Richard
M. Ratzan brings together scholars and creative writers to celebrate the legacy
of the sixteenth-century Flemish physician and anatomist, Andreas Vesalius
(1514–1564), and his 1543 landmark text, De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On
the Fabric of the Human Body). Ratzan defines the volume as an “ekphrastic
collection of poetry, art and short prose” inspired by “the inimitably
conceived and executed anatomical woodcuts” of Vesalius’s most enduring
creation (xi). Organized by different genres, Ratzan presents introductory
essays, ekphrastic works, translations of Vesalius-inspired poems, and detailed
note and bibliography sections. The collection does not merely panegyrize but
articulates the deeper intellectual import of De Humani’s meticulous
anatomical renderings. Sachiko Kusukawa’s introductory essay frames De
Humani as a “rhetorically charged polemic and defense” that challenged the
European medical institution in two key ways (3). First, it promoted the
revival of the “ancient [Greek and Roman] practice of healing based on diet,
medicines and surgery,” a bold effort that aimed to resuscitate anatomy and
other forms of “hands-on engagement” that had fallen out of favor with
Vesalius’s contemporaries (2). Second, De Humani emendated the
anatomical descriptions advanced by Galen, a second-century physician who
promoted dissection in his Anatomical Procedures and whom European physicians
considered an authority (3). This volume captures the fascinating fusion of artistry
and intellectual individuality that characterizes Vesalius’s work.
