Camilla Erculiani

Camilla Erculiani, also known as Camilla Herculiana, was an Italian apothecary, writer, natural philosopher and women's advocate of the early modern period who died after 1584. She lived in Padua, the daughter of a spice merchant, and worked beside her two husbands, both apothecaries, in the Tre Stelle shop. She called herself a speziala, a female spicer, though she was not a listed member of the apothecaries guild, and she said her knowledge came from experience and not from any university, while citing Galen and Aristotle in her writing. Her book of letter essays on science and natural philosophy, the Lettere di philosophia naturale of 1584, put forward unconventional theories that led the Roman Inquisition to try her on suspicion of heresy for blurring the boundary between natural philosophy and theology. The trial records are lost, and it is speculated that she was pardoned.