Fig. 11. From M. Hundt, Antropologium, de hominis dignitate natura et proprietatibus, Leipzig, 1501. The figure shows the ten layers of the head, the cerebral ventricles and cranial nerves, and the relation of the nerves to the senses.
Fig. 12. THE LAYERS OF THE HEAD
From the Anatomia of Johannes Dryander, Marburg, 1537.
The ten parts or layers of the head are a commonplace of the anatomy of the period, taken from Avicenna. We may illustrate the division by the crude contemporary diagram of Fig. [11], which is improved in the later drawing reproduced in Fig. 12.
Manfredi’s account of the brain itself is amplified from Mondino. The division of this organ into three ventricles, each associated with a corresponding division of the mental functions, was very familiar to medical writers of the fifteenth century. The idea is found among Western writers as early as St. Augustine (354–430), and is encountered in the writings of Roger Bacon (1214–94). It had long been popularized in mediaeval psychology by the writings of Albertus Magnus (1206–80). The anatomical distinction is found in Haly Abbas, Avicenna, and Rhazes, and in some of the best MSS. of the latter writer a rough diagram of the ventricles is given.[188] These writers are all clearly indebted to the anatomy of Galen,[189] but on the psychological side Albertus Magnus probably drew mainly either from Ghazali[190] (1059–1111), who in turn derived his inspiration from Nemesius (fourth century) and Johannes Damascenus (died 756), or else from early writers of the Salernitan tradition, such as Constantine[191] (eleventh century), or Petrocello[192] (twelfth century), who drew largely on Theophilus (seventh century).[193]
