This page is part of the first version of The Eyes Have It which is no longer being updated. All legacy posts as well as all new material can be found at the new WordPress-powered version located at http://www.leepotts.com/tehi/. Please update your bookmarks.
Yet another Vesalius post
A new online version of Andreas Vesalius' De Humani Corporis Fabrica (Book 1) was just released last month by Northwestern University. The site's emphasis is on the translation (it was 10 years in the making) but I was really impressed with the image viewing interface. Much more interactive than the typical collection of static scanned .jpg files. Capabilities include zooming into and panning across these very crisp, clear reproductions which are also linked to the passages that mention them. (Hints: The Flash version works much better than the no-Flash. Don't forget that all the frames can be resized. Click the "A" button to bring up a list of references to the text in the bottom right frame. Drag the red box in the thumbnail to navigate within the full-sized image.)
From the "About" page:
"The March 2003 release of the first book of this online edition marks a significant milestone in the life of the Vesalius project at Northwestern. Translators Daniel Garrison and Malcolm Hast have been working on the Fabrica for more than ten years. Early in 2001, they teamed up with staff at Northwestern's Galter Health Sciences Library, the University Library on the Evanston campus, and Academic Technologies to publish the first book of their new translation online. While Garrison and Hast expect to publish On The Fabric of the Human Body in print, they felt it was critical that their work be made available as translation progresses. In addition, using the Web as a publication medium greatly enhances the environment in which readers can interact with the text and with Vesalius' beautiful, intricate drawings."
This is clearly a great example of Esposito's "processed book".
[Previous TEHI posts referencing Vesalius are here and here.]