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De humani corporis fabrica
Andreas Vesalius
Second edition, 1555
Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) was just 28 years old when he wrote De humani corporis fabrica (On the fabric of the human body). First published in 1543, it remains one of the most influential works in the history of Western medicine. In previous centuries, the ancient Greek physician Galen was regarded as the authority on human anatomy, but he had never dissected a human body. In 1537, Vesalius began teaching surgery and anatomy at the University of Padua and dissecting human corpses. His findings, based on observation, exposed Galen’s mistakes and heralded a new modern science of comparative anatomy.
De humani was a triumph of Renaissance printmaking. More than 250 illustrations depict the dissected human body in astonishing detail. Full-page skeletons lean on classical plinths, head in hands, as if deep in thought; each is a remarkable work of art. Some woodcuts are thought to have been made by Jan Stephan van Calcar, a pupil of the great Italian painter Titian. The blocks were then transported to Basel in Switzerland to be printed by Johannes Oporinus, one of the foremost printers of the day.
This copy of Vesalius’s masterpiece belongs to a large collection of medical books bequeathed to the Cathedral Library by Thomas Glass (1709-1786), a physician at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital. Glass was a keen book collector and acquired the greatest names in early medicine and science. In his will, Glass left instructions that his books be given to the Library for the use of ‘any physician of the city’. Today, the Cathedral Library remains a centre of learning, open to all.