TWO ANATOMIES by C. E. KELLETT IF we examine the title-page ofthe Fabrica we see that it differs in a remarkable manner from those adorning earlier textbooks of anatomy. In these the Anato- mist is set apart, reading aloud from a textbook he holds in his hand, while at a proper distance a Demonstrator is shown displaying, under the instruction of an Ostensor, those parts he refers to.' To the select and small impassive audience, the anonymous body and the well-known book are the important things in a ritual which is familiar to many of those there. In Paris' the audience consisted of Members and students of the Faculty and barely numbered more than a dozen. In a large school, such as Bologna, this was limited as a rule to twenty, who must each have completed two years of study. Here, however, and elsewhere in Italy, these rules seem at the begning of the Renance to have been relaxed. Two hundred or more attended the course of twentyfive lectures on the Anatomy of Mondino given by Curtius, and twenty-six demonstrations given by Vesalius., If Curtius was wont at times with a bewildering and rather ostentatious display ofquotations to demonstrate how Mondino had failed to follow Galen, and so erred, Vesalius would on occasion demonstrate how both had been mistaken. In the earlier textbooks the dissection scene is depicted as taking place within a house, but in some of those published in France it is also shown as occurring in a walled garden, and, indeed in Paris there are records of them being performed in one or the other. Both the lecture and demonstration took place simultaneously and the one supplemented the other. Both were concerned with man's place in the scheme of things, rather than with the intimate details of his structure. The public anatomy, on the other hand, had become an enter- tainment, in which at times the one seemed to contradict the other and lecturer and demonstrator quarrelled openly; an entertainment for which a special temporary amphitheatre was built with a portico of a church for background. It is almost inevitable that such an anatomy, written under such circumstances, should dwell perhaps unduly on detail, tending to stress the mistakes Galen had made, and significant that it should have been written, not by the lecturer, but by the demonstrator. My chief concern, however, is not so much with Vesalius, or Mondino who preceded him, as with another anatomy published two years later in Paris at the height of the French Renaissance," Estienne's Dc Dissectione. Here at Fontainebleau especially, a characteristic school of painting and design had been evolved. The native gothic tendency had imparted to the Italian Mannerist painters, Rosso and Primaticcio, working there a certain elegance and wayward grace; a particular set of proportions and way of posing their models, which even now we may feel is typically French. 342 available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300029811 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Carnegie Mellon University, on 06 Apr 2021 at 01:07:10, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300029811 https://www.cambridge.org/core Two Anatomies Elegance and style are, like good manners, lesser virtues, but not to be despised. In a textbook ofanatomy they are conspicuous by their absence. Only now and then, as in the plates designed by Casserius or Albinus, do we find a trace of that elegance, that good taste we have a right to expect in the Dc Dissectione, the most costly book to leave the printing press of S. de Colines, Estienne's stepfather and one of the greatest printers of his time. One's first reaction to the book is entirely favourable. The type is beautiful and the book handles well. It is only as we turn over the pages that we become aware of something ams, and so gradually, I believe, learn of the accidents that befell the making of this book and, in so doing, about the anatomnies of that time. These skeletons are very gothic. In the background of some of the more remarkable are distant cities and rivers, recalling those of Italy as seen through the nostalgic eyes of Breughel and Del Abbate. Italy has not, however, tamed them. They have none ofthe playfulness oftheir Berengarian forerunners nor of the resignation ofthe Vesalian series. They are too gross, too akin to the figures in the Danse Macabre, to that of Death himself. With the exception of two plates, so dumsy they seem to belong to a different age, dated 1530, they are amongst the first in a book which was strangely long in the making. Possibly that is why they too, especially when coloured, as in the great vellum copy, seem to belong to a medieval rather than a renaissance text. The musde men are perhaps a little better. They at any rate are elegant and have a flavour all their own. Here it may be is that particular quality we might expect. They seem petulant and a little resentfil as they display the muscles of their abdominal wall, whereas their Berengarian forerunners are gay and unaffected. Such a change in attitude is, however, in keeping with the changing fashions and ifwe are disconcerted it is surely because ofthe way each dissection has been shown for no very obvious reason on a block apparently let into the original figures. At times this is clumsily done, and as in the Berengarian figures the dissection is confined to the abdominal muscles and stops before it is really begun, whereas in Vesalius it is carried out to the bitter end. In these famous figures we look in vain for that suggestion of wit we discern in Cowper or for the charm with which the Casserian figures indulge in so memorable a strip- tease. These are, however, minor points, for, after all, the individual muscles are dealt with at the end of the book, which is, as the title-page suggests, parti- cularly concerned with dissections. These are carried out first on men and then on women. Here then the book must stand or fall and here one is surely aware ofsomething very amiss. The Vesalian figures have, in their diversity, a certain