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Wound man Part 2: afterlives
18/08/2016
The remarkable manuscript image of the wound man did not
die with the medieval medical world that created it, finding a rich
afterlife in the Renaissance and beyond.
With the adoption of new print technologies in the second half of the
15th century, European book production underwent a major shift from
handwritten manuscripts to the printed page. One book in particular, a
Latin treatise first published in Venice in 1491 known as the ‘Fasciculus medicinae’ (‘Little bundle of medicine’), was the first to translate the wound man into printed form.
The wound man still stands revealing his aggressive injuries,
although certain elements have been refigured from their medieval German
origins for the Italian Renaissance reader. The club hitting the side
of his face has been transformed from a simple instrument into an
elaborate mace. And rather than being a flat body floating in space, the
figure stands firmly on the ground posed in an elegant, ‘s’-shaped
stance, reminiscent of Italian painting and sculpture at the time.
The text of the surgical treatise which the wound man always accompanied in its initial manuscript iterations (see ‘Wound man Part 1’
) also made the transition into print. It is included in all of the 25
or so editions of the ‘Fasciculus’, as are a series of floating text
boxes around the figure which draw the reader’s attention to particular
maladies and cures. The book as a whole was exceptionally popular,
reprinted from Antwerp to Zaragoza, and translated into Italian, Spanish
and Dutch. Several deluxe, hand-drawn versions of the printed
treatise’s woodblock images were even added to manuscripts.
One such luxurious wound man copied from print into manuscript could
perhaps be that found in a group of images bound into the back of a late
medieval anatomical manuscript now in the Wellcome Library, MS. 290.
This particularly artful figure is either drawn from the same model as
the ‘Fasciculus’, or possibly stands as an interesting example in which
technological progress was reversed: line drawings from the new
technology of print could here have been converted and aesthetically
amplified through colour and shading back into the old technology of
hand-drawn manuscripts. If so, the process does not seem to have been
without error. The wound man has lost many of his explanatory labels and
his accompanying surgical text. Visual details, too, appear to have
been lost in translation: a stone, which in the printed version strikes
the top of the figure’s head, has been strangely refashioned into a
miniature helmet.
Around the same time, the wound man was also appearing in German
printed books, and his form was again being transfigured. In Strasbourg
in 1497, he featured as a frontispiece to a book by the surgeon
Hieronymus Brunschwig (d. c. 1512) entitled ‘Das buch der cirurgia’
(‘The book of surgery’). Although he still presents his graphic wounds,
he is thinner and with longer hair, but most importantly he is not
accompanied by any text at all. Instead of acting as a specific index to
a surgical treatise, as he did in medieval manuscripts, here the wound
man represents something much grander: he stands as an embodiment of the
very craft of surgery, proudly displaying the grievous injuries that
the owner of such a surgical book was qualified to treat.
This visual
strategy continued to be employed by a number of surgical writers in the
16th century, and the image of the wound man was adapted to fit the
shifting needs of the profession. In 1517, for example, the German
military surgeon Hans von Gersdorff (d. 1529) included the wound man in
his ‘Feldbuch der Wundarznei’
(‘Fieldbook of surgery’), the first such image to incorporate a pair of
cannonballs striking the figure’s wrist and shin. Even as late as 1678,
the London surgeon John Browne’s ‘Compleat discourse of wounds’ included another new wound man, this time reworked into a dramatically vaulting neoclassical nude.
The constant invocation of the wound man in surgical treatises for
over 300 years shows the capacity of this image instantly to bring the
reader into the gruesome yet serious space of the surgical professional.
But it also speaks to the ability of the wound man to capture the
attention of any reader who stumbled across him. As his recent
reappearance in the NBC TV series ‘Hannibal’ suggests, the morbid wonder he encapsulates still holds true for viewers today.
Further reading:
Chiara Benati, ‘Physical impairment in the first surgical
handbooks printed in Germany’, Fifteenth-Century Studies, 35 (2010),
12–22.
Chris
Coppens, De vele levans van een boek: de Fasciculus medicinae opniew
bekeken (Brussels: Koninklijke Academie voor Geneeskunde van België,
2009).
Tizania Pesenti, Il ‘Fasciculus medicinae’ ovvero le metamorfosi del libro umanistico (Treviso: Antilia, 2001).
die with the medieval medical world that created it, finding a rich
afterlife in the Renaissance and beyond.
With the adoption of new print technologies in the second half of the
15th century, European book production underwent a major shift from
handwritten manuscripts to the printed page. One book in particular, a
Latin treatise first published in Venice in 1491 known as the ‘Fasciculus medicinae’ (‘Little bundle of medicine’), was the first to translate the wound man into printed form.
EPB
Incunabula 3.e.13: Fasciculus medicine (Venice: Joannes et Gregorius de
Gregoriis, 1495), leaf C2 recto. Wellcome Images L0043654.
Incunabula 3.e.13: Fasciculus medicine (Venice: Joannes et Gregorius de
Gregoriis, 1495), leaf C2 recto. Wellcome Images L0043654.
although certain elements have been refigured from their medieval German
origins for the Italian Renaissance reader. The club hitting the side
of his face has been transformed from a simple instrument into an
elaborate mace. And rather than being a flat body floating in space, the
figure stands firmly on the ground posed in an elegant, ‘s’-shaped
stance, reminiscent of Italian painting and sculpture at the time.
The text of the surgical treatise which the wound man always accompanied in its initial manuscript iterations (see ‘Wound man Part 1’
) also made the transition into print. It is included in all of the 25
or so editions of the ‘Fasciculus’, as are a series of floating text
boxes around the figure which draw the reader’s attention to particular
maladies and cures. The book as a whole was exceptionally popular,
reprinted from Antwerp to Zaragoza, and translated into Italian, Spanish
and Dutch. Several deluxe, hand-drawn versions of the printed
treatise’s woodblock images were even added to manuscripts.
One such luxurious wound man copied from print into manuscript could
perhaps be that found in a group of images bound into the back of a late
medieval anatomical manuscript now in the Wellcome Library, MS. 290.
This particularly artful figure is either drawn from the same model as
the ‘Fasciculus’, or possibly stands as an interesting example in which
technological progress was reversed: line drawings from the new
technology of print could here have been converted and aesthetically
amplified through colour and shading back into the old technology of
hand-drawn manuscripts. If so, the process does not seem to have been
without error. The wound man has lost many of his explanatory labels and
his accompanying surgical text. Visual details, too, appear to have
been lost in translation: a stone, which in the printed version strikes
the top of the figure’s head, has been strangely refashioned into a
miniature helmet.
Around the same time, the wound man was also appearing in German
printed books, and his form was again being transfigured. In Strasbourg
in 1497, he featured as a frontispiece to a book by the surgeon
Hieronymus Brunschwig (d. c. 1512) entitled ‘Das buch der cirurgia’
(‘The book of surgery’). Although he still presents his graphic wounds,
he is thinner and with longer hair, but most importantly he is not
accompanied by any text at all. Instead of acting as a specific index to
a surgical treatise, as he did in medieval manuscripts, here the wound
man represents something much grander: he stands as an embodiment of the
very craft of surgery, proudly displaying the grievous injuries that
the owner of such a surgical book was qualified to treat.
Frontispiece
of Hieronymus Brunschwig, Das ist das buch der Cirurgia (Strasbourg:
Johann [Reinhard] Grüninger, 1497), reproduced in Gustav Klein, Das Buch
der Cirurgia des Hieronymus Brunschwig (Munich: Druck und Verlag Carl
Kuhn, 1911), p. 1. Image credit: Elma Brenner.
of Hieronymus Brunschwig, Das ist das buch der Cirurgia (Strasbourg:
Johann [Reinhard] Grüninger, 1497), reproduced in Gustav Klein, Das Buch
der Cirurgia des Hieronymus Brunschwig (Munich: Druck und Verlag Carl
Kuhn, 1911), p. 1. Image credit: Elma Brenner.
strategy continued to be employed by a number of surgical writers in the
16th century, and the image of the wound man was adapted to fit the
shifting needs of the profession. In 1517, for example, the German
military surgeon Hans von Gersdorff (d. 1529) included the wound man in
his ‘Feldbuch der Wundarznei’
(‘Fieldbook of surgery’), the first such image to incorporate a pair of
cannonballs striking the figure’s wrist and shin. Even as late as 1678,
the London surgeon John Browne’s ‘Compleat discourse of wounds’ included another new wound man, this time reworked into a dramatically vaulting neoclassical nude.
EPB/15691/B/1:
John Browne, A compleat discourse of