d. 1348

Italian physician and medical lecturer who was a pioneer in the study of hygiene. An instructor at the University of Perugia after it was established in 1308, Foligno wrote a commentary on the Canon of Ibn Sina (Avicenna; 980-1037). He also wrote an important treatise on hygiene in 1332, and in 1348 presented an essay on the Black Death then striking the city of Perugia—a plague that would take Foligno's own life. Few of his prophylactic suggestions or remedies resemble modern science: among his ideas was that the planets had caused the Plague, and that the drinking of potable gold would cure it.