Berengario da Carpi
DISSECTION BY BERENGARIO, 1535
Giacomo Berengario, Jacobus Berengarius Carpensis, also known as Carpus, was born in the small town of Carpi, in the Duchy of Modena, in the year 1470. His father, who was a surgeon, directed his studies, and for a time he was placed under the instruction of the learned Aldus Manutius. Graduating in medicine from the University of Bologna, Berengario became noted for his skill in surgery and anatomy. He taught these branches in Pavia, and was a member of the Bologna faculty from 1502 to 1527. Then he practiced for a time in Rome, where he amassed a fortune by the treatment of the victims of syphilis. The last twenty years of his life were spent in Ferrara, where he died in 1550. Berengario was one of the restorers of anatomy. His first dissection is said to have been made in the house of Albert Pion, Seigneur de Carpi. This demonstration was given publicly upon the body of a pig. Soon the anatomist turned his attention to human subjects, of which it is said that more than a hundred passed beneath his scalpel.
Berengario’s later years are said by Brambilla to have been made miserable by the machinations of the agents of the Inquisition, who objected to some of his opinions regarding the organs of generation. He was unjustly accused of dissecting living men—an accusation which arose from his statement that the surgeon should observe the anatomy of the living body whenever it was opened by wounds or accidents.
SKELETON BY BERENGARIO, 1523
Berengario determined to improve Mondino’s book by making corrections in the text, and by adding suitable illustrations. No illustrations were to be found in the early editions of Mondino, and those which were added by later editors of the work were untrue to nature. To Berengario must be given the credit of furnishing some of the first anatomical illustrations that were published, and that were made from actual human dissections. These appeared in his “Commentaries of Carpus upon the Anatomy of Mundinus”, (Carpi Commentaria super Anatomia Mundini), which was published at Bologna in 1521. The volume contains twenty-one plates which were cut in wood. They have been credited to the celebrated artist, Hugo da Carpi. While the drawing is somewhat coarse, the illustrations are true to nature and show a distinct advance over preceding pictures of this class. Berengario states that his plates will be of value not only to physicians and surgeons but also to artists (et istae figurae etiam juvant pictores in lineandis membris). Some of his figures are schematic; for example, those showing the abdominal muscles. So much better are his illustrations than those of his predecessors that it may fairly be claimed that Berengario was the first author to produce an illustrated anatomy.
MUSCLES BY BERENGARIO, 1521
Berengario also wrote a “Short Introduction to the Anatomy of the Human Body”, Isagogae Breves in Anatomiam Humani Corporis; and a work on Fracture of the Skull.
He was the first anatomist who described the basilar part of the occipital bone, the sphenoidal sinus and the tympanic membrane. Meryon[8] credits him with the “first correct description of the great omentum (gastrocolic) and transverse mesocolon; of the caecal appendix vermiformis, of the valvulae conniventes of the intestines; of the relative proportions of the thorax and pelvis in man and woman; of the flexor-brevis-pollicis; of the vesiculae seminales; of the separate cartilages of the larynx; of the membranous pellicle in front of the retina (attributed to Albinus); of the tricuspid valve, between the right auricle and ventricle of the heart; of the semilunar valves at the commencement of the pulmonary artery; of the inosculation between the epigastric and mammary arteries, and an imperfect account of the cochlea of the ear”. He was the first of the mediaeval anatomists to deviate from the Galenic teaching in regard to the structure of the heart. He diplomatically states that in the human subject the foramina in the cardiac septum are seen only with great difficulty (sed in homine cum maxima difficultate videnter).
MUSCLES BY BERENGARIO, 1521