Juan de Valverde

Juan de Valverde (ca. 1525–ca. 1587).
Anatomia del corpo humano.
Rome: Antonio Salamanica and Antonio Lafrey, 1560. (BRC0006)

Juan de Valverde was a student of Realdo Columbo, a noted professor of anatomy and a surgeon at the University of Padua who had studied under Vesalius. Valverde became the most important anatomy specialist in Spain in the latter part of the sixteenth century, most well known for his Historia de la composicion del cuerpo humano. First printed at Rome in 1556, the text was more widely distributed after its translation into Latin and Italian. Although much of the text was based on the writings of Hieronymus Fabricius (1537–1619) and the majority of the images were derived from Vesalius’s De humani corporis fabrica, the work was still highly regarded. One of Valverde's most unusual original engravings, exhibited here, is that of a muscle figure holding its own skin in one hand and a knife in the other. The image has been compared to the depiction of Saint Bartholomew by Michelangelo in the Last Judgment located in the Sistine Chapel.