Mattei, Cesare

Count Cesare Mattei (11 January 1809 - 3 April 1896) was an Italian nobleman, politician, writer and self-taught medical practitioner. He is best known as the founder of electrohomeopathy, a 19th-century alternative medical system that combined homeopathy, herbal preparations, alchemical language and claims concerning bodily or vegetal electricity. Born in Bologna into a wealthy family of Ferrarese origin, Mattei was among the founders of the Cassa di Risparmio di Bologna in 1837 and briefly took part in the political life of the Papal States during the revolutionary period of 1848. In 1847 he and his brother Giuseppe received the hereditary title of count from Pope Pius IX after donating family holdings near Comacchio to the Papal States. After withdrawing from politics, he acquired the ruins of the medieval Rocca di Savignano and began building Rocchetta Mattei, the eclectic castle in the Bolognese Apennines where he later lived and promoted his medical system. Mattei's remedies attracted considerable popular attention in Italy and abroad, but they were strongly criticised by physicians and by homeopaths, particularly because the alleged electrical properties of his preparations could not be demonstrated. Historical and medical sources treat electrohomeopathy as an unvalidated or pseudoscientific medical system rather than a scientifically established therapy.