Note 167 — Chapter VII
Reading edition
Compendio Storico della Scuola Anatomica di Bologna, p. 358, by Michele Medici, Bologna, 1857, and Notizie degli Scrittori Bolognesi, Tom. VI, p. 113, by Giovanni Fantuzzi, Bologna, 1788.
Certain writers tell us of another woman who distinguished herself in anatomy in the early part of the fourteenth century. Her name was Alessandra Giliani, who is said to have been a pupil and an assistant of the celebrated Mondino, father of modern anatomy. In addition to possessing great skill in dissection, she is reputed to have devised a means of drawing the blood from the veins and arteries—even the most minute—and then filling them with variously colored liquids which quickly solidified. By this means, we are told, she was able to exhibit the circulatory system in all its details and complexity, and to have always on hand, for purposes of instruction, a model that was absolutely true to nature.
How much truth there may be in these statements regarding a young girl, who was only nineteen when she died, is difficult to determine. Medici, in concluding his account of her and referring to the inscription on her tomb, which seems to authenticate all the claims made for her, expresses himself as follows: "In quoting this document, I do not intend that my readers shall accord to it a credence that I myself abstain from giving it, but only that they may know of it, if for no other reason than to satisfy their curiosity." Op. cit., pp. 30 and 362, note I. Should the traditions regarding this precocious girl be verified, it would be most gratifying to the people of Bologna, for it would add one more to the long list of her illustrious women.