pdfcrowd.com open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API Home » Andreas Vesalius at 500 » The Death of Andreas Vesalius HOME ABOUT COMMENTS & PRIVACY U.S. NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE Search this website... 1500S ANATOMY BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS GREECE ITALY JERUSALEM LETTER TAGS THE DEATH OF ANDREAS VESALIUS POSTED BY CIRCULATING NOW ON OCTOBER 15, 2014 IN ANDREAS VESALIUS AT 500, COLLECTIONS, RARE BOOKS & JOURNALS, SERIES | LEAVE A COMMENT By Michael J. North This year we commemorate the 500th anniversary of the birth of Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564) who is best known for changing how we do medical research with his groundbreaking book, De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem (Seven Chapters on the Structure of the Human Body), published in 1543 and generally known as De Fabrica. But it also marks another anniversary: the 450th year since his death on October 15, 1564 on the island of Zakynthos, also known as Zante, in what is today Greece. Few details are known about the last moments of his life on this distant island, however, he OCTOBER 15
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Home » Andreas Vesalius at 500 » The Death of Andreas Vesalius
HOME ABOUT COMMENTS & PRIVACY U.S. NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINESearch this website...
1500S ANATOMY
BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS
GREECE ITALY
JERUSALEM LETTER
TAGS
THE DEATH OF ANDREAS VESALIUSPOSTED BY CIRCULATING NOW ON OCTOBER 15, 2014 IN ANDREAS VESALIUS AT 500,COLLECTIONS, RARE BOOKS & JOURNALS, SERIES | LEAVE A COMMENT
By Michael J. North
This year we commemorate the 500th anniversary of the birth ofAndreas Vesalius (1514–1564) who is best known for changing how wedo medical research with his groundbreaking book, De HumaniCorporis Fabrica Libri Septem (Seven Chapters on the Structure of theHuman Body), published in 1543 and generally known as De Fabrica.
But it also marks another anniversary: the 450th year since his deathon October 15, 1564 on the island of Zakynthos, also known as Zante,in what is today Greece.
Few details areknown aboutthe lastmoments of hislife on thisdistant island,however, he
OCTOBER
15
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Jerusalem, from The Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493.
was apparentlyreturning byship from apilgrimage toJerusalem;amid a greatdeal of roughweather, theship put in on
the island, then a possession of the Republic of Venice, and Vesaliusdied there, possibly from a contagious disease, poor conditions on theship, or a combination of the two. No contemporary documents abouthis death have been found on the rural island, and no one has yetbeen able to find the site of his burial.
Another mystery is why Vesalius decided to embark on a journey to theHoly Land in the first place, something that some people did in theEarly Modern period as penance for a sinful act. The National Libraryof Medicine has an unusual contemporary document discussing oneof the supposed reasons for the trip. It is in the form of a hand writtencopy of a letter originally composed in Paris in January, 1565, less thanthree months after Vesalius’s death. The letter is from Hubert Languet(1518–1581), a Protestant diplomat in the service of the Elector ofSaxony, to Caspar Peucer (1525–1602), a physician based inWittenberg and the son-in-law of Protestant theologian PhilipMelanchthon.
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The manuscript copy of the letter, in Latin, begins, “The word goingabout is that Vesalius is dead ….” Languet explains that Vesalius, whowas resident in Spain with close connections to King Philip II, hadbeen hired to treat a Spanish nobleman who subsequently died.Vesalius asked the family if he could perform an autopsy on the bodyto determine the cause of death, but when he cut into the body it wasdiscovered that the patient’s heart was still beating. The outragedfamily and the Inquisition apparently called for Vesalius’s execution formurder, however, the King himself intervened and saved Vesalius witha promise that he would perform penance for the crime by apilgrimage to Jerusalem and Mount Sinai. The brief letter is only twopages and is tipped into the front of a printed copy of HubertLanguet’s Historica Descriptio… Captae Urbis Gothae, published in1568. No other contemporary copies of this text exist, although Frenchsurgeon Ambroise Paré gives a similar account in his Complete Worksin 1579 of an unnamed “famous anatomist” having to flee Spain aftermaking this mistake on a Spanish noblewoman who was presumeddead.
Vesalius’s most prominent
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A new memorial to Andreas Vesalius (1514–
1564) in Zakynthos, Greece.
Courtesy Guy Cobolet
Vesalius’s most prominentbiographer Charles O’Malleybelieved that the story ofthe undead cadaver wasbacked up by too littlecontemporary evidence. Hesuggested that theanatomist may have usedthe pilgrimage as an excuseto leave the Spanish courtso that he could reclaim hischair in anatomy at theUniversity of Padua after thedeath of the holder of thatchair Gabriele Fallopio, whohad passed away in 1562.Another source states thatVesalius had been severelyill for a time in early 1564and decided to perform apilgrimage to the Holy Landout of gratitude for his recovery. Considering how famous AndreasVesalius still was at the time of his death, it is surprising that there isnot more contemporary documentation on why he went on hispilgrimage.
This past September, scholars and Vesalius enthusiasts held aconference to commemorate Vesalius’s tragic and mysterious death onthe island of Zakynthos, where more than one memorial to the greatanatomist can be found.
The National Library of Medicine has scanned and made available over40 pages of the famous woodcut images from De Fabrica at highresolution, and many of them are described in the Library’s Turningthe Pages project featuring the work. The National Library of Medicinehas a large collection of works by and about Andreas Vesalius and hisgroundbreaking approach. To learn more about them, please feel freeto contact us at [email protected].
This article is the fifth in a series to commemorate the 500th
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anniversary of the birth of the great anatomist Andreas Vesalius, bornon December 31, 1514.
Michael J. North is the Head of Rare Books and EarlyManuscripts in the History of Medicine Division at theNational Library of Medicine.
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