Theriac was considered a kind of wonder medicine, and an antidote for most poisons. It required over sixty ingredients, and it was one of the prime products of the many pharmacies in Venice in the 1600s and 1700s.

Due to issues with fraud — and the importance of the industry to the Venetian economy — the Magistrato alla Sanità obliged the spezier¹ and the pharmacists to display the ingredients for theriac in the street in front of the shop for several days each year.

Day labourers were hired to grind the ingredients into a fine powder, working in the open in front of the pharmacy.

This watercolour depicts such a worker, pounding the ingredients of theriac in a giant mortar.

Source: Gli abiti de veneziani di quasi ogni età con diligenza raccolti e dipinti nel secolo XVIII, by Giovanni Grevembroch (1731–1807), which in four volumes contains over six hundred watercolours of how Venetians dressed in the 1700s.

Labourers

The Theriaca of Andromachus the Elder,² taken from Galen,³ which has been manufactured for many years in Venice, acquired its beginnings of fame in the 17th century, through the work of Orazio Guargante da Sonzino, Doctor and Philosopher here, who had to describe it at the request of Monsignor Lodovico Taverna, Apostolic Nuncio to the Most Serene Republic, to whom its use was so profitable.

It is a universally held opinion that no better is made than that produced in this Dominant city, where, with noble displays and the intervention of Experts and Magistrates, it is composed, and among the Apothecaries, the one of the Ostrich on the Beretteri Bridge gained great renown, through the attention of Mr. Giorgio Melichio. The Sign of the Bell was also esteemed in this regard, due to the diligent care and skill of Lazaro Canale, and subsequently, his Disciples and Descendants always used the method they had learned.

For such a healthy composition, which boasts the first place among the Antidotes, no other Art is more appropriate than that of robust Porters, Men coming from Friuli, Bergamo, and Brescia, most faithful Subjects of the Most Serene Government, and accepted, so as to meet the needs of their poverty, assisted, with the useful work, to which they are accustomed; they don’t have other tax than that of paying twenty-four soldi every month to the House of the Arsenal, or that two days a month, in which they work for free; over one hundred and seventy, their set daily rate, and the same amount to the Treasury of the Office of Salt.

Therefore, for three days at certain times of the year, a group of labourers fervently crushing the precious Drugs with blows of very heavy Pestles, against the resistance of the Bronze Mortars,⁴ can be seen cheerfully lightening their fatigue, and singing in thanks of the corresponding pay.

Here is the Outfit used by them, which, if they change in the future, will serve as an example, according to the idea we wish to present.

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To Mr. Domenico Rota, of brilliant, though decrepit age, formerly Collector of the Duty of the Labourers at the Arsenale, we expose the strength of a Man, not unknown to Him.

Translator’s notes

1. A spezier (or speziale) was a merchant of herbs and spices for medicinal purposes, or a pharmacist. ↩︎
2. Andromachus the Elder was the physician of Roman emperor Nero during his reign in the first century, and supposedly the inventor of Theriac. ↩︎
3. Galen of Pergamon was a Greek and Roman physician in the second century, and one of the great authority figures of European medicine. ↩︎
4. One such mortar is on display in the Palazzo Mocenigo museum in Venice. ↩︎

Original text

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