Chapter 13 Vesalius and the Timaeus. The Anatomist’s Answer to the Philosopher

In: The Legacy of Plato's Timaeus
Author:
Jacqueline Vons
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Chapter
Pages:
365–385
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004705838_014

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Abstract

Three entries in the index to De humani corporis fabrica (1543) explicitly name Plato; one of them cites the Timaeus. Is that, however, enough to prove that Vesalius read the Timaeus? Several scholars have addressed the issue: Plato’s views on medicine have been discussed and expounded since Thomas Martin’s Etudes sur le Timée de Platon (Paris, 1841), notably by Robert Joly (“Platon et la médecine”, 1961); more recently, Vivian Nutton (“The anatomy of the soul in early Renaissance medicine”, 1990) and Nancy Siraisi (“Vesalius and the reading of Galen’s teleology”, 1997) have examined the legacy of the Timaeus in conceptions and representations of the human body and the soul in Renaissance treatises on anatomy, particularly in Vesalius. This chapter presents a precise philological analysis of the context of references to the Timaeus and offers a new perspective on Vesalius’ direct reception of the Timaeus. Vesalius claims the position of anatomist, defending the need to know the body’s anatomy before trying to explain its purpose. This move from “why is it made?” to “how is it made?” marks the beginning of an anatomical science.

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The Legacy of Plato's Timaeus

Cosmology, Music, Medicine, and Architecture from Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century

Series:  Brill's Studies in Intellectual History, Volume: 353
Cover The Legacy of Plato's <i>Timaeus</i>
E-Book ISBN:
9789004705838
Publisher:
Brill
Print Publication Date:
16 Dec 2024
Front Matter
Chapter 1 Introduction: from Plato’s Text to the Beginnings of Modern Science – towards a New Understanding of the Disciplinary Inheritance of Plato’s Timaeus
Part 1 The Timaeus and its Reception in Late Antiquity
Part 2 The Medieval Timaeus
Part 3 The Timaeus in the Renaissance
Back Matter

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