A STUDY IN EARLY RENAISSANCE ANATOMY,
WITH A NEW TEXT:
THE ANOTHOMIA OF HIERONYMO MANFREDI (1490)
By Charles Singer
TEXT TRANSCRIBED AND TRANSLATED BY A. MILDRED WESTLAND
| I. | Anatomy in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries | [79] |
| II. | Bolognese Works on Anatomy | [92] |
| III. | Hieronymo Manfredi, Professor at Bologna, 1463–93 | [97] |
| IV. | The Manuscript Anatomy of Manfredi | [103] |
| V. | Translation of Selected Passages from the Anothomia, with Commentary | [106] |
| (a) The Brain, Cranial Nerves, &c. | [106] | |
| (b) The Eye | [118] | |
| (c) The Heart | [122] | |
| Italian Text of the Anothomia | [130] |
I. Anatomy in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
There was little or no progress in the knowledge of anatomy between the death of Mondino in 1327 and the sixteenth century. This appears the more remarkable when we recall how widespread was the practice of dissection during the period. In France, at the University of Montpellier, public dissections were decreed in the year 1377,[121] and Catalonian Lerida followed suit in 1391.[122] At Bologna, where dissection had long been customary, it received official recognition in the University Statutes in 1405,[123] and the same event took place at Padua in 1429. Public anatomies were instituted at the University of Prague in 1460, of Paris in 1478, and of Tübingen in 1485.[124] For these ‘Anatomies’ the bodies of executed criminals were usually employed, and therefore the number of subjects available varied greatly in different localities.[125] In addition to these regular dissections, there was certainly a considerable amount of post-mortem examination, surreptitious (Plate [XXVIII b][126]), or even open (Plate [XXIX][127]), long before Benivieni published his memorable list of cases.[128]
