Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 101

MONDINO DEI LUZZI (d. 1326) Anatomies de Mondino dei Luzzi et de Guido de Vigevano. E. Droz [ca. 1926] 91 pp., illus., 16 plates (part col.). 33 cm.

For more information on this author or work, see number: 97

Mondino's Anothomia was not published until 1478 at Pavia, Italy, and did not contain illustrations as did many of the later editions. This compilation by medical librarian and historian, Ernest Wickersheimer (1880-1965), contains a facsimile of the 1478 edition of Mondino's Anothomia as well as the text and eighteen plates from Guido de Vigevano's (fl. 14th century) Anathomia. Vigevano's manuscript was completed in 1345 and is MS. 569 in the collection of the Musée Condé at the Bibliothèque de Chateau de Chantilly. In his Anathomia, Vigevano discusses the usefulness of using drawings for the demonstration of anatomy and also the church's attitude toward dissection of the human body. According to Wickersheimer, the Papal Bull of Boniface VIII in 1300 was not aimed at curtailing dissection but was intended to halt the practice of boiling and dismembering the bodies of crusaders who had died away from home for easier transportation back to Europe. The plates are among the earliest anatomical drawings of the time and are intended to show the techniques of dissection and a limited number of diagnostic techniques.

Cited references: Cushing M455

Gift of John Martin, M.D.