Portrait of Andreas Vesalius

Dublin Core

Title

Portrait of Andreas Vesalius

Subject

Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564); Medicine in art

Description

The great anatomist Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) complained about the damaged reputation of medicine in his preface to De Fabrica Corporis Humani. Vesalius blamed the profession itself for abandoning standards deserving of the public trust: “But it was especially after the ruin spread by the Goths, when all the sciences went to ruin, that more fashionable doctors…despising the work of the hand, began to delegate to slaves the manual attentions which they judged needful for their patients, and themselves merely to stand over them like master builders.” In his author portrait from the Fabrica, Vesalius points to the hand of a dissected cadaver, suggesting that physicians should reclaim the territory relegated to barber-surgeons and practice medicine with their hands as well as their diplomas.

Creator

attributed to Jan van Calkar (ca. 1499-1546)

Source

Andreas Vesalius, De Fabrica corporis humani, Basel: Johannes Oportinus, 1543

Publisher

Johannes Oporinus (1507-1568)

Date

1543

Contributor

Debra Cashion, in collaboration with Elisabeth Barrett, '15

Format

Woodcut; original dimensions, 420 x 277 mm

Language

[no text]

Type

Still image

Identifier

[no text]

Coverage

[no text]

Files

Vesalius_1543_6v.tif

Citation

attributed to Jan van Calkar (ca. 1499-1546), “Portrait of Andreas Vesalius,” The Anatomist: Early Modern Medical Satire, accessed March 28, 2024, https://anatomist.omeka.net/items/show/2.