The theme of the book is the Hellenistic epistolary novel which describes a fictional meeting between Democritus and Hippocrates. The author traces the later history of this story as part of the legend of the laughing philosopher on the one hand and of the history of melancholy on the other and demonstrates the interdependence of all three traditions in text editions, translations, paraphrases, commentaries, verse and painting from ancient times through to the Renaissance. He shows how the Stoic-Cynical tradition of 'Philosophus ridens' and the medical concept of 'Typus melancholicus sanguinicus' come to amalgamate into the early modern Humanist literary and iconographical tradition of 'Democritus ridens melancholicus'. In so doing the author also shows the importance of this tradition to the subsequent interpretation of the epistolary novel and its influence on modern research into the Hippocratic corpus and melancholy.
The work links important themes in the fields of ancient philosophy, ancient medicine, art history and Renaissance studies and will offer thought-provoking material to many of those working in these areas.