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Abstract: Medicine in Rome between the seventeenth and eighteenth century: a possible interpretation     Roman medicine (and in general Roman scientific culture) has not been the subject of particular attention because of a well-established image of the papal city as a stronghold of conservatism. At closer examination however, the city’s particular institutional, political and social characteristics reveal an equal measure of dynamism, at least in the Modern Age and by comparison with the situation of other cities; Roman medicine is therefore a particularly complex situation as the traditional municipal social balance is rendered fragile by very nature of the city of Rome, the universal capital. The article offers an overall view of these factors and focuses on a crucial moment for the evolution of medical knowledge, the decades between 1670 and 1700. The lively debate that developed during that period among the various medical institutions (university, academic, hospitals) was interwoven with social phenomena and curial politics and determined a profound revision of the scientific paradigm.