The establishment of botanical gardens in the sixteenth 

 century greatly advanced exact knowledge of plants, especially 

 those of medicinal value, to which the gardens were at first 

 limited. Italy was early in the field, a garden at Pisa under 

 the care of Luca Ghini dated from 1544; Bologna, Padua, 

 Venice soon followed suit, and the University of Paris began 

 one in 1558. Germany at this period had only private bota- 

 nical gardens, the best being that of Dr. Joachim Camerarius 

 at Nuremburg. Sinapius, already mentioned, founded the 

 imperial botanic garden under Rudolph II., which was after- 

 wards in charge of Charles de TEcluse, of Flanders. 



The botanical barnacles were nearly as numerous as the 

 zoological, but these have been noted in connection with 

 medicine, for plants were used as charms against misfortunes 

 quite as much as for remedies in sickness. 



In 1534, Andreas Vesalius, a Flemish youth, discrediting 

 the anatomical descriptions of the human body by Galen, 

 with great boldness stole the corpse of a criminal hanging in 

 chains on a gibbet in the outskirts of Louvain, and at immense 

 risk dissected it in his own ' bedroom ; he found that Galen 

 had based his account on the examination of lower animals, 

 and cautiously continued his studies which resulted nine years 

 later in a classical treatise on human anatomy, containing 

 excellent drawings and minute descriptions of the parts of 

 the body. Some of the plates in this magnificent work- 

 (De httmani corporis fabrica, 1543.), are said to have been 

 designed by Titian ; others were certainly drawn for Yesalius 

 by his countryman Johann Calcar, then a pupil of Titian. 

 Vesalius' zeal in dissection was indirectly the cause of his 

 death; according to a tradition, denied by some authors, he 

 was condemned to death for having opened the body of a 

 Spaniard before the sick man was quite dead. The sentence 

 was commuted at the intervention of Philip II., to a pilgrim- 



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