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Alessandra Giliani (1307 – 26 March 1326) is best known as the first woman to be recorded in historical documents as practicing anatomy and pathology,[1] and is thought to be an Italian natural historian. Historical evidence for her existence is limited. All evidence of her work was either lost or destroyed.
Alessandra Giliani | |
|---|---|
 Anathomia corporis humani title page (Leipzig edition dated 1493) | |
| Born | 1307 |
| Died | 26 March 1326 |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Known for | Anatomy |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Anatomist |
Giliani is believed to have been born in 1307, in San Giovanni in Persiceto, in the Italian province of Emilia-Romagna. The chronicle of her life holds that she died in 1326, possibly from a septic wound, at the age of 19.[1] Celebrated as the first recorded female anatomist of the Western World, she is reputed to have been a brilliant prosector (preparer of corpses for anatomical dissection).
She is said to have worked as the surgical assistant to Mondino de' Liuzzi (d. 1326), a professor at the medical school of the University of Bologna. Credited with being the father of modern anatomy. In 1316, de' Liuzzi published a seminal text on the subject entitled, Anathomia corporis humani.[2] The earliest edition of the work was printed in Padua between 1475 and 1478.[3][page needed]
Giliani is said to have carried out her own anatomical investigations, developing a method of draining the blood from a corpse and replacing it with a hardening coloured dye—and possibly adding to scientific understanding of the coronary-pulmonary circulatory system.
Otto Angenius, an assistant to Mondino de' Liuzzi, honoured Alessandra Giliani with a plaque that describes her work. The plaque was erected at the "San Pietro e Marcellino degli Spedolari di Santa Maria di Mareto, o d'Ulmareto".[4] He may have been her fiancé.
The nineteenth-century historian Michele Medici, who published a history of the Bolognese school of anatomy in 1857, mentions Alessandra Giliani.
Legacy
editSome scholars consider her to be a fiction invented in the sixteenth century by Alessandro Machiavelli (1693–1766)[5] whilst others hold that the participation of a woman in anatomy at that time caused her to be edited out of history.[2]
Barbara Quick's novel, A Golden Web, published by HarperTeen in 2010, is historical fiction based on the life and times of Alessandra Giliani.
References
edit- ^ a b Oakes, Elizabeth H. (2007). Encyclopedia of world scientists (Rev. ed.). New York: Facts on File. ISBN 978-1438118826.
- ^ a b Quick, Barbara. "Alessandra in History". A Golden Web. Archived from the original on 2011-06-25. Retrieved 25 July 2013.
- ^ Castiglioni 1941.
- ^ Medici, Michele (1857). Compendio storico della Scuola anatomica di Bologna (in Italian). Tipografia governativa Della Volpe e del Sassi. pp. 28–30. Retrieved 30 August 2014.(in Italian)
- ^ Anthony Grafton , Forgers and Critics: Creativity and Duplicity in Western Scholarship , 1990 Note 5 on p. 138
Sources
edit- Castiglioni, Arturo (1941). A History of Medicine. Translated by Krumbhaar, E.B. New York: Knopf.