SEMINAR
The many reasons why Vesalius's Fabrica
was an important book
Sachiko Kusukawa (Trinity College, University of Cambridge)*
Dijous
26 de noviembre de 2015 12.00h
Lloc:
Residència d’Investigadors (CSIC-Generalitat de Catalunya)
c/ Hospital, 64. 08001 Barcelona
ENTRADA LLIURE
Coordinen:
Jon Arrizabalaga (IMF-CSIC) i Fernando Vidal (ICREA/CEHIC-UAB)
Activitat organitzada
per la Institució Milà i Fontanals (CSIC, Barcelona) i el Centre d’Història de
la Ciència (UAB)
amb la col·laboració
de la Residència d’Investigadors i la participació del SGR 1410 - HIS-STM
* Professor Sachiko Kusukawa is Fellow in History and
Philosophy of Science of Trinity College, University of Cambridge. Her research
specialism is in history of science, cultural and intellectual history, and the
history of the book. She has published on Protestant natural philosophy,
university textbooks and libraries, and visual arguments in illustrated
scientific books. Recent research has focused on the observational, descriptive
and pictorial practices in the development and production of scientific
knowledge in the early modern period (1500-1720). Her work on visual arguments
in sixteenth-century botanical and anatomical works has resulted in the monograph
Picturing the book of nature. Image, Text, and Argument in Sixteenth-Century
Human Anatomy and Medical Botany (University of Chicago Press, 2012) for
which she was awarded the 2014 Pfizer Prize by the History of Science Society.
In 1998, a coloured copy of Andreas
Vesalius’ On the fabric of the human body, the dedication copy to
Emperor Charles V, was sold at Christies for $1.65 million. An uncoloured copy
in contemporary binding was auctioned for $412,000 in 2011. The book is perhaps
the most iconic book in the history of medicine, and has been a desirable
object to collect for retired physicians with deep pockets. But is such a high
esteem justified, especially when few of the modern collectors have read or
understood the Latin text? Some historians of art have argued that the
text of the book is irrelevant, as it is the illustrations –even if they were
not made by Titian– that make the book exceptional. This talk will discuss the
significance of Vesalius’ book in terms of its images and text, its design as a
book, and its content in the context of sixteenth-century medical book
production, and will offer a brief survey of its reception in later periods.
