Andreas Vesalius and the ‘sharp-eyed and careful reader’

A key element in Vesalius’s De humani corporis fabrica (1543) is the identifying lettering applied to its anatomical figures, allowing Vesalius to integrate image and text in an unprecedented way. Andreas Vesalius’s discussion of the lettering in the Fabrica and in its compendium, the Epitome (1543), is a rich source of information for his concerns and aims for these remarkable illustrations. A study of the amendments to woodblocks in the first Latin edition of the Epitome and in the revised edition of the Fabrica (1555), done to improve the legibility of characters obscured by shadow and to correct lettering, offers new information regarding the chronology of their printing and demonstrates that Vesalius continued to reconsider and improve his illustrations up to the moment of printing

Chronology · History of the book · Key (lock) · Legibility · Lettering · Shadow (psychology) · Architecture and Art History Studies · History of Medicine Studies · Renaissance and Early Modern Studies