32 BIOLOGY AND ITS MAKERS 
buildings, etc. The employment of a background even in 
portrait-painting was not uncommon in the same century, 
as in Leonardo da Vinci’s well-known Mona Lisa, with its 
suggestive perspective of water, rocks, etc. 
Fig. 5 will give an idea on a small scale of one of the plates 
illustrating the work of Vesalius. The plates in the original 
are of folio size, and represent a colossal figure in the fore- 
ground, with a background showing between the limbs and 
at the sides of the figure. There is considerable variety as 
regards the background, no two plates being alike. 
Also, in delincating the skeleton, the artist has given to 
it an artistic pose, as is shown in Fig. 6, but nevertheless the 
bones are well drawn. No plates of equal merit had ap- 
peared before these; in fact, they arc the earliest generally 
known drawings in anatomy, although woodcuts represent- 
ing anatomical figures were published as carly as 1491 by 
John Ketham. Ketham’s figures showed only externals 
and preparations for opening the body, but rude woodcuts 
representing internal anatomy and the human skeleton had 
been published notably by Magnus Hundt, 1501; Phrysen, 
1518; and Berengarius, 1521 and 1523. Leonardo da Vinci 
and other artists had also executed anatomical drawings 
before the time of Vesalius. 
Previous to the publication of the complete work, Vesalius, 
in 1538, had published six tables of anatomy, and, in 1555, 
he brought out a new edition of the Fabrica, with slight 
additions, especially in reference to physiology, which will be 
adverted to in the chapter on Harvey. 
In the original edition of 1543 the illustrations are not 
collected in the form of plates, but are distributed through 
the text, the larger ones making full-page (folio) illustrations. 
In this edition also the chapters are introduced with an initial 
letter showing curious anatomical figures in miniature, some 
of which are shown in Fig. 7. 