over-all unity, as have those of Eustachius, Casserius, Albinus and Cowper, but here, as in Berengario, they are subdivided into groups of varying size. One of the largest and most striking consists of studies of young men, obviously dead, who are shown hooked to trees or propped up against ruined shrines. They are more suited to a study for a picture of Saint Sebastian than an anatomy, yet where the parts to be shown are sufficiendy large and the inset is neatly done, they serve their purpose admirably. Where, on the other hand, the parts to be 343 available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300029811 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Carnegie Mellon University, on 06 Apr 2021 at 01:07:10, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300029811 https://www.cambridge.org/core C. E. Kellett shown are small, as in the neck, the results are so deplorable as to suggest that this can never have been the purpose for which they were first intended. They are followed by a series of figures that seem to have been taken at random from a sketchbook and have been adapted with results that are often unfortunate. The majority of the young women form yet another little group. They seem unsuited for their purpose and, like their Berengarian forerunners, might well have been taken from a set of pictures. In these young women again the dissections are shown on an inset let into the original figure. And so certain questions begin to take shape. Why did this work, begun in 1530, take so long in the making? And why is the part played by Estienne and Riviere so carefully stated on the title-page, when the acknowledgement from Estienne in the Foreword might so well have sufficed? Why were the great hand-coloured volumes, printed on vellum, never presented to the King and why do they contain no dedication leaf? How may we account on the one hand for so lavish a display ofplates and on the other for the unsuitability ofso many for the purpose for which they are employed? How can we explain their ugliness and occasional beauty and changing mood; their frequent correction by means of large insets? Now such insertions are commonly used to correct a fault, or, on occasions, to adapt a block for another purpose, but are met with in no other anatomy. I argued, therefore, that Estienne had found a collection of blocks in his step- father's warehouse that he had in this way adapted for use in his book. Had this other book been published, there was one young woman it should have been easy to trace, for she was no longer a girl, had none of the clumsy grace we associate with Botticelli. She was a little mannered but not so sophisticated as were her contemporaries in Paris. She was Italian, rather than French, and Raphael, having seen Michelangelo's work, or one of his school, might have drawn her. I could determine her age to within a few years, but, even then, could not find her. No printed book contained her picture and we must assume that the book for which she was first designed had never reached completion. But, if wood blocks were borrowed and copied, so too were the pictures on them. Berengario we have already seen is thought to have taken several of his female figures from pictures in his collection. It seemed then likely that she too had been taken from a picture which might still exist or which long ago had been destroyed. But sketches of her had survived, there are two in the Uffizi, and in the end I found her and her companions in a set of engravings of the Loves ofthe Gods, for which Rosso had done two drawings and Perino del Vaga the remaining eighteen.5 Their discovery, however, raised a further problem, for many had already, in copying, been modified as if for an anatomy and varying degrees of violence had been done to their persons to suit them for the same purpose; this is why so many are so ugly. How can we account for this unless we assume that they were first modified for one anatomy and then re-adapted for a second by means of the insets; unless we suppose that Estienne and Riviere had fashioned theirs makeshift on the fragments of an anatomy planned by Rosso but never completed. Such a supposition might have seemed far-fetched, were it not known that Rosso had actually planned to publish an 344 available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300029811 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Carnegie Mellon University, on 06 Apr 2021 at 01:07:10, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300029811 https://www.cambridge.org/core Two Anatomies anatomy. Vasari, moreover, tells us that when Rosso was staying with Bishop Tomabuone after his escape from Rome, 'he disinterred dead bodies from the burial ground ofthe Episcopal Palace in which he had his abode and made very fine anatomical studies'. No one, of course, can practice anatomy in this way, nor indeed is it likely that the Bishop had countenanced such a procedure, unless it were to enable Rosso to complete a picture on a devout subject, such as a Deposition from the Cross, or a Saint Sebastian. For this there was indeed ample precedent; Michelangelo had enjoyed the same privilege when he was fashioning a crucifix for the Prior of the Church ofSan Spirito in Florence. The remarkable illustrations which are the core of this book could scarcely have been created in any other way. Furthermore, Rosso came to the court of France on the recommendation of Aretino; he was in Venice at the same time as Charles Estienne, who was attached to the household of the French Ambassador, de Baif, who was respon- sible for the arrangements with Rosso.6 They may even then have thought of adapting Rosso's drawings, including the St. Sebastian series, for an illustrated edition of the only anatomical text readily available, that of Mondino, and then, for certain preparations, obtained the aid of Estienne de la Riviere. This young man was several years older than Pare, who had in I 532 obtained an appointment as House Surgeon at the Hotel Dieu. They may