An anatomist making an incision from the neck through the upper ribs of a skeletal cadaver. He stands behind the cadaver, his right hand cutting with a large blade while his left arm comes round the cadaver's neck as he uses his left hand to pull back the ribs at the incision. Colour process print, 1926, after a manuscript illustration, 1345.

Guido de Vigevano was a fourteenth-century Lombard who served as physician to the Queen of France, Jeanne de Bourgogne. Full-scale facsimiles of the eighteen illustrations to his manuscript of Galenic medicine in the Musée Condé in Chantilly, no. 334 (ex 569), dedicated to King Philip VI of Valois, were published in 1926 by Wickersheimer, together with facsimiles of early editions of the Anatomy of Mundinus. The Vigevano illustrations depict the anatomy of the abdomen, thorax, and head, demonstrated on a skeletal cadaver, as well as examples of the medical treatment of living patients. This illustration features an unusual positioning of the anatomist behind the cadaver, probably chosen as an effective method of display rather than a reflection of actual practice. For other illustrations from the same manuscript, see catalogue nos 26646, 26656, 26662, 26682 and 26684