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Annibal Caro's After-Dinner Speech (1536) and the Question of Titian as Vesalius's Illustrator*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Patricia Simons  and
Monique Kornell
Patricia Simons
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
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Abstract

Putative textual proof for Titian's central involvement in producing illustrations for Vesalius's anatomy book De fabrica (1543) requires reexamination. On the basis of orthographic, literary, and historical evidence, a phrase in Annibal Caro's after-dinner speech, here dated to 1536, is shown instead to refer ironically to a surgeon's notorious execution in 1517. Anatomia was a word in the satirical as well as the medical lexicon. It is important to understand the satirical tone of Caro's speech about a priapic statuette. Delivered during Carnival to the Roman Academy of Virtue, the speech respects neither antiquities nor artists like Michelangelo in its obscene humor.

Type
Studies
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 61 , Issue 4 , Winter 2008 , pp. 1069 - 1097
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Renaissance Society of America

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Footnotes

*

The authors independently arrived at the same conclusion regarding the meaning of a phrase by Annibal Caro, and decided to strengthen the case by joining forces. Monique Kornell is responsible for research on manuscripts of Caro's text and its earliest printed editions of the nineteenth century, Patricia Simons for other research on Caro's writings and their context. The authors wish to acknowledge Antonio Clericuzio, Megan Holmes, Nerida Newbigin, Monika Schmitter, and Jeffrey Spier for their comments and assistance.

References

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