The Tabulae Anatomicae 1538

At the request of his pupils, Vesalius made a compilation of the sketches he used to draw in his lessons. He made one of the portal vein with his tributaries, one of the veins and one of the heart and the arterial system. With three views of the human skeleton (draw by Johan Stefan van Kalkar), Vesalius made his first atlas, the "Tabulae Anatomicae Sex". Vitalis Venetus printed the six plates in Venice.

In his Six Anatomical Tables, Vesalius continued the Galenic tradition of leaping from animal to human anatomy. Nevertheless he introduced a tremendous novelty. Few anatomical works until that time had been illustrated. The overall conception was that illustrations would mislead students and degrade scholarship. Moreover, said Sylvius, the spokesman of the old tradition, this had not been done in ancient times.

The plates were an instantaneous success judging from the immediate plagiarism all over Europe and from the fact only two complete sets of the Tabulae have survived today. The rest has been literally thumbed out of existence.