well have met there for he soon became one of Pare's closest friends and at the H6tel-Dieu there was, as Pare7 himself pointed out at a later date, ample opportunity of familiarizing oneself with anatomy. Provided one had access to the hospital, or was friendly with the Chief Executioner and his staff, there was in Paris no difficulty in obtaining a body for dissection. Pare secured one for his personal use, which he kept in his house,8 and Riviere, I believe, one which he subjected to a process of selective macera- tion, the results of which are shown in the remarkable series of plates picturing not merely the skeleton but also the skeleton with its joints and muscle attach- ments, and finally the skeleton clad in a tangled web, fashioned from its own nervous system, which is the last to go in such a process, or so we are assured. In this, the running water which cleaned the body as it disintegrated and the small creatures it contained which fed on it, seem to have played an essential part. The whole process is completed within a short time. Immersion in stagnant water, on the other hand, is followed by very gradual change and, if Casper9 be our guide, one that is horrible beyond belief Even so, the artist who drew the central nervous system specimen seems to have been appalled at what he saw and the difficulties involved in its depiction and reproduction. This was, however, the method Mondino had advocated and he had suggested that dried bodies be used when it was intended to demonstrate the musculature. This was presumably how Pare's own preparation was preserved and, many years later, Fragonard's cavalier. At the H6tel-Dieu approximately two thousand people were buried each year in the common grave.10 Each was sewn up in half a blanket, there being no coffins. It should not have been difficult for Riviere to obtain one such body and suspend it in a perforated cask in the Seine that washed the very walls of 345 available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300029811 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Carnegie Mellon University, on 06 Apr 2021 at 01:07:10, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300029811 https://www.cambridge.org/core C. E. Kellett the hospital and far easier than it would have been to have attempted the more fashionable and formidable dissection as depicted in the Fabrica. So far as the skeleton was concerned, the end result was much the same as were the final steps. The Vesalian preparations are a little more elegant than that which bears Riviere's initials but the method of mounting is essentially the same, and if either young man deserves the credit for its invention it is, as Par6 implies, Riviere, rather than Vesalius. The nerve man, the joint and muscle insertion man, represent, I take it, two stages on the way towards the preparation of a skeleton by this method, which is described very briefly by Estienne but at greater length by Vesalius.12 He tells us that when the body was taken out of its cask it was cleaned all over with knives but carefully so that none of the connections of the bones was destroyed, that the ligaments by which the bones are connected were preserved, and finally that everything except the joints of the bones glistened. The cleansed cadaver was then exposed to the sun so that the ligaments dried by the heat of the sun might hold the joints of the bones in that position it was desired that it be seen, posed sitting or standing. This stage is admirably depicted in the joint and muscle insertion man. The final stage in both methods involved disjointing the preparation, placing the smaller bones in little bags so that they would not get lost, boiling them to get them clean and wiring them together while they were soft, the skeleton being held erect by means of a bar of iron threaded through the vertebral canal. It is, however, far easier to take a body to pieces, muscle by muscle, rather than so to build it up again. Albinus was perhaps the first'3 who attempted so to do. Estienne was content to show the skeleton, the version showing the ligaments of the joints and muscle insertions and alongside them two diagram- matic figures, the outlines of which are mirror images of two figures we encounter towards the end of the section, but which in no way resemble the skeletons. Outlines such as these are easily obtained by means of tracings, but Durer gives in detail certain other methods which enable one to obtain an accurate outline of an object. Albinus used a complicated system of nets and, by Cowper's time, the camera obscura was in general use. Taking such an outline and putting in the muscles would seem to have been a favourite exercise with certain anatomists and with Cowper an obsession. In the Hunterian Collection in Glasgow there is sheet after sheet of these rather sinister powerful figures. In the Sloane Collection there is a book full of his earlier drawings of plants-they are quite a different thing-it is astonishing how skilled he became in this particular exercise. So that one wonders whether or not Vesalius himself might have had a hand in the muscle figures that play so prominent a role in the Fabrica. In these pictures of Estienne the muscles are shown in so diagrammatic a fashion that one feels that they have probably been copied from other figures that were then in common use and this would seem to be certainly true for the vascular figure. This is one of the most remarkable in the book. It has been frequently reproduced and only recently was used for an advertisement for a hypotensive drug. It is, therefore, I suppose, one of Estienne's most successful inventions-and yet it bears little or no relation to reality 346 available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300029811 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Carnegie Mellon University, on 06 Apr 2021 at 01:07:10, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300029811 https://www.cambridge.org/core AA Lendroitauqucllermndi2in japparoiftdouble qui efta la //S;