Allegorical Title Page

Engraved Title Page

28th Table: Dissection of the Back

Originally published in 1685 (a later, Dutch edition, was published in 1690), Anatomia Humani Corporis features 105 copperplate engravings of the body, illustrating the muscular, skeletal, reproductive, and systemic organization of the human body with commentary. Measuring at roughly 51 cm by 36 cm, Bidloo’s anatomical atlas is one of the largest atlases created in the early modern period. 

Anatomia Humani Corporis was published in Latin by the widow of Joannes van Someren (a prominent book publisher in Amsterdam who passed away between 1678 and 1679), the heirs of Joannes van Dyk, Henry Boom and the widow of Theodore Boom in Amsterdam. Anatomia was dedicated to Henry Casimir II, the Dutch Stadtholder of Friesland and Groningen.

The drawings for the illustrations were designed by the Dutch artist Gerard de Lairesse, a close acquaintance of Bidloo's, and engraved by the brothers Peter and Philip van Gunst. de Lairesse introduced Baroque and Pastoral elements to anatomical illustration that had otherwise been unheard of.The artistic influence of de Lairesse is apparent in each of the illustrations as they present the body not only in almost life size scale, but with the finely detailed accuracy that only a skilled artist could provide.

The atlas is divided into two major sections, one detailing the muscular and systemic organization of the body, and the second detailing the skeletal makeup of the body. Eighty-three of the plates depict the body in various stages of dissection, some providing details of the instruments used. The remaining twenty-two plates, three display the surface anatomy, and nineteen depict the various bones that make up the skeleton.