Bernardino Genga's Anatomia per Uso et Intelligenza del Disegno (Rome: Domenico de' Rossi, 1691). Domenico de' Rossi (1659 - 1730 was an Italian sculptor and engraver

Bernardino Genga (1620 — 1690) was a scholar of Classical medical texts, editing several works of Hippocrates. Hippocrates of Cos II or Hippokrates of Kos ( ca. 460 BC – ca He also had a great interest in the preparation of anatomical specimens as well as the anatomy of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. Anatomy (from the Greek anatomia, from ana separate apart from and temnein, to cut up cut open is a branch of Biology that is the consideration The sculpture of the Greek speaking world from the Lefkandi Centaur ca Roman sculpture refers to the Sculpture of Ancient Rome. Roman sculpture often involved copying of Ancient Greek sculpture. These interests led to his work at the French Academy in Rome, where he taught anatomy to artists. The French Academy in Rome (Académie de France à Rome is an Academy located in the Villa Medici, within the Villa Borghese, on the Pincio (Pincian Hill

He was born in Mondolfo in the Duchy of Urbino and died in Rome, where he practiced surgery in the Hospital of Santo Spirito in Sassia. Mondolfo is a Comune (municipality in the Province of Pesaro e Urbino in the Italian region Marche, located about 35 km northwest The Duchy of Urbino was a sovereign state of northern Italy The first lords of Urbino were the Montefeltro who obtained the title of counts from Emperor Frederick Rome ( Roma ˈroma Roma is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city with more than 2 Santo Spirito in Sassia ( Holy Spirit in Saxony) is a 12th century Basilica church in Rome.

In 1672, he published his noted Anatomia Chirurgica, a textbook for surgeons which went through a number of editions. A year after his death was published the beautiful Anatomia per Uso et Intelligenza del Disegno, which consisted of renderings of his anatomical preparations by the artist Charles Errard (1606-1689), director of the Accademia, and most likely engraved by François Andriot (d. Charles Errard the Younger (1606-1689 Rome) was a French painter architect and engraver co-founder and director of the Académie 1704). Giovanni Maria Lancisi (1654-1720), the Papal physician, edited the work and provided much of the commentary.

Anatomia per Uso et Intelligenza del Disegno consists of 59 copperplate engravings of text and illustrations printed on one side only. After the engraved title is a plate with allegorical emblems of death. Of the illustrated plates, the first 23 deal with osteology and myology drawn from Genga's anatomical preparations. Osteology is the scientific study of Bones. A Subdiscipline of Anthropology and Archeology, osteology is a detailed study Myology is the specialised study of muscles and muscle tissue. The remainder consists of representations of antique statues viewed from different angles, including the Farnese Hercules, the Laocoön (without his sons), the Borghese Gladiator, the Borghese Faun, the Venus de Medici, the Youth Pulling a Thorn from his Foot, and the Amazon of the House of Cesi. The Farnese Hercules is an ancient sculpture probably an enlarged copy made in the early third century AD by Glykon of an original of Lysippos or one of his circle of the fourth The so-called Borghese Gladiator is a Hellenistic lifesize marble sculpture that is actually of a swordsman The Venus de' Medici or Medici Venus is a lifesize Hellenistic marble sculpture depicting A variant of this work lacks the final three images and contains the words "libro primo" on the engraved title, though there was never a libro "secundo" published.

An English translation of the work appeared in London in 1723 under the title, Anatomy Improv'd.

Source

• Adapted from public domain text at Bernardino Genga Biography. Historical Anatomies on the Web. US National Library of Medicine.

References

• Amati, G. Bibliografia Romana: notizie della vita e delle opere degli scrittori Romani dal secolo XI fino ai nostri giorni. (Roma: Tipografia Eredi Botta, 1880). Pp. 131-132.
• Choulant, L. History and bibliography of anatomic illustration. Trans. and annotated by Mortimer Frank. (New York: Hafner, 1962). Pp. 254-255.
• Morton's Medical Bibliography (Garrison and Morton). Ed. By Jeremy Norman. Fifth ed. Aldershot, Hants, England : Scolar Press ; Brookfield, Vt. , USA : Gower Pub. Co. , 1991. No. 386.

External links

• Historical Anatomies on the Web. US National Library of Medicine. Selected pages scanned from the original work, Anatomia per Uso et Intelligenza del Disegno (Rome, 1691).