Cesare Adelmare


Cesare Adelmare was a physician to Queens Mary I and Elizabeth I of Italian origin. He was also known by various other spellings, his first name often Anglicized to Caesar, and his surname given forms such as Dalmariis, Dalmare, and Adelmari.

Life

Cesare Adelmare, having graduated in arts and medicine at the University of Padua, migrated to England, apparently about 1550, and began practice in London as a physician. He was elected fellow 27 April 1554, and in the following year censor of the College of Physicians, and was appointed medical adviser to Queen Mary, from whom he obtained letters of naturalisation with immunity from taxation in 1558, and from whom he on one occasion received the enormous fee of £100 for a single attendance. Elizabeth also consulted him and requited his services by sundry leases of church lands at rents somewhat below their actual value. In 1561 he fixed his residence in Bishopsgate, having purchased a house which had formed part of the dissolved Priory of St. Helen's. There he died in 1569, and was buried at the church of Great St. Helens.

Family

His father was Pietro Maria Adelmare, a citizen of Treviso, near Venice. This Pietro Maria Adelmare, who had some reputation as a lawyer, married Paola, daughter of Giovanni Pietro Cesarini.
His wife was Margaret Perient or Perrin. The name of Caesar, by which the doctor was usually addressed by Mary and Elizabeth, was adopted by his children as a surname.
Shortly after his death his widow married Michael Lok.