Il riso e la medicina dei temperamenti nella "Gelotoscopia" di Prospero Aldorisio

Since his youth Prospero Aldorisio had shown an ardent desire for knowledge that drove him to delve into a broad variety of disciplines, which included graphology. This corpus of teachings became vital in early modernity due to the debate over heliocentrism, but also on account of its intersection with the occult arts. This paper presents the main aspects of "Gelotoscopia", one of the three published works of the Neapolitan philosopher focusing on laughter and the four temperaments in late Renaissance medicine, which has been generally overlooked in historiography.