Overview

The great European Renaissance, or revival of thinking, had a major impact on the study of human anatomy. The development of medicine established by the Greeks and Romans, and imbued with a spirit of inquiry, had long served as the unchallenged standard of medical practice and belief. During the Middle Ages knowledge of the human body was enveloped with ignorance and superstition. A religious and cultural taboo against human dissection limited anatomical knowledge to what could be gleaned from the study of animal specimens.

All of this changed with the development of universities in Italy. Responding to the need of the times to understand the causes of death, anatomists began to challenge ancient traditions by performing dissections of the human body. They were aided by an unusual group of professionals, artists who sought to understand the nature of the...