Berengarius of Carpi (a small town in Northern Italy), who died in 1530, is pronounced by Kurt Sprengel a worthy predecessor of Vesalius. He was Professor of Anatomy, first at Pavia and then at Bologna (from 1502 to 1527), and he is reported to have dissected more than one hundred(!) cadavers during that period. Fallopius and Eustachius were among his pupils, and it was their opinion that he did more than anybody else to revive the interest in anatomical work. The famous sculptor, Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1571), is authority for the statement that Berengarius was not only an experienced anatomist and practicing physician, but also a very skilful draughtsman; the three works which he published being illustrated with a certain number of original woodcuts that are not without interest both to the anatomist and to the lover of art. Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564) was born at Brussels, of German parents whose home was located at Wessels on the Rhine,--whence the name “Vesalius.” His father was the apothecary of the Princess Margaretha, Charles the Fifth’s aunt, and several of his ancestors had been physicians of considerable distinction. At Louvain he received, in early youth, a thorough training in the Latin, Greek and Arabic languages and also in mathematics. When he was about eighteen years of age, he visited Montpellier and afterward Paris, at which latter city he received practical instruction in anatomy from the three men whose names I have mentioned in the preceding paragraph--viz., Guido Guidi, Jacques DuBois and Winther of Andernach. The instruction in anatomy given in Paris at that period (about 1533) consisted in interpretations of Galen’s teachings, in dissections of a few animals, and in occasional demonstrations--which never lasted longer than three days--of the easily accessible parts of a human cadaver. Scanty as were these sources of information, Vesalius cultivated them with the greatest zest. From time to time his teacher, DuBois, noting the interest which his pupil took in anatomy, and recognizing his fitness for imparting instruction, assigned to him the special duty of rehearsing, in the auditorium, before his fellow students, the essential facts of the day’s lecture. After war had been declared between the Emperor Charles the Fifth and Francis the First, King of France, Vesalius left Paris and returned to Louvain, where he began lecturing on anatomy. These lectures constituted the very first attempt at anything like systematic instruction in anatomy that is known to have been made at that ancient university. It was while he was engaged in this work that Vesalius, in order to become the possessor of an entire human skeleton,--a thing of which he felt a very great need,--ventured to remove from the gallows, outside the city, the cadaver of a criminal. This, as Haeser declares, was an act of great boldness and full of peril.