De humani corporis fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body)

Franciscus Francisci and Johannes Criegher, publisher

Andreas Vesalius, artist

1514–1564

De humani corporis fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body), 1568 (original 1543)

Where object was made: Venice, Italy

Material/technique: printing; paper

Credit line: Clendening History of Medicine Library and Museum, University of Kansas Medical Center

Accession number: EL2020.049

Not on display

Add to portfolio

If you wish to reproduce this image, please submit an image request

Images

Label texts

The Flemish doctor and surgeon Andreas Vesalius has been heralded as the founder of modern anatomy. His 1543 publication De humani corporis fabrica, shown here in a 1568 reprint, was the first Western anatomical treatise to be based on close observation of the human body through dissection. Vesalius made dozens of discoveries as a result of his thoughtful research and disproved prevailing ideas about the body—primarily those espoused by the second-century Greek physician and philosopher Galen—that were not based on direct observation. Vesalius’s “muscle men” from a chapter on the muscular system are among the most iconic of all anatomical illustrations.