Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 97

MONDINO DEI LUZZI (d. 1326) Anatomia. Martin Landsberg 1493?] [40] ll., woodcut. 20.8 cm.

Mondino, son of a Bolognese pharmacist, enjoyed a great reputation as an anatomist and also as a noted statesman, serving as Ambassador to Bologna for a number of years. He was probably the first to introduce the systematic teaching of anatomy into medicine and it is from his era that the body began to be dissected in an orderly fashion, one part after another. Written in 1316, his Anothomia was copied, expanded, altered, and republished for almost two centuries and was one of the most influential of all pre-Vesalian works devoted strictly to anatomy. This early edition, published some fifteen years after the first printing, was edited by Martin Pollich of Mellerstadt (d. 1513) who was a professor at Leipzig until 1502 and then at Wittenberg where he assisted in founding the university. On the title page is a hand-colored illustration of a familiar teaching scene of the time.

Cited references: Choulant-Frank, p. 93; Cushing, Incunabula 103; Garrison-Morton 361 (1487 ed.); Goff M 874; Hain 11633; Waller 105; Wellcome 4484

Gift of John Martin, M.D.