An écorché, seen in right profile, walking towards the right. Engraving, 1568.

1 print : engraving ; platemark 22.9 x 14.7 cm

Bears plate number: Tab. II. ; Lib. II.

A. W. Meyer and S. K. Wirt, "The Amuscan illustrations," Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 14, 1943, pp. 667-687

H. Cushing, A Bio-bibliography of Andreas Vesalius, 2nd ed., Hamden, Conn. and London 1962, pp. 145-148; 151-152

J. B. de C. M. Saunders and C. D. O'Malley, The illustrations from the works of Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, Cleveland and New York 1950, pp. 94-95, pl. 25

Max Rooses, Catalogue of the Plantin-Moretus Museum, 4th English ed. completed by M. Sabbe, Antwerp 1924, p. 134, no. 98 and n. 1

L. Voet, The golden compasses, Amsterdam 1969-1972, 2 vols, ii, passim

Wellcome Collection 27282i

This plate is probably a modern strike from the original copper engraved plate used for the 1568 Anatomie, published by the Plantin press in Antwerp, a Dutch translation of the Vivae imagines partium corporis humani published by the same press in 1566. The plates and their explanations for this edition were taken from Juan de Valverde's Anatomia del corpo humano (Rome and Venice 1559) and the text from Vesalius's Epitome (Basel 1543). Valverde's Anatomia, first published in Rome in Spanish in 1556 as Historia de la composicion del cuerpo humano, with plates engraved by Nicolo Beatrizet, was in turn based on the plates illustrating Andreas Vesalius's De humani corporis fabrica, published in Basel in 1543. Several of Valverde's plates, attributed to Gaspar Becerra, a Spanish artist working in Rome, show variations on those of Vesalius's and are not strict copies (see Meyer and Wirt 1945). The present plate ultimately derives from the second plate of book two of Vesalius, found on p. 174. It is in reverse of the Vesalian plate and omits the elaborate background of ruins and a hilltop town in favour of a simple ground line with some vegetation. The gesture of the raised hand of the Valverde figure is slightly altered so that the middle finger is now visible. Anatomically, the main change has been in the separation of the tensor fasciae latae muscle on the thigh of the forward leg in the Valverde figure, an alteration which Valverde notes in the explanation to the figure. The plates of the 1568 Dutch edition of the Plantin Anatomie are distinguished by the appearance of the plate and book number on the plate, boxed off. These were adapted from the 1566 plates, seven of which plus the title page, survive in the collection of the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp (Rooses 1924, p. 134, no. 98). The plates were engraved by Pieter and Frans Huys