Irony

The world’s largest collection of sixteenth-century anatomical prints, or ‘fugitive sheets’ has been digitized and is available online, thanks to the Wellcome Library.  There are nineteen prints with pop-up action allowing the reader to see different organ systems in the order of dissection.  In this male and female set you can see both still images and video of the flaps being lifted—brilliant!  (I do wish that more of the entries offered stills, since the video is cool but it’s hard to get a detailed view of the different layers.)

I’m in the process of looking through all these, but I’m especially intrigued by this one.  Can you guess who’s making an unauthorized celebrity cameo?  It’s Vesalius’s head on that body, copied from his full-page portrait in the Fabrica.  Right next to an organ (on the right) taken from the same book.  Vesalius spent a great deal of energy, even prior to publication, in trying to forestall the plagiarism of his work.  I doubt, though, that even he imagined his own head would end up on a perpetually-being-dissected body.  One has to wonder about the motives of the artist—an ironic joke at the great dissector’s expense?

Here’s the original portrait for comparison:

Memento Mori Part II

A few weeks ago I wrote about the evolution of anatomy illustrations, promising that the second part of the series would appear the following week.  If you’ve been waiting, I apologize, but I have a good excuse—Scientific American contacted me about doing a similar slideshow for their website, which has just gone live.  Very exciting!  There are ten images, a couple are based on my previous post, but most completely new: check it out.

Memento Mori Part I

Quid me mihi detrahis? Who is it that tears me from myself?     – Ovid, The Metamorphosis Book VI

I recently began an essay on the evolution of images in anatomy books between 1450 and 1800, and I thought I’d share some of my early research.  All the images I’ve used are from the National Library of Medicine, which has an excellent historical anatomy exhibit.  Clicking on the pictures below will take you to the appropriate section of the NLM website for more images, biographies, and bibliographies.  (And a word of warning, some might find the illustrations graphic, disturbing, or not safe for work.)  Part II will hopefully appear sometime next week.

Sources:

• Books of the Body: Anatomical Ritual and Renaissance Learning by Andrea Carlino
• The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body in Renaissance Culture by Jonathan Sawday
• The Art of Anatomy: Depicting the Body from the Renaissance to Today by Rifkin, Ackerman, and Folkenberg.

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Although curiosity about the body has long been a feature of human culture, anatomical science stagnated during the Middle Ages, a time when the words of classical authorities were valued over discovery.  Rather than working from observation or experimentation, medieval scholars compiled, rewrote, and annotated older medical works, particularly those of Galen.  It wasn’t until the late Middle Ages and Renaissance that increasingly literate and intellectual segments of society, renewed interest in science and discovery, and advances in printing resulted in the production of new anatomical treatises that eclipsed the achievements of the past and led to the foundation of modern anatomy.  But these new volumes were not purely scientific or didactic.  Luxury texts intended for an erudite, upper-class audience beyond the medical profession, they mixed art, science, and religion to create dramatic meditations on the natures of flesh and soul and the meaning of the body’s short existence.

Fasciculus de medicina

The first printed anatomy book was published in Venice in 1492 by the Gregorio brothers.  A Latin translation of a work by a little known German physician named Johannes de Ketham, it was planted firmly in the medieval medical tradition.  The book, which included treatises on subjects such as bloodletting, urinoscopy, and dissection, became an important teaching text, but its sumptuous woodcuts were also geared toward an audience of wealthy intellectuals.  A major success, it was republished in 1493 with new illustrations showing contemporary medical scenes including a dissection, and it appeared in twelve editions within a decade.  Though produced by a workshop, the designs are good examples of the clean, classical style of Venetian Renaissance illustration.  Below is the traditional zodiac man as well as a dissection scene, which portrays an anatomy lesson as performed in the late Middle Ages.  The young lector reads from an anatomical text, most likely Galen, while the sector, an uneducated barber/surgeon, preforms the dissection, and the ostensor, a high ranking professor, translates the words of the lector and directs the sector.  At this time dissection was not an act of observation and discovery, but was a tightly controlled public ritual intended to reinforce the authority of classical medical texts.  The illustration indicates the importance of the text by the prominent placement of the lector relative to the other figures, including the higher ranking ostensor.

Isagogae breves

This book, published in 1522 and 1523 by the humanist physician Jacopo Berengario da Carpi, is credited as the first printed anatomy text based on direct observation of the body.  Berengario was deeply skeptical of traditional anatomical practice, saying that a good anatomist ‘does not believe anything in his discipline simply because of the spoken or written word: what is required here is sight and touch.’  Though the woodcuts are artistically and anatomically crude, part of their importance lies in their reflection of Italian Renaissance culture.  Berengario was an art collector, and many of the figures are based on rediscovered classical art, religious images, and important works by Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael.  Berengario recognized the importance of anatomical knowledge for artists, and he recommended his book for their use as well as that of medical students.  The half-flayed figure below is in the traditional pose of an Apollo with light rays.  Other illustrations represent the redemptive potential of dissection, which was believed to help atone for the sins of the criminals whose bodies were commonly used for this purpose.  Several images of partially draped female nudes indicate a tension between sexual modesty and the display of dissected reproductive organs.

De humani corporis fabrica

One of the most famous medical texts of all time, The Fabric of the Human Body (1543) by Andreas Vesalius, was the first truly modern anatomical book.  Vesalius was a Flemish surgeon of the University of Padua who had been trained in the Galenic tradition.  Based on his own experience with dissection he rejected Galen as the ultimate authority and argued that surgeons should make their own observations, and he corrected many Galenic mistakes, such as the multi-lobed liver, that had been passed from text to text through the Middle Ages.  Vesalius and his collaborators were also some of the first people to grasp the full potential of the printed book, using the title page, illustrations, initials, and chapter/paragraph subdivisions to create a harmonious and practical work.  Vesalius’s illustrations were most likely based on his own careful drawings, and he worked closely with the woodcut artist Jan Stefan van Kalkar, a member of Titian’s studio.  This partnership resulted in extremely accurate and detailed work, better than anything that proceeded it.  But these are not just sterile medical images—the cadavers display human emotions of sadness, despair, and mourning.  The skeleton below ponders mortality in a memento mori which would reappear throughout western culture, including in Shakespeare.  The second appears to pray, or to be bent in agony.  Throughout the book dead trees and barren landscapes, representing death, are contrasted with churches and the promise of eternal life.

De dissectione partium corporis humani

Charles Estienne, a member of the famous printing family of Paris, began work on this book during the 1530s, hoping it would replace the Isagogae breves of Berengario.  He had been a student in Paris at the same time as Vesalius, sharing the former’s interest in dissection and the belief that direct observation was more important than the words of authorities.  Unfortunately, while Estienne’s book contributed some new discoveries to the science of anatomy, it was plagued by legal issues regarding the artwork and was not published until two years after De humani corporis fabrica.  One of the interesting aspects of Estienne’s book is that it includes a number of woodcuts of nude women that were, according to Rifkin, originally intended as ‘genteel humanist erotica’, but were altered by partial dissection and the inclusion of anatomical information relating to reproductive anatomy.  Included are Bathsheba being spied upon by David (below), as well as the goddesses Venus, Antiope, and Proserpina.  A good example of the complex relationships between art, medicine, books, and sex during the early modern era.

CSI: Rare Book Room (cue the dramatic music)

There’s a piece in Wired today on a North Carolina State University professor who’s investigating the use of DNA analysis for medieval manuscripts.  He hopes to create a database of manuscripts with known provenance for comparison with unknown manuscripts.  While I find this intriguing, and do think it could be a good tool in combination with textual and palaeographic methods, I find myself becoming wary at talk of one technology solving all our historical problems.

In addition to pinpointing manuscript origin, such a taxonomy could flesh out the as-yet-murky transition from monastic to commercial publishing.

“When did books become a business, as opposed to something monks did? That’s a puzzle nobody knows,” said Stinson. “This could be a social history of producing a good for trade.”

Actually, we know a lot about this subject already.  Lay scribes and illuminators (usually transient) were common in the late Middle Ages, and they often worked on books cooperatively with monastic communities.  During the twelfth century monastic influence waned and urban universities developed, increasing the need for  both secular and religious books.  Scribes began to settle down and became integrated into academic communities, and the stationer system was developed in order to protect students and provide some university control over book production (a bit like the authorized campus bookstores we have today).  Licensed stationers loaned scribes exemplars called pecia, from which they copied texts.  Because each pecia was only part of a book, multiple scribes could work on a text simultaneously.  It was this early mass production/piece-work system that paved the way for the printing press in the fifteenth century.

DNA analysis could help fill the gaps in our knowledge of this period, but I certainly wouldn’t describe it as solving ‘a puzzle nobody knows’ or the forging of a new type of social history.  I’m not inclined, however, to blame the researcher, as I assume that Wired has focused on only the most exciting bits from the interview.

Making Visible Embryos

The Cambridge University Department of the History and Philosophy of Science has created an absolutely wonderful online exhibition called Making Visible Embryos.  It looks at changing perceptions and imagery regarding human prenatal development from the late Middle Ages to the present, and includes illustrations from a number of interesting, early modern printed works.  The exhibit is extensive – make sure you go through both layers of tabs to get all the good stuff.

Occam’s Razor Tattoo

One of the fascinating sub-topics of book history is writing and the body.  Both writing and reading are very physical, intimate acts.  Medieval monks considered copying books to be a form of manual labor that involved the entire body and resulted in aching backs, cramped hands, and tired eyes.  Even typing on the computer can be quite physical as we direct our concentration intensely to the screen and keyboard.  Bringing the connection full-circle, I’m also intrigued by the act of writing permanently on the body, especially when it goes beyond a pictorial tattoo and into the realm of text.  Carl Zimmer maintains a very cool collection of science tattoo photos, and posted this one earlier today.  It’s quite striking (and very appropriate to the idea of writing with the body, as William of Occam was a 14th century Francescian friar and scholar), and I’d love to find out more about the origin of this version, which looks an 18th century(?) script.

If you happen to be in Madison, WI

The UW-Madison Department of Special Collections has created what looks like a fascinating exhibit on the use of color in scientific books between the 15th and 20th centuries.  It’s in conjunction with the 2008 Culture of Print in Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine conference taking place in September, but the exhibit will be open all summer.  It focuses on changing color technologies and how the use of color was approached from a scientific perspective, drawing from the library’s extensive science and natural history collection.   For more information visit the Special Collections website.

Happy 4th of July!

Obviously I’m very busy mixing fireworks and alcohol this weekend, but I’ve somehow managed to squeeze in a links post.

— You’ve likely seen this already, but a bookseller in Georgia (represent!) discovered an amazing porn stash in hollowed out books.  Booksaga is definitely a new favorite, featuring great writing and really funny stories of life as a small town bookseller.  Thanks to William for the link.

— Bibliophile Bullpen went to the thrift store and found the coolest thing ever.  I want one.

I went to the thrift store a couple of weeks ago.  Found an awesome old Polaroid camera set for a couple of bucks.  Bummer.  Bought it anyway.

— It sounds like Jeremy had a great trip to Charlottesville!

— More amusing housecalls from Bookride.

— Hoefler & Frere-Jones present a 223-year old specimen sheet featuring the “smallest letter in the world” at 4 points.

— Instructables has a nice article on getting started with wood block printing.  Via Moleskinerie

— Be sure to check out the excellent multi-part Slate piece on the troublesome science of gender differences.  There’s an entire page on the supposed gap in verbal abilities between men and women.  Good stuff.

— Bill Gates gets his old textbook back.  Aww.  Via Book Patrol.

Egypt and the Engraving Machine

The man above, Nicolas-Jacques Conté, was the inventor of the modern pencil and the world’s first engraving machine.  I’ve been reading about him in Napoleon and the Scientific Expedition to Egypt, an online exhibit from the Linda Hall Library (all the images in this post are from the LHL.)

Conté was one of Napoleon’s 150 savants, intellectuals charged with the study of Egypt’s culture and natural history during the French invasion, which began in 1798.  Conté was known as a mechanical genius (he was put in charge of the expedition’s balloon corps,) but had originally been a portrait painter in pre-Revolutionary France.  As a cultural observer in Egypt he made detailed studies of local trades and technologies, and he became responsible for publishing the expedition’s scientific record, the Description de l’Égypte, after his return to France in 1802. (Though he died in 1805 before the project was completed.)

The Linda Hall exhibit explains the necessity for mechanical engraving in producing the Description:

The first edition of the Description de l’Égypte eventually included 837 copperplate engravings, most of them impressively large elephant folios and some of them even bigger, double-elephant folios that were twice as large.  A single plate might require hundreds of engraved lines to faithfully portray, for example, the cloudless Egyptian sky.  The sky had to appear dark at the top and fade gradually to a pale expanse at the horizon… It stretched the limits of human ability, and the time to complete a single plate by traditional methods could be up to six months.

Conté’s machine (pictured below in an engraving from the Description) made it possible to quickly create long, uniform lines in a variety of depths.  This cut production time down from months to days for each plate, though it still took 20 years for the entire work to be completed due to the vast amounts of material and the difficulties of compiling and organizing all of it.

I’ve been reading about this engraving machine all over the internet and I’m still not 100% positive about how it worked, though it looks simple enough.  I’m also curious to know if it was embraced in Europe and whether it had an impact on engraving in general.  I don’t know much about engraving, though, so it’s hard to say.  (Come to think of it, I have lots of unanswered questions like, ‘what happened to make the eye patch necessary?’)

The next image is the example page, showing the different engraving patterns the machine was capable of producing (click for a larger version):

And here’s a complete engraving, demonstrating how the machine was able to give texture and depth to the sky (click for a larger image):

I particularly liked this quote, from a 2006 NY Times piece, about the engravings:

The versatile Conté met the challenge of the images’ imposing scale and fine detail by inventing an engraving machine that yielded a more subtle spectrum of grays relatively easily…. Perhaps this facilitated the almost preternatural fusion of subject and medium that distinguishes these prints. The geometry of ancient Egyptian architecture, illuminated by harsh Egyptian light, could not have been better suited to the eerie formalities of the engraving technique and its miragelike effects.

If you’ve found this interesting I definitely recommend checking out the entire exhibit.  The content is very satisfying, with lots of commentary and images, and I was totally enthralled reading about a bunch of nerds on an extended scientific adventure (quite often the artists would paint other savants painting Egyptian artifacts!)  The engravings in the Description are some of the most enduring images of Egypt created by Europeans, and I couldn’t even count the number of times I’ve seen one in a history book or documentary, so it’s very nice to have the whole story.

You can also view the entire Description online via the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.  The presentation is somewhat unfortunate, but the images are nice and can be enlarged.

History of the Birds of New Zealand Part II

I wrote recently about discovering naturalist Walter Buller and his lovely History of the Birds of New Zealand. To find out more, I made an interlibrary loan request for his biography, Walter Buller, the Reluctant Conservationist by Ross Galbreath, and it finally arrived two weeks ago from the Library of Congress. This was really exciting in and of itself because I’ve never borrowed from the LOC before. The downside is that you have to use their books within the library, so I spent a couple of weeks worth of lunch hours reading it.

It was definitely worth it. Galbreath does a great job telling Buller’s life story and setting it within the social, political and scientific contexts of the time. In fact, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in general New Zealand history. It contains a wealth of information about European colonization, including relationships between settlers and Maori, the shady land deals that occurred on a huge scale, and the settlers’ shifting attitudes toward land, nature and the colonial relationship with Britain. The only thing to be aware of is that the author presupposes a familiarity with New Zealand history, including Maori words and cultural concepts that are not well known outside the country.

Best of all for the book historian, Galbreath includes lots of information on the production and distribution of Buller’s books, including a nice explanation of the differences in lithography (used in the first edition) and chromolithography (used in the second edition,) as well as a series of images showing the working process of the artist J. G. Keulemans.

You can see in the following photo some of the differences between the editions, with the more delicate and vibrant hand-colored lithograph at the top and the olive-toned (because of the type ink used in the process) chromolithograph at the bottom.

As for Buller himself, I was completely unprepared for what I found in the biography. I’d read Audubon’s diaries, so I thought I was inured to mindless slaughter in the name of science, but Buller’s sheer effrontery really blew me away. Part of it was due to the time period. Many Europeans justified the destruction of native species as “survival of the fittest,” the fittest being the introduced species and the Europeans themselves. It is clear that Buller held this view his entire life. He wrote repeatedly that New Zealand birds had no hope of survival, and rather than instituting what he saw as useless protective measures, the only logical step was to take as many specimens as possible before they were all extinct.

At the end of the 19th century, however, sentiments changed. Activists in Britain and the colonies began to see native flora and fauna as deserving of protection. This became a moral issue, with New Zealand one of the first countries to incorporate the word conservation into the vernacular.

Buller, always keen to impress the European elite, publicly paid lip service to this ideal while continuing to take rare specimens for himself and as gifts for prominent British scientists and aristocrats, often sending multiples of the same species to one person. Even after hunting bans were imposed he continued to take specimens. When an island nature preserve was proposed he offered to organize an expedition to capture live Huia on the mainland and transfer them to the island. Instead, he sent the birds to a collector in Britain and told the government that the trip had been fruitless. At this time he wrote publicly of his sadness at the loss of native species, but in private continued to argue that the birds were doomed anyway.

Galbreath argues that, ironically, it was Buller’s own books that helped change the perception of New Zealand wildlife. The beautiful and widely popular illustrations contributed toward the new perception that the country’s flora and fauna were unique and special, and should be considered a source of national pride rather than something to be replaced by European species. New Zealanders whose conservation ideals had been, in part, shaped by Buller’s work now derided his endless quest for specimens and lukewarm support of preservation schemes.

Buller’s legacy is mixed. Luckily, it was his views of conservation that passed into history, while his book A History of the Birds of New Zealand retains its status as a work of natural history and art. Its approachable text and iconic illustrations helped to shape a culture of preservation that is still an important aspect of New Zealand society.  I’d definitely recommend both the History of the Birds of New Zealand and Ross Galbreath’s excellent biography to anyone with an interest in natural history and the conservation movement.