his happened as well
in anatomy as in art and architecture and literature. Anatomical
science was a lusty infant of great promise when Vesalius, the Father
of Anatomy, came on the scene. The great painters, Raphael and
Lionardo and Michael Angelo, owed much to Giotto and Fra Angelico, who
had preceded them, but not more than Vesalius and his contemporaries,
who did such magnificent work in original anatomical investigation,
owed to Mondino, Bertrucci, Zerbi, Achillini, and above all to
Berengar of Carpi and Benivieni, who did their work before and just
after the sixteenth century opened. There is never a sudden
development in the history of any department of man's knowledge or
achievement, as there is nothing absolutely new under the sun, though
it is still the custom of the young man in his graduation essay to
talk of such things, and older men sometimes fail to realize the truth
that in history as in biology, life always comes from preceding
life--_omne vivum ex vivo_--and there is no such thing as spontaneous
generation.

If the achievements of this earlier period of scientific work, which
affected anatomy even more than any of the other sciences, be kept in
mind, the discussion of the Golden Age of Anatomy will find its proper
place in the history of the relation of the Popes to science. Though
the date of the Golden Age in Anatomy follows that of the so-called
reformation, there is absolutely no connection between the two series
of events, for the one took place in Germany and the other in Italy.
The Golden Age of Anatomy was indeed a perfectly {93} legitimate and
quite to be expected culmination of the anatomical interest which had
been gradually rising to a climax in the Italian universities during
the preceding century. It has a definite place in the evolution of
science, and is not a sudden or unlooked for phenomenon.

If there was any place in the world at the beginning of the sixteenth
century in which the ecclesiastical authorities had much to say with
regard to what should not be taught and what should not be studied in
the universities, it was Italy. In spite of this fact, all medical men
who wanted to do post-graduate work in medicine went down into Italy.
This was especially true for those who desired to obtain ampler
opportunities for anatomical study than were afforded by the rest of
Europe. In his maturer years as a student of medicine, Vesalius went
down to Italy in order to avail himself of the ma