Exhibition: Curious Anatomys, Royal College of Physicians,
London, until December 31 2012
Conjecture swirls around the swooping circular amphitheatre
at the University of Padua, in Italy, built in 1594.
This simply-crafted lecture theatre was a robust place for
students to observe body parts – it’s impossible to know whether it was the
first ever designed, but it’s undoubtedly the oldest still in use today.
Curious Anatomys revisits the centuries of academia held
within a set of anatomy tables as rare as their usage was gristly, bringing
human veins, nerves and arteries dissected in the 17th century and arranged
onto wooden panels.