Turning the Pages: Andreas Vesalius’ De Humani Corporis Fabrica

One of our all time favourite medieval books we have made in to a Turning the Pages is Andreas Vesalius’ De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body) which you can view online, or at the British Library as a Turning the Pages Gallery kiosk.

The book is one of the most influential works in the history of Western medicine. Vesalius was both a gifted dissector and a learned scholar,  by collecting and presenting his research in De Fabrica he created the modern science of anatomy. The book was published in 1543, with more than 600 pages of text and beautifully detailed engravings by artists from the workshop of Titian. Looking at the engravings of the skeletons and muscle men, set in lifelike poses against the backdrop of the Italian countryside of Padua, you can see the obvious lasting influence of the book, right up to the present day with exhibitions such as Gunther von Hagens’ Body Worlds.

You can watch a short video capture of the interactive kiosk on our YouTube channel: