Paper inventions in the Renaissance tradition of anatomy studies

Abstract

This paper focuses on the papermaking inventions that, beginning with the Flemish physician Andreas Vesalius’ De humani corporis fabrica (1543), became part of anatomy books. In particular, flaps became the tactile and visual tool that allowed, by progressively lifting individual flaps of paper (lift the flap), to represent the layered arrangement of organs and apparatuses of the human body. These movable devices, along with others (e.g., volvelle) widely employed especially in astronomy texts, became the educational complements of the new science. The paper reconstructs, through some significant samples, the evolution of interactive anatomical books up to the threshold of the 20^th century.