Male and Female nudes

Andreas Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica librorum epitome, Basel: ex. off. J. Oporini, 1543, K1 verso-L1 recto, coloured woodcut, leaf height 55.8 cm, CCF.46.36.

This opening from the Epitome shows the exterior of the male and the female, before dissection. The surrounding text provides the names of the parts of the body. Though these are pages inside the book, we may well take them as a sort of ‘frontispiece’ in the sense of a page from which one entered a book. This is in fact one of the places from which Vesalius recommended the use of the book.

Starting with the male nude, the reader could turn the pages towards the beginning of the book, to follow the order of dissection. Or the reader could turn the page of the female nude to see how the parts of the body were layered together.
To view the whole work, click on the Digital Library link below.

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