First dated printed edition of the first medieval book devoted solely to anatomy, written by Mondino for his students in 1316. An earlier, but undated edition, of which only 3 copies are recorded, appeared in Padua about 1475 (ISTC no. im00871200). Mondino re-introduced human dissection, which had been neglected for 1500 years before him. He was the most noted dissector of his period, and he set forth the medieval anatomical vocabulary, deriving it mainly from Arabic. Singer, in his translation of the work,The Fasciculo di medicina, Venice 1493; with an introduction etc. by Charles Singer, . . . [including a] translation of the "Anathomia" of Mondino da Luzzi (1925), added an ample glossary of terms of Arabic origin. Facsimile reproduction in E. Wickersheimer’s Anatomies de Mondino dei Luzzi et de Guido de Vigevano, Paris, 1926. ISTC no. im00871500. Digital facsimile from Universität Tübingen at this link.

This Italian translation contains an entirely new and more extensive series of woodcuts and additional text. The dramatically improved and more realistic illustrations, which were reproduced in the numerous later editions, are by an unknown artist, about whom there has been much speculation. He was certainly close to the school of Giovanni Bellini. The dissection scene appears in color only in this edition and is one of the first three known examples of color printing, its four colors having been applied by means of stencils. Facsimile edition with extensive commentary by Charles Singer, 2 vols., Milan, 1925. 

In the woodcuts prepared for the Italian edition we see the first evidence of the transition from medieval to modern anatomical illustration. In the 1491 edition, the woodcut of the female viscera—like those of the Zodiac Man, Bloodletting Man, Wound-Man, etc.—was derived from the traditional non-representational squatting figure found in medieval medical manuscripts. However, the illustrations for the Italian edition "included an entirely redesigned figure showing female anatomy. . . . The scholastic figure from 1491 must have irritated the eyes of the artistic Venetians to such a degree that they immediately abandoned it. After this the female figure actually sits in an armchair, so that the traditional [squatting] position corresponds to a real situation" (Herrlinger, History of Anatomical Illustration, 66).  ISTC no. ik00017000. Digital facsimile from Biblioteca Palatina, Parma (BEIC) at this link.

The work was reprinted with a volume of commentary: Fasiculo de Medicina in Volgare, Venezia, Giovanni e Gregorio De Gregori, 1494. Vol. I: Facsimile dell'esemplare conservato presso la Biblioteca del Centro per la storia dell'Università di Padova. Vol. 2: Tiziana Pesenti, Il "Fasciculus medicinae" ovvero le metamorfosi del libro umanistico. (Treviso: Antilia, 2001).

Facsimile of the 1478 edition of Mondino's Anothomia along with the text and 18 plates from Guido de Vigevano's (fl. 14th century) Anathomia. Vigevano's manuscript, completed in 1345, is MS. 569 in the Musée Condé at the Chateau de Chantilly. In his Anathomia Vigevano discusses the usefulness of using drawings for the demonstration of anatomy as well as the church's attitude toward dissection of the human body. According to Wickersheimer, the Papal Bull of Boniface VIII in 1300 was not aimed at curtailing dissection, but was intended to halt the practice of boiling and dismembering the bodies of crusaders who had died away from home for easier transportation back to Europe. Vigevano's plates are among the earliest anatomical drawings of the time and are intended to show the techniques of dissection and a limited number of diagnostic techniques.