Introduction

In 1566, the court physician and astrologer to the emperor Rudolf II, Thaddeus Hagecius (1526/7–1600), compared the achievement of Andreas Vesalius in anatomy to that of the astronomer Copernicus, whose declaration that the earth revolved around the sun, and not the reverse, was published in the very same year, 1543, as Vesalius’ De Humani Corporis Fabrica. This book describes the making of this masterpiece and its transition to an anatomical icon.