The anatomical world of Paolo Mascagni. Reasoned reading of the anatomy works of his library

Abstract

Paolo Mascagni was a man with deep interests in various fields of knowledge. This explains the richness and diversity of his library, where alongside the volumes that treat of Medicine issues there are books of Physics, Chemistry, Natural Sciences, but also of Agriculture and Hydrology, without neglecting the Humanities. It is obvious, however, the strong preponderance of Anatomy volumes, subject of this paper. Mascagni was well aware of how necessary it was for an anatomist of that time to possess the textbooks of ‘greats’ that had traced the history of Anatomy until the eighteenth century. He bases his knowledge on the works of his predecessors to fundamentally innovate the methodology of Anatomy  studies:  an  innovation  that  can  be  observed  in  his  writings  and  in  his  approach of anatomical science analysis.