A female flap anatomy fugitive sheet, with layered flaps lifted to reveal the anatomy of the thorax and abdomen. Photograph of an engraving, 1683.

1 photograph ; image 32.2 x 18.4 cm

Vitam nudi ingredimur vita nudi egredimur

L. Crummer, "Early anatomical fugitive sheets," Annals of Medical History, 5, no. 3, 1923, pp. 199; 208; fig. 8

K. F. Russell, A bibliography of Johann Remmelin the anatomist, East St Kilda 1991, p. 21, pl. v

Wellcome Collection 26829i

The original is a flap-anatomy printed in Venice in 1683 and is found pasted to the inside back cover of a copy of Vesalius's Epitome and Tabulae sex in the library of San Marco in Venice. Crummer gives the dimensions of the entire sheet with six columns of letterpress in Italian as 56.5 x 43 cm. and those for the figure alone as 33 x 19.5 cm. It is based on the female flap-anatomy figure originally published by Remmelin in 1613 (Russell 1991, p. v). It is in reverse of the Remmelin figure and the figure's right foot rests on a pedestral rather than a skull threaded with a snake. Whereas the Remmelin plate has several subsidiary figures of anatomy, the Venice plate has only two: a foetus and uterus and a diagram of the female generative system