Fasciculo di medicina

Johannes de Ketham

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This book, a compendium of medical knowledge associated with the obscure author Johannes de Ketham, combines ancient and medieval medical traditions with Renaissance innovations. The original Latin text was printed in Venice in 1491 with six schematic illustrations derived from centuries-old conventions. This volume, the Italian translation, was published three years later with four additional woodblock plates that reflect the influence of Giovanni Bellini and Andrea Mantegna who were among the most original artists of the period. The most famous of the added illustrations (colored in the Museum's copy), depicts a dissection carried out in the contemporary manner. The corpse is laid out on a trestle table disposed across the picture space, and the dissector leans over it with a huge knife; his short garment differentiates him from the other men present, who wear august robes and stand upright. The lecturer presides serenely over the scene from a pulpitlike booth above, looking out at the viewer rather than at the corpse.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art