[Sebastiano Dall'Aquila (c. 1440-c. 1510) and the "disputation of Ferrara" concerning syphilis (1497)].

This article aims to better illuminate the professional activities and intellectual personality of the Italian physician Sebastiano dall'Aquila Sebastianus Aquilanus (c.1440-c.1510) by assembling and reinterpreting several references to him from a number of both printed and manuscript sources that have had limited circulation among historians of medicine. The results of the inquiry are presented. In the first part the major features of his biography are outlined. The second one deals with his participation in the so-called "disputation of Ferrara", a notorious medical debate on the "French disease" (morbus gallicus) that took place in this northern Italian city in 1497, the details of which are described in greater detail. As a result, both the "Ferrara debate" and the figure of Sebastiano dall'Aquila attain a rather different historical significance.