The epilogue explores the evidence for dissection and anatomical literature in Late Antiquity. It addresses the seeming hiatus in anatomical activity after Galen, introducing the topic via Vesalius’ retrospective thoughts, which blame Galen’s enervating authority. It starts with fourth-century evidence, pictorial and textual, observing that Galen, while a dominant voice, was not the lone authority; major figures considered include Vindicianus, Nemesius of Emesa, Oribasius, and Gregory of Nyssa. It then turns to the fifth to seventh centuries, addressing the medical curriculum in Alexandria and the evidence from Stephanus of Athens and Paul of Aegina. Finally, it contrasts the absence of evidence for anatomical activity in the Late Antique West after the seventh century with the modest but more vibrant interest in the East, addressing the question of whether human dissection reemerged as an option in Byzantium in this period; major figures considered include Meletius, Theophilus Protospatharius, Michael Choniates, and George Tornikios. The epilogue ends with Hunayn ibn Ishaq and his Syriac and Arabic translations, representing the beginning of the next chapter in anatomical history.

In 1998 the author published a fragment of the lost frescoes by Gentile da Fabriano, a frieze with foliated scrolls, surviving at the top of the right wall of the Lateran Basilica, at the end of the nave towards the main altar. In that paper he reconsidered all the documentary sources for the mural paintings undertaken by Gentile and Pisanello in the Basilica and argued the idea that the cycle was projected for both walls, devoted to the life of St John Baptist and St John the Divine, but uncompleted by Pisanello himself. The Veronese painter worked probably until the eighth story (eleventh, according to other scholars) of the St. John Baptist cycle. This chapter considers three other erratic fragments, relatable to the lost mural cycle: the so-called head of David of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, the remains of a colossal head in the south-east corner of the Lateran Closter, considered by Bramante according a fanciful tradition, and the female head in the Museo Nazionale di palazzo Venezia, by Pisanello. The latter piece is examined as a new iconographic context in the St John the Baptist cycle.