt to win support from the new Borbonic dynasty for the scientific renovation movement started in the last decades of the seventeenth century. Two major institutions were involved in the replies: the Royal Society of Medicine and other sciences of Seville, and the Anatomical Theatre of the General Hospital of Madrid, both created during the reign of Charles II of Austria. The self-perception of the Spanish medical novatores and their awareness of the backwardness of Spanish science with regard to Europe are analyzed.