The first edition of the Fabrica is a folio volume with magnificent illustrations on wood, all carefully printed by Joannes Oporinus (1507-1568) of Basel.
The title-page is a beautiful engraving which represents Vesalius at work dissecting a female subject. He is surrounded by interested spectators who crowd the amphitheatre. The abdomen of the subject is opened. Vesalius has raised his left hand; his right hand grasps a small rod which rests on the viscera. The great teacher is talking to his pupils. Placed at the head of the dissecting table is an upright skeleton which grasps a long staff with its right hand. In the audience are many persons of different rank. To the left a naked man is climbing a pillar, while to the right, and below, a dog is being brought into the arena. To the left, and below, is a monkey which appears to enjoy the demonstration. Above, in the architecture, we see the monogram of the publisher, Oporinus; in the centre, on a shield, are the three weasels of the Vesalius family, and below, is a shield which bears the privilegium. This old engraving is one of the most spirited and elaborate to be found in the whole range of medical literature. In the 1725 edition, for which Jan Wandelaar made copperplate reproductions of the original figures, the title-page is altered:—the monogram of Oporinus is absent and the architecture is slightly changed.
MARK OF OPORINUS
Who was the unnamed artist? It is noteworthy that Vesalius does not state who drew the illustrations, or who cut them in wood, for his Fabrica. He only states that this book has cost him a monstrous amount of labor in the preparation of the dissections, and in the directing of the eye, the hand, and the intelligence of the artist. He complains bitterly of the obstinacy of the artist, who, at times so tormented him that he—Vesalius—considered himself more unfortunate than the criminal whose body had been dissected[21]. It was probably owing to this unpleasant experience that Vesalius omitted the artist’s name. The great anatomist speaks regretfully of the large sums which he was obliged to pay, in order to induce skilled artists to undertake this class of work. He states that they were much more interested in painting Venus and The Graces than in drawing pictures of skinned and foul smelling bodies. Moehsen[22] assumes that Vesalius had Titian in mind when he penned these thoughts, but this is questionable. It is not surprising that eminent artists should have disliked anatomical drawing, at a time when antiseptic injections and preserving fluids were not known. Foul odors had no terrors for the great Belgian, who haunted cemeteries for anatomical material and often kept parts of cadavers in his bedchamber for weeks at a time.
For a period of two centuries the Vesalian pictures were ascribed to Titian, but on insufficient grounds. The famous Venetian painter was over sixty years of age at the time of the publication of the Fabrica; his services were much in demand, and he was signally honored by the Spanish emperor, Charles the Fifth. His powers remained undiminished until shortly before his death, which occurred in 1576. He had the ability to make the Vesalian illustrations, but it is doubtful if he had the time. Although Titian may have taken an interest in these anatomical plates, it is not now believed that he drew them.
JAN STEPHAN VAN CALCAR
The Vesalian pictures have been attributed to Christoforo Coriolano; but he could not have been the artist, since his earliest work dates from 1568. He is known to have furnished the drawings for Jerome Mercurialis’s De Arte Gymnastica, and for Vasari’s Lives of the Painters. Roth is of the opinion that Vesalius himself made most of the illustrations; but such a view would credit the comparatively short and busy life of the great anatomist with too much accomplishment.
I conclude that the illustrations for the Fabrica, like the osseous figures in the Tabulae Anatomicae, which Vesalius issued in 1538, were made by Jan Stephan van Calcar (+1546), the favorite pupil of Titian. Sandrart[23] states that van Calcar made the drawings for the Fabrica; that he went to Venice in 1536 or 1537; that he studied under Titian; and that his paintings were of such merit that they were often mistaken for those of Titian, Raphael, and Rubens.