Francesco Romani 1785 - 1854

Francesco Romani 1785 - 1854 was an Italian orthodox physician who had been converted to homeopathy by Georg von Necker.

In 1823, Francesco Romani became Georg von Necker’s assistant in Naples, alongside Franz Xaver Kinzel, Giuseppe Mauro and Cosmo Maria De Horatiis.

Francesco Romani was the physician of Queen Maria Amalie and the the homeopathic physician of Queen Dowager of Naples who was the wife of Joseph Bonaparte, and Philip Andrew Doria Pamphili Landi who was the son in law of John Talbot 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, and he corresponded with Samuel Hahnemann who sent him a preparation of Thuja.

Francesco Romani converted Comte Sebastien Gaeten Salvador Maxime Des Guidi to homeopathy by curing his wife.

1827, two Italian homeopathic doctors, Francesco Romani and Roberta, had been employed two years previously by John Talbot 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, but they had quickly returned to Naples as they could not tolerate the damp English climate.

However, Francesco Romani’s cures caused a sensation in London, where Queen Adelaide heard about them and immediately consulted John Ernst Stapf. Queen Adelaide’s subsequent cure pitchforked homeopathy into the limelight and into the Aristocracy.

Romani was Vice Director of The Clinique alongside Cosmo Maria De Horatiis, and Editor of Effemeridi di Medicina Omiopatica alongside Rocco, Pezzillo and Giuseppe Mauro, and Cosmo Maria De Horatiis.

Francesco Romani, who lately died in Naples, was born in the year 1785, in Vasto. After finishing his mathematical, philosophic and literary studies he was at an early age engaged in a school there; but he soon turned to medicine, and went to Naples to study it; them he also began to practice, and soon became so famous that Queen Maria Amalia appointed him her court physician.

With the Austrian troops who occupied the country in 1822, owing to a revolution, there also came a homeopathic physician to Naples, Georg von Necker, who soon drew attention to himself, owing to his brilliant cures.

Romani, who at that time was himself failing, determined, not only to become acquainted with the new physician and the new method, but to prove the same on himself, and, therefore, gave himself into the hands of Georg von Necker for treatment.

The favorable effects experienced from the homoeopathic pellets, both on himself and on others, deter mined him to devote himself with all zeal to the study of Homeopathy, and also to use it exclusively in his practice.

And soon he succeeded, through his brilliant cures, to contribute much to the spread of Homoeopathy, for which he also labored by writing several treatises and by translating Samuel Hahnemann’s Materia Medica Pura into Italian.

Romani was the first physician to introduce the new doctrine into Italy, and has done it good service.

Romani is also known as a belletristic author and poet, and his elegies on the Princess Borghese and on Samuel Hahnemann are considered models is to style and as to depth of feeling.

Kindly, sympathetic, self sacrificing and faithful, Romani was a real father to his patients, and his death, therefore, evoked the deepest and most painful sympathy in all circles.

Homeopathy has suffered all irreparable loss. Francesco Romani in Naples, who first made Homeopathy known in Italy, and who spread it abroad through his writings, his cures and his fame, has died…

The results effected by the little pellets on himself made such a powerful effect upon him that he devoted himself to the study of the new doctrine, and when he lead fully mastered it he spread it in Italy, as well as in England, through the cure of Lady Shrewsbury, through several homeopathic publications and through the translation of  Samuel Hahnemann’s Materia Medica Pura.

Kindly, beneficent, and loving, he treated his patients as an unselfish, faithful friend, with a fatherly affection, and where he could not stay their death their decease often filled his eyes with tears. The news of his death cast a gloom over the whole city and its surroundings, and a great number of friends and admirers attended him to his resting place.

At his grave a celebrated scholar delivered a funeral oration from which we excerpt the following:

“Romani devoted himself from his early youth to the study of medicine, and seized upon its spirit in all of its departments. It was not a readiness to change, nor ignorance, nor unacquaintance with the older sources of learning which caused him to introduce among us the German doctrine, Homeopathy; it was nothing but his deep conviction of its undeniable truth.

Therefore, he believed himself called to proclaim it with intrepidity. If he had followed the broad road, riches and preferments would have been heaped upon him, but he chose the contempt of others and small income by order to be of use to mankind.

He sought not to conquer by boldness, nor to yield ignobly and to intrigue, but he labored with the dignity of a wise man, through persuasion, admonishments and by refusing all deceitful sycophancy… .

And the whole city, even down to the lowest strata of its inhabitants, can testify to him, that his behavior never was that of a charlatan, who addresses himself to what is base in man, but the noble action of a man whose soul burns with the pure flame of truth and shrinks back from all dark ways.” (From the Journal de la société Gallicane, by Simon Felix Camille Croserio)_ A. H. Z. vol. 47, p. 64 ; Z. F. Hom. Klinik vol. 3 p. 24. _ He visited England in the fall of 1830 in the train of John Talbot 16th Earl of Shrewsbury. Francesco Taglianini was in the same suite. They both returned to Italy the following year.

The editor of The British Journal of Homeopathy for January 1854, says :

Homeopathy in Italy has experienced a great loss by the recent decease of this distinguished homeopathic physician.

Francesco Romani was born at Vasto Chieti in 1785, where he made his preliminary studies in literature, mathematics and philosophy. He studied medicine and took his degree at Naples, and rapidly acquired so great a reputation that he gained the confidence of the queen, who appointed him her physician in ordinary.

In 1821 the Austrians invaded the Neapolitan dominions ; attached to the invading army was a homeopathic practitioner, Georg von Necker, who excited a great deal of attention among the Neapolitans, by his remarkable cures, during his stay in the city.

Dr. Romani was at the time suffering from a very painful disease, and, attracted by the fame of the homeopathist be put himself under his care, and was rapidly cured by him.

This determined him to study Homeopathy, which he did with great earnestness and zeal; he soon became proficient in the art and practiced it with great success at Naples.

The late John Talbot 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, whose (daughter) he had cured of a severe disease, induced him to accompany him to England in 1827.

At John Talbot 16th Earl of Shrewsbury’s noble Seat in Alton Towers, a regular homeopathic dispensary was formed, under the medical care of Romani. The climate did not agree with him and after a short residence in England, where he was the first open practitioner of Homeopathy, he returned to his Bella Napoli and continued to the last to endear himself to his patients by his skill and kindliness of disposition.

He published several original works on Homeopathy and translated Samuel Hahnemann’s _Materia Medica Pura_ into Italian. His funeral was attended by an immense concourse of friends and patients by whom he will be much missed.

Dr. Romani, in 1825, edited a translation into Italian of the Materia Medica Pura, and later published some original works.

In 1828 he converted to Homeopathy Comte Sebastien Gaeten Salvador Maxime Des Guidi, who afterwards held a very important position in the homeopathic school. In 1829 Dr. Romani conducted for 155 days the homeopathic clinic opened, by order of the king, in the larger hospital of the Trinity at Naples.

He was one of the contributors to Samuel Hahnemann’s Fiftieth Doctor Jubilee in 1829. His name is on the Zeitung and Frederick Hervey Foster Quin lists.

(British Journal of Homeopathy, vol. 12, p. 167, vol. 14, p. 102) Kleinert, p.339. _Pierre Augustus Rapou, vol. 1, page 120. World’s Conven., vol. 2, p. 1068. Allg. hom. Zeit.., vol. 47, 64. Zeit. F. hom. Klinik, vol. 3, p. 24_)

Romani translated Samuel Hahnemann’s Materia Medica Pura__ into Italian, and a Treatise on Cholera.