1433?-1502

Italian Physician and Anatomist

Antonio Benivieni is considered a late pre-Vesalian anatomist. Decades before Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) published his landmark work of illustrated anatomy, De Humani Corporis Fabrica (1543), Benivieni was doing similar work.

The Renaissance was an exciting time because all arenas of knowledge acquisition were encouraged. Medieval dependence on authority was superceded by a need to observe and explore. Art, literature, philosophy, and science were cultivated and encouraged as a secular society increasingly grew away from theological explanations of existence and sought to find answers in the observable present. One of the most provocative goals in learning was the attempt to unravel the mystery of life. Confronting both theological taboos and pseudoscience, early anatomists sought to explain the interiority of living beings through dissection. What made people live, die, or become ill? Were there rational explanations for the cause of disease?

Although less well...