74 HUMAN DISSECTION. ITS DRAMA AND STRUGGLE 



1, The Church and Dissection during the Renaissance 



One of the outstanding features of the Renaissance is that 

 human dissection was tolerated at all. This again brings up the 

 question of the stand taken by the Church, which was both ec- 

 clesiastical and temporal in power. It is probable that the popu- 

 lace was more hostile to it than the theological authorities. The 

 Popes did not actually try to prevent it as evidenced by the fact 

 that permission was given to Italian and other European schools 

 which were under theurgic control. There was no teaching that 

 the corpse was sacred or that using the scalpel was sacrilegious. 

 Walsh ('04) staunchly defended this attitude believing that the 

 Church was deeply interested in medicine and encouraged legal 

 regulation of it as well as the establishment of medical schools. 



It was Pope Sixtus IV (A.D. 1414-1484), who had been a 

 student at Padua and Bologna, who gave permission to open 

 human bodies. This undoubtedly promoted the development of 

 anatomy during the latter part of the 15th Century and established 

 a precedent. Pope Clement VII (1478-1534) also sanctioned this. 

 Under the supervision of these two ecclesiastical authorities, 

 (Conditions for anatomical study improved and later Rome became 

 somewhat of an anatomical center. Emperor Charles V (1500- 

 1558) asked the faculty at Salamanca for its opinion regarding 

 dissection; the teachers replied that they thought it was permis- 

 sible according to the edicts of the Catholic Church. 



2. Role of Artists in Anatomical Renaissance 



The influence of the artist, in respect to anatomy, during the 

 early stages of the Renaissance cannot be overestimated. It was he 

 who was primarily interested in muscles, bodily action and pos- 

 ture and he made every effort to dissect when and where he could. 

 Quite a lengthy list of the painters known to have been involved 

 in human dissection could be presented. Among them can be men- 

 tioned such names as Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Michel- 

 angelo (1475-1564), Albrecht Durer (1471-1519), and Titian 

 (Tiziano Vecellio, 1477-1576). There is some question as to 

 whether Donatello (Donato di Niccolo di Betto Bardi, 1386 

 1466) or Antonio Pollaiuolo (1429-1498) was the first artist to 

 actually dissect a human subject. The former, in a painting en- 



