[44]Compendiosa totius Anatomie delineatio, aere exarata per Thomam Geminum.
[45]Selected Writings of Sir D’Arcy Power, Oxford, 1931, p. 115.
[46]H. M. Sinclair and A. H. T. Robb-Smith, A Short History of Anatomical Teaching in Oxford, Oxford, 1950, p. 10.
[47]Ibid., p. 11.
[48]Ibid.
[49]Caius, loc. cit., p. 104.
[50]This portrait shows Banister giving the Visceral lecture at Barber-Surgeon’s Hall in 1581; of small size and painted by an unknown artist on two pieces of paper joined down the middle, it is nevertheless sufficiently detailed for us to discover that Banister is using the octavo edition of Colombo’s work printed in Paris in 1572. The portrait is now laid down in an album of anatomical drawings, also painted for Banister, which was formerly owned by William Hunter and is now preserved in the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow. The drawings consist of views of the skeleton, the superficial muscles, nerves and veins drawn in colour on a dark ground with some skill. Singer, in his Evolution of Anatomy, London, 1925, p. 174, suggests that the skeletal figures are probably the earliest prepared in England which were actually drawn from the bones. This could well be true, but Banister based his drawing of the nerves on a plate of Charles Estienne, 1545, and his figures of the superficial muscles and veins are possibly based on Valverde. Other relics of Banister can be seen at Cambridge. The University Library has a book-like casket containing a small ivory skeleton and the écorché figure of a man given to the library by Banister in 1591. King’s College Library has a copy of The Historie of Man presented by the author in 1596.
[51]Books printed on the Continent were freely available in England, and it could be argued that this was one reason why so few anatomical texts were published in the Tudor period. It has already been noted that Colombo’s De Re Anatomica in the octavo edition of Paris, 1572, was used by Banister in his visceral lecture. This could well have been the text recommended to apprentices of Barber-Surgeon’s Hall. Such imported books were, of course, published in Latin and were therefore suitable to the students of the College of Physicians and those of Oxford or of Cambridge. It seems likely that the students at Barber-Surgeons’ Hall created a demand for more simple texts in the vernacular and this is surely the reason for the continued popularity of such books as Thomas Vicary’s archaic text.
DE IN-
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prime utile medicis,
Dauide Edguardo
Anglo authore.