of Persiceto, a country district not far from
Bologna, took up the study of anatomy with ardor and, strange as it may
appear, became especially enthusiastic about dissection. She became so
skilful that she was made the prosector of anatomy, that is, one who
prepares bodies for demonstration by the professors.

According to the "Cronaca Persicetana," quoted by Medici in his "History
of the Anatomical School at Bologna":

"She became most valuable to Mondino because she would cleanse most
skilfully the smallest vein, the arteries, all ramifications of the
vessels, without lacerating or dividing them, and to prepare them for
demonstration she would fill them with various colored liquids, which,
after having been driven into the vessels, would harden without
destroying the vessels. Again, she would paint these same vessels to
their minute branches so perfectly and color them so naturally that,
added to the wonderful explanations and teachings of the master, they
brought him great fame and credit." The whole passage shows a wonderful
anticipation of our most modern methods--injection, painting,
hardening--of making anatomical preparations for class and demonstration
purposes.

Some of the details of the story have been doubted, but her memorial
tablet, erected at the time of her death in the Church of San Pietro e
Marcellino of the Hospital of Santa Maria de Mareto, gives all the
important facts, and tells the story of the grief of her fiance, who was
himself Mondino's other assistant.[17] This was Otto Agenius, who had
made for himself a name as an assistant to the chair of anatomy in
Bologna, and of whom there were great hopes entertained because he had
already shown signs of genius as an investigator in anatomy. These hopes
were destined to grievous disappointment, however, for Otto died
suddenly, before he had reached his thirtieth year. The fact that both
these assistants of Mondino died young and suddenly, would seem to point
to the fact that probably dissection wounds in those early days proved
even more fatal than they occasionally did a century or more ago, when
the proper precautions against them were not so well understood. The
death of Mondino's two prosectors in early years would seem to hint at
some such unfortunate occurrence.

As regards the evidence of what the young man had accomplished before
his untimely death, probably the following quotation, which Medici has
taken from one of the old chroniclers,