"Man of Padua" --

A Tale in the Vesalius Kiosk of NLM's "Dream Anatomy" Exhibit

**Oct 18, 2002**

**Glenn Pearson, Karen Steely, and Michael Sappol**

**Introduction**

At the US National Library of Medicine, an exhibit, "Dream Anatomy", is
running from Oct. 9, 2002 to July 31, 2003; a portion of this can be
seen at the web site:

> www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/dreamanatomy.

Within the exhibit are several touchscreen kiosks. One is based on an
earlier collaboration with the British Library to take a sampling of
images from Vesalius' anatomy book of 1531, and present it to the viewer
as book, whose pages can be turned by dragging a finger across them. For
the exhibit, several extensions where made to the presentation. Most
notably, four button-invoked "Tales" were embedded. Each is a
self-running multimedia piece of 4-5 minute duration, in which the book
appears in the background, and is programmatically flipped to particular
page spreads, to illustrate the theme being narrated. The voice-over is
also presented as a text crawl at the bottom.

Below is the annotated script for one of the tales, "Man of Padua",
supplemented with representative screenshots. In the live production,
images fade in and out, the "musclemen panoramas" move horizontally
across the screen, and the city views at the figures' feet enlarge and
fade away.

# The "Man of Padua" Tale

![](media/image1.jpeg){width="4.408333333333333in"
height="3.2159722222222222in"}

Vesalius wrote this book while a young professor at the University in
Padua, an ancient city in the northeast of Italy. He placed his
posturing anatomical figures in a landscape evocative of views from the
city. These backdrops can be joined together in various ways to form
panoramas of the countryside, a mix of real and imaginary elements.

![](media/image2.jpeg){width="4.504166666666666in"
height="3.285416666666667in"}

Padua lies between two rivers, about eight miles west of the lagoon of
Venice. Destroyed in 452 by Attila the Hun, Padua subsequently suffered
a long string of conquests. From 1405 to 1797, it was part of the
Republic of Venice, enjoying a period of prosperity and cultural vigor.

![](media/image3.jpeg){width="4.5152777777777775in" height="3.3875in"}

Vesalius arrived in Padua in 1537, after his medical training in Paris
and Louvain in Flanders. The perennially-embattled town was then
building an encircling fortified wall with moat. Within, major
structures included the courthouse palace seen here.

![](media/image4.jpeg){width="4.5152777777777775in"
height="3.3027777777777776in"}

Even more impressive were the churches, especially the eight-domed
Basilica of St. Anthony, the most richly decorated church in the region.
The high altar alone featured eight sculptures by Donatello, including a
statue of St. Anthony, who was born and died in Padua. Throughout
Vesalius's stay, artists and artisans continued to embellish the
buildings of Padua and nearby Venice with sumptuous art.

![](media/image5.jpeg){width="4.384722222222222in"
height="3.1979166666666665in"}

![](media/image6.jpeg){width="4.272222222222222in"
height="3.2368055555555557in"}

Examples include frescos by Mantegna, reliefs by Jacopo Sansovino, and
paintings by Titian. Portrayals of figures in a landscape of deep
perspective no doubt influenced Vesalius and the art students he
employed in Titian's Venetian workshop.

![](media/image7.jpeg){width="4.0368055555555555in"
height="2.946527777777778in"}

Vesalius was drawn to Padua by its reputation as a fount of learning in
law, theology, astronomy, and particularly medicine. This centered on
its university, established in 1222, one of the earliest in Italy.

![](media/image8.jpeg){width="4.142361111111111in"
height="3.1243055555555554in"}

By Vesalius' time, the university was pre-eminent among the handful of
European medical colleges. Colleagues of Vesalius would include
Francesco Bonafede, who in 1545 founded the first public Botanical
Garden, still in use, to teach medicinal herbs.

![](media/image9.jpeg){width="4.0368055555555555in"
height="3.048611111111111in"}

In his teaching, Vesalius made use of an anatomical theater, an idea
conceived just fifty years earlier. The theater highlights the role of
teacher as skilled performer, and lets a larger audience view a
dissection, a one-shot performance. While the image of the theatre shown
here suggests a permanent structure, this is artistic embellishment. The
actual structure was probably a temporary wood-frame affair, put up only
during the winter season, when cadavers would keep well.

![](media/image10.jpeg){width="4.029861111111111in"
height="2.939583333333333in"}

Vesalius successfully established the role of dissection in producing
reliable medical knowledge. This led to the construction of Padua's
first permanent anatomical theater in 1594, placed next to a canal so
that cadavers could be easily transported there. The successor to this
theater can be seen at this site today. Through professors like
Vesalius, and later, Galileo, the University of Padua helped birth the
scientific revolution.

**Other Tales**

Besides "Man of Padua", other tales that the viewer can select are:

-   "Portraying Anatomy". Discusses the groundbreaking modes of
    anatomical representation due to Vesalius.

-   "Getting Deep, Getting Real". Begins with Vesalius' use of
    progressive, layered dissection, and shows some ways this treatment
    has been extended in modern anatomical rendering and medical
    education.

-   "The Slice". Surveys the use of cross-sectioning in anatomy and
    histology, its deployment in the Visible Human project, and its
    extension to non-invasive anatomical and diagnostic methods such as
    X ray, MRI and CT scanning, and ultrasound.

-   "Credits". Kiosk contributors and photo/illustration credits

![](media/image11.jpeg){width="4.006944444444445in"
height="3.027083333333333in"}