n] Circulation of the Blood. '27 



Matheus Realdus Colombus, another in October confirming 

 the above but omitting Columbus " for we wish Vesalius alone 

 " to read the Lecture on Surgery." This suggests that the first 

 nomination of Columbus had been gained by means of which 

 the Senate did not approve. Later on when in 1542 Vesalius 

 left Padua for a while, there is evidence that Columbus, though 

 appointed deputy, did not wholly replace the absent professor ; 

 he did the dissections, and he was probably a very skilful 

 workman, but it would appear that one Montanus read the 

 lecture. Lastly, upon Vesalius' final departure in 1544, though 

 the records shew that Columbus was, as we have said, formally 

 appointed his successor for two years certain, he only retained 

 the chair for a year ; in 1545 he withdrew to Pisa. 



The great Florentine patrons of science and art were then 

 striving to make a famous University at Pisa. As we shall 

 see they so far succeeded that in later years Pisa outshone 

 Padua, Bologna and Rome; but at the time of which we are 

 speaking, a chair at Pisa was something like a chair now-a-days 

 in a small provincial College, a post sought after as an oppor- 

 tunity for winning one's spurs, a stepping-stone to better and 

 higher things. It was such to Falloppius, who professed 

 anatomy there from 1548 until his call to Padua in 1551. 

 Columbus' going to Pisa was therefore not a step in the way 

 of preferment ; some other reason must have been the cause of 

 his leaving Padua. He taught anatomy at Pisa until 1548, 

 when he received a call to the chair of anatomy in the University 

 at Rome, which he held until his earjy death in 1559. 



He left behind him one work only, his Be Re Anatomica 

 Libri xv. published by his children in 1559 after his death. 

 That book though it achieved fame, and indeed Harvey spoke 

 of its author with respect as of a great authority, is a mirror of 

 Columbus' character and attainments. It is, though much 

 shorter, an almost barefaced imitation of Vesalius' Fabrica. 

 The frontispiece even is a bad imitation of Vesalius' frontis- 

 piece, and the work ends as does Vesalius' with a chapter 

 on vivisection, the one being little more than a varied 

 repetition of the other. Throughout the work are tokens 

 of the vain man striving to exalt his own horn. He tells us 



