1st Edition

Anatomy and Anatomists in Early Modern Spain

By Bjørn Okholm Skaarup Copyright 2015

    Taking the Vesalian anatomical revolution as its point of departure, this volume charts the apparent rise and fall of anatomy studies within universities in sixteenth-century Spain, focussing particularly on primary sources from 1550 to 1600. In doing so, it both clarifies the Spanish contribution to the field of anatomy and disentangles the distorted political and historiographical viewpoints emerging from previous research. Studies of early modern Iberian science have only been carried out coherently and collaboratively in the last few decades, even though fierce debates on the subject have dominated Spanish historiography for more than two centuries. In the field of anatomy studies, many uninformed and biased readings of archival sources have resulted in a very confused picture of the practice of dissection and the teaching of anatomy in the Iberian Peninsula, in which the highly complex conditions of anatomical research within Spain’s national context are often oversimplified. The new empirical evidence that this book brings to light suggests a far more multifaceted narrative of Iberian Renaissance anatomy than has been presented to date.

    1: Early Modern Spanish Anatomy and ‘La polémica de la ciencia española'; 2: Valencia; 3: Salamanca; 4: Valladolid; 5: Alcalá de Henares; 6: Barcelona; 7: Zaragoza; 8: Beyond the Universities; 9: Beyond Iberia; 10: Images of Spanish Renaissance Anatomy; Conclusion

    Biography

    Bjørn Okholm Skaarup received his PhD from the European University Institute, Florence in 2009 and conducted post-doctoral research at the Warburg Institute, UK, and Columbia University, USA. He is also an artist whose work has been exhibited internationally.

    '"Anatomy and Anatomists in Early Modern Spain is a rich resource on two levels. It provides a comprehensive, English-language account of Spanish anatomy in the sixteenth century, especially detailed with respect to the university setting. The numerous publications produced in that period, primarily in Spanish, are carefully described in detail as are the myriad of figures who played a part in the development of anatomy. The secondary literature surrounding these topics is also carefully evaluated, and anyone seeking an up-to-date history of anatomy in Spain will welcome this book."

    - Metascience

    "This work is a useful and well researched contribution towards making available the flourishing history of medicine in Spain..."

    - Robert Weston, The University of Western Australia