Juan Valverde de Amusco, Anatomia del corpo humano, Rome: A. Salamanca and A. Lafrery; Venice: N. Beuilacqua 1560, p. 95, engraving, plate size 21.8 x 14.7 cm, Keynes.T.7.11.

Juan Valverde (c. 1520-c. 1588) studied anatomy at Padua under Vesalius and Colombo, and accompanied Colombo to Pisa as an assistant and most likely also to Rome in that capacity. He became physician to Cardinal Álvarez de Toledo and taught medicine at the Santo Spirito Hospital in Rome. He published in Spanish a History of the composition of the human body in 1556, and a Latin edition (translated by Michael Colombo, Realdo’s son) followed in 1589. This is the Italian version, printed in Rome.

Valverde reported in this work the pulmonary transit discovered with Colombo, but Valverde’s work was more derivative, and copied numerous images from the Fabrica, though with some variations, such as the use of classical armour and the Medici Venus. These were drawn by a fellow Spaniard, Gaspar Becerra (c. 1520-1568). Some of the engravings are signed ‘NB’, which is believed to be Nicolas Beatrizet (1507/15-1565), who made prints for Lafrery.

This engraving shows how Valverde was inspired by Vesalius to use classical motifs, but introduced his own interpretation. Here, instead of the Belvedere Torso, the intestinal structures are set in a pair of armours. The top one appears to be a cuirass – a close-fitting plate cast to fit the wearer’s torso and meant to symbolize heroic musculature – shown with shoulder guards with a lion’s head, which probably refers to the Nemean lion from Hercules’ labours. We can detect the artist’s conceit in the way the armours are hung, which suggests that they are hollow shells, though the intestinal structures appear to be showing from the inside of the armours. Such armours were readily visible on Trajan’s column in Rome, where Valverde worked.