Central Proposition

The central proposition of this book is that the great anatomists of the Renaissance, from Vesalius to Fabricius and Harvey - the forebears of modern scientific biology and medicine - consciously resurrected not merely the methods but also the research projects of Aristotle and other Ancients.

The Moderns'' choice of topics and subjects, their aims, and their evaluation of their investigations were all made in a spirit of emulation, not rejection, of their distant predecessors.

Publication and Impact

First published in 1997, Andrew Cunningham’s masterly analysis of the history of the scientific renaissance - a history not of things found, but of projects of enquiry - provoked a reappraisal of the intellectual roots of the Renaissance as well as illuminating debates on the history of the body and its images.