Medieval human dissection manual:
Written in 1316 by a professor of medicine at the University of Padua, the
Mondino dei Luzzi, Anothomia (Venice, 1507)
Anatomy of Mondino was the most widely-used manual for human dissection in the middle ages. To the modern eye, the most striking thing about this early edition is the lack of illustrations.
In the Middle Ages, universities revived the practice of human dissection, which had been prohibited by the Romans due to ethical concerns and taboos about contact with the dead. A profound cultural shift was occurring, which led to an early modern convergence between art and anatomy.
Written in 1316 by a professor of medicine at the University of Padua, the Anatomy of Mondino was the most widely-used manual for human dissection in the middle ages. To the modern eye, the most striking thing about this early edition is the lack of illustrations. This 1507 edition reproduces the nature of the manuscript tradition, before the advent of printing.
Medieval medical pedagogy featured lectures on ancient texts, although students in most universities by 1400 attended dissections which illustrated the lectures. Human cadavers were obtained after criminal executions. Very practically for an age without adequate preservatives, Mondino’s method began with the abdomen (subject to most rapid decay) and worked outward. Mondino advocated the study of human anatomy not merely on utilitarian grounds as a prerequisite for medicine, physiology, or law, but also as a worthy and noble endeavor in itself.
