Winner of the Third Neu-Whitrow Prize (2021) granted by the Commission on Bibliography and Documentation of IUHPS-DHST Additional background information This book provides bibliographic information, ownership records, a detailed worldwide census and a description of the handwritten annotations for all the surviving copies of the 1543 and 1555 editions of Vesalius’ De humani corporis fabrica. It also offers a groundbreaking historical analysis of how the Fabrica traveled across the globe, and how readers studied, annotated and critiqued its contents from 1543 to 2017. The Fabrica of Andreas Vesalius sheds a fresh light on the book’s vibrant reception history and documents how physicians, artists, theologians and collectors filled its pages with copious annotations. It also offers a novel interpretation of how an early anatomical textbook became one of the most coveted rare books for collectors in the 21st century.

Andreas Vesalius 1514-1564 By Stephen N. Joffe, M.D. Vesalius was the foremost pioneer of modern anatomy. Born in Brussels, he came from a family of physicians. Educated in Louvain, he studied medicine in Montpelier and Paris, returning to Louvain to teach anatomy. In 1535 he went to France to be an army surgeon to King Charles V and two years later became a professor of anatomy in Padua, Italy. Subsequently he became a physician to the court of Philip II of Spain. On a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, he received a call to return to Padua to occupy chair of Fallopius. In a storm leading to a shipwreck and subsequent death on the Isle of Zante, Vesalius was buried there in an unmarked grave in 1564. This marked the end of the ‘prince of anatomy.’ Vesalius’ book De Humani Corporus Fabrica published in Basel in 1543, contributes one of the greatest treasures of western civilization and culture. With its companion volume the Epitome, began the modern observational science and research.

The life of Vesalius, the foremost pioneer of modern anatomy, has never before been told in full. the present definitive biography, published in 1964 to mark the four-hundredth ear since Vesalius's death, fills a serious gap in medical history. It is, in fact, the first biography of the great anatomist since Moritz Roth's work of 1892. Much new information has come to light in the intervening seventy years which enables O'Malley to reassess Vesalius in relation to his eminent contemporaries and to re-evaluate his contributions to anatomy and to medical science in general. O'Malley gives a detailed account of Vesalius's studies of anatomy in Paris, Padua, Pisa, and Bologna, and is thus able to show the comparative advancement of medical knowledge throughout Europe during the sixteenth century. In addition, the book contains a wealth of historical material of broad interest, including an account of the attempt of Vesalius and Ambroise Pare to save the life of Henry II of France as he lay dying form a lance wound in the eye. Also included is a critical account of the various stories concerning Vesalius's persecution by the Inquisition and his subsequent pilgrimage to Jerusalem. As much as possible of Vesalius's major achievement, De humani corporis fabrica (1543), his epochal treatise on the structure of the human body, is presented in his own words, translated from the Latin text by Dr. O'Malley. Wherever feasible, in fact, an effort has been made by the author to tell the story through the precise words of Vesalius or those of his contemporaries. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1964.

Winner of the Third Neu-Whitrow Prize (2021) granted by the Commission on Bibliography and Documentation of IUHPS-DHST Additional background information This book provides bibliographic information, ownership records, a detailed worldwide census and a description of the handwritten annotations for all the surviving copies of the 1543 and 1555 editions of Vesalius’ De humani corporis fabrica. It also offers a groundbreaking historical analysis of how the Fabrica traveled across the globe, and how readers studied, annotated and critiqued its contents from 1543 to 2017. The Fabrica of Andreas Vesalius sheds a fresh light on the book’s vibrant reception history and documents how physicians, artists, theologians and collectors filled its pages with copious annotations. It also offers a novel interpretation of how an early anatomical textbook became one of the most coveted rare books for collectors in the 21st century.