Note 137 — A STUDY IN EARLY RENAISSANCE ANATOMY,

It has been suggested that Giammatteo Ferrari da Grado (Matthaeus de Gradibus), who was professor of Medicine at Pavia 1432–72, made original contributions to anatomy. He wrote no separate work on anatomy, but his observations on the ovaries (which he was perhaps the first to call by that name) appear in his Practica, Milan, 1471, and in his Expositiones super vigesimam secundam Fen tertii canonis Avicennae, Milan, 1494. An interesting account of Ferrari’s life and work is given by his descendant, H. M. Ferrari, in Une Chaire de Médecine au XVe siècle; Un professeur a l’université de Pavie de 1432 à 1472, Paris, 1899. In this work the claim that De Gradibus was an original and independent observer is effectively disposed of.