Realdo Colombo, De re anatomica libri XV, Venice: ex typographia N. Beuilacquae, 1559, K.8.3, frontispiece, woodcut, leaf height 31.3 cm.
Realdo Colombo (c. 1510-1559), the son of an apothecary who was apprenticed to the surgeon Giovanni Antonio Lonigo, was studying at the University of Padua by 1538, and was known as an outstanding student of surgery. He filled in for Vesalius while he was away supervising the printing of the Fabrica, and began to demonstrate Vesalius’s errors in his dissections. He and Vesalius were initially friends, but they appear to have fallen out at some point. After an appointment at Pisa, Colombo went to Rome, where he seems to have assisted the elderly Michelangelo (1475-1564) with the latter’s project on human anatomy to replace Albrecht Dürer’s work on human proportion. Colombo taught at the Sapienza in Rome, presided over the autopsy of important figures such as Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), and accumulated extensive surgical experience, which was reflected in the section on pathological observations included in his work on human anatomy, Fifteen books on anatomizing, published just after his death by his two sons.
In this work, Colombo sought to emulate the anatomical work (including vivisection) of Herophilus (fourth to third century BC) and Erasistratus (third century BC) who had, unlike Galen, dissected human bodies, in order to correct the works of both ancients (such as Galen) and moderns (such as Vesalius). He eschewed Mondino’s three-ventre approach, and examined the major vessels with their organs (the liver with the veins; the heart with the arteries; and the brain with the nerves). In particular, his separate treatment of the heart and lungs led him to the discovery of the pulmonary transit (assisted and first reported by his friend and assistant, Valverde).
The frontispiece here suggests a scene of private anatomy rather than a public one, but the message works best when the frontispiece of the Fabrica is kept in mind – indeed Colombo must have assumed that his readers would have read Vesalius’s book. See the extended captions for further details of this frontispiece.
Like Vesalius’s frontispiece of the Fabrica, Colombo’s frontispiece acknowledges first-hand dissection as the foundation of knowledge, as Colombo is shown in the centre (he was bald) with a scalpel in one hand and holding back the cadaver’s arm with the other. The seated person to the left holds an open book, with an anatomical image on one page, and text on the other. It looks suspiciously like a page from the Fabrica. Thus this image may be interpreted as Colombo’s first-hand dissection as the basis by which knowledge in Vesalius’s book must also be assessed. There is a young man seated in the front readying to draw from the dissected body, though ironically this frontispiece is the only woodcut in this book. This contrast in the number of people attending the dissection could also suggest a dig at Vesalius for his ostentatious display of an adoring audience in a theatre. To the right of the scene is a bearded man in a fur-lined coat who looks like Vesalius and appears to be invited by a putto (or possibly a soul) to draw a lot.
The background architecture with sculptures set in niches may perhaps be a reference to the famous Belvedere Courtyard in Rome that housed classical statutes. The small Roman armour shown in the top right corner may well allude to the armour utilized in the work of his friend, Juan de Valverde. The shield in the left-hand corner with a lion was a popular design among contemporary rulers, such as the Emperor, Charles V.
Some historians have pointed out that the dissected corpse, with his arm drooping down from the table, is reminiscent of Donatello’s frieze (1446-48) for the basilica of St Anthony in that depicts the dissection of a miser, whose arm is similarly drooped. The frieze was part of a series depicting the miracles of St Anthony, Padua’s patron saint. At a miser’s funeral, St Anthony declared that the miser should not be buried in consecrated grounds because he was quite literally heartless – when dissected, the miser was indeed found to lack his heart, which in turn was found in his chest of money, proving St Luke’s point (12:34): where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
This entry is indebted to Cunningham, Andrew (1997), The anatomical Renaissance : the resurrection of the anatomical projects of the ancients (Aldershot ; Brookfield, Vermont: Scolar Press), chapter 5.
