The Art of Anatomy

Activities

Activity 1

Compare these five pictures of anatomical operations in illustrations from Renaissance printed books. What is similar? What is different?

Think about illustration. It is not like a photograph which captures everything that is in front of the lens. The artist deliberately includes each aspect of the drawing.

Look at the content of each picture:

• Who are the people in the pictures?
• What are they doing?
• Where are the scenes taking place?
• What sort of objects can you see in the pictures?

Think about the context of each picture:

• What kind of book does each one come from?
• When was it published?
• Where is it placed in the book?

Use the questions under each picture to help you pick out some important aspects.

Try to explain your comparisons using your knowledge of Medieval and Renaissance medicine.

Source 1: This detail showing a medical lecture comes from the title page of Avicenna's book The Canon of Medicine. Avicenna was a Persian scientist and doctor who was born in 980AD. He followed the principles of the Ancient Greeks and especially those of Galen. His book covers the whole of medical science, including the theory of the elements, humours and temperaments, anatomy, simple and compound drugs, and a head to toe classification of specific diseases. This edition was published in Venice, Italy in 1544. Click on the picture to see the whole title page.

Look at the circular panels on either side of the main panel.

• What are the people in these pictures doing?

Now look at the medical lecture in the main panel.

• Which man is the professor giving the lecture?
• Where is he in relation to the other people and the corpse?
• Who is the man with the knife standing next to the dissecting table?

Source 2: This is the frontispiece of Vesalius' book On the Fabric of the Human Body, published in Basel, Switzerland in 1555. It is an exaggerated representation of one of Vesalius' public dissections.Click on the image to take a closer look.

• Who is the lecturer?
• Who is performing the dissection?
• Did the skeleton really attend the lecture? What does it stand for?

Compare this dissection to the one in The Canon of Medicine.

• What do you notice about the people attending each lecture?
• What is the building like in each picture?
• Has one artist chosen to show the place where the dissection is being performed in more detail than the other?
• Who has the books in each picture?

Source 3: This is a decorative initial Q from the text of Vesalius' book On the Fabric of the Human Body, published in Basel, Switzerland in 1555. It shows the dissection of a boar. As human corpses were difficult to obtain people who wanted to study anatomy often relied on animals for their dissections. Many of Galen's ideas on the human anatomy were formed on this basis. His writings on the functions of the body consequently contained many errors. Vesalius' observations of human dissection challenged some of these misconceptions.

• What is the difference between the corpse being dissected in this picture and those in the other pictures?
• Who is giving the lecture?
• Who is dissecting the body?
• Which other dissection image does this most resemble?

Source 4: This is the title page from On Anatomy by Realdo Columbo published in Venice in 1559. It shows a dissecting theatre. Realdo Columbo was an apothecary's son who studied surgery at Padua and succeeded Vesalius' as Professor of Surgery there in 1544. His book corrected some of Vesalius' errors. Click on the image to take a closer look.

• Who is the man with the blank paper and what is he doing?

Compare this dissection to the one on the front page of Vesalius' book.

• What kind of people are attending this dissection?
• What is the building like in which the dissection takes place?
• Who are using books?
• What do you notice about the open book?

Source 5: This engraving shows the anatomical lecture theatre at the University of Leiden, from Johannes Van Meurs' Portraits, Elegies and Lives of the Professors of Leiden, published in Leiden in 1617. This book was a prospectus for the University, so the artist may have depicted the lecture theatre as being more exciting than it actually was. Click on the image to take a closer look.

• What is the man in the bottom right corner holding? Does this remind you of any of the drawings in Vesalius' book?
• Are there any books in this picture?
• Do you think all the things in the picture would have really been present in the dissecting theatre?
• Why do you think the artist has included so many skeletons? Are they all human?
• What do the skeletons with the tree and the snake signify?
• Is there a lecture in progress in this picture? What is happening at the dissection table?