Historical Introduction THE birth of Andreas Vesalius took place on the last day of 1514 or
early on the following morning. This uncertainty about the origins of so famous
an anatomist exemplifies much about his career, his aims, and his intellectual
debts to others. His eventual appointment as personal physician to the most
powerful monarch in Europe has been regularly viewed as an aberration or as a
decision he came ultimately to regret. The very success of his programme for
the revival of human dissection has obscured what others were doing, or had
already done. The fame of his most important book, De humani corporis fabrica,
On the fabric of the human body, a prized possession of more than a hundred
libraries worldwide, has often led it to be seen as a typical product of the
renaissance genius, although it is almost alone as a medical book in the
elegance of its printing and in the beauty of its illustrations. This
introduction will attempt a more nuanced view by placing Vesalius into a broad
context, looking in turn at his life, his great book, and his impact on his
contemporaries.
