Annotated Translation of Vesalius' FABRICA

FAIN: RZ-20239-98

Northwestern University (Evanston, IL 60208-0001)
Daniel H. Garrison (Project Director: September 1997 to October 2005)

To support the preparation of a translation from Latin of Andreas Vesalius's DE HUMANI CORPORIS FABRICA, the work of Renaissance science that initiated modern observation and research in anatomy.

An annotated transaltion of Books II through VII of Andreas Vesalius' De humani corporis fabrica (1543, 1555). This continues work funded in part by the NEH translations program (RL-22268-95) over a three-year period ending August 1998, which has produced over 250,000 words of translation and commentary. Never before transalted into English, the Fabrica remains the most important work of Renaissance science inaccessible to modern readers. Though rooted in traditional ideologies, Vesalius laid the groundwork for observational science in medicine. Besides transalting, this project provides notes identifying anatomical parts, Vesalius' ancient sources, persons referred to, and controversies in which Vesalius became engaged. Substantive revisions of the 1555 edition are also translated. Book I is in its final stages and will be the first of four volumes of the fabrica to be published by Princeton University Press.