2-999-670 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Portrait of Girolamo Mercuriale, 1588-1589. The Italian physician and scholar Girolamo Mercuriale (1530-1606) reads an edition of the pioneering work on human anatomy "On the Fabric of the Human Body," published first in Latin in 1543 by the great Flemish physician Andreas Vesalius. Mercuriale points to one thought-provoking illustration: a human skeleton meditating on another skull. The portrait may be one requested by the duke of Urbino in 1588. Mercuriale's learning is advertised by the works of eminent Greek, Roman, and Arab authors on his shelves.