Abella

Abella, often known as Abella of Salerno or Abella of Castellomata, was a physician in the mid fourteenth century. Abella studied and taught at the Salerno School of Medicine. Abella is believed to have been born around 1380, but the exact time of her birth and death is unclear. Abella lectured on standard medical practices, bile, and women's health and nature at the medical school in Salerno. Abella, along with Rebecca de Guarna, specialized in the area of embryology. She published two treatises: De atrabile (On Black Bile) and De natura seminis humani (on the Nature of the Seminal Fluid), neither of which survive today. In Salvatore De Renzi's nineteenth-century study of the Salerno School of Medicine, Abella is one of four women (along with Rebecca de Guarna, Mercuriade, and Constance Calenda) mentioned who were known to practice medicine, lecture on medicine, and wrote treatises. These attributes placed Abella into a group of women known as the Mulieres Salernitanae, or women of Salerno.

==Legacy== Abella is a featured figure on Judy Chicago's installation piece, The Dinner Party. Abella is represented as one of the nine hundred and ninety-nine names included in the Heritage Floor. The Heritage Floor is a supporting piece to Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party. It is meant to represent the number of women who struggled into prominence to essentially have their names erased and/or forgotten. She is one of the "ladies of Salerno" who attended and taught at the Salerno School of Medicine featured in the Heritage Floor, along with Rebecca de Guarna, Francesca of Salerno, and Mercuriade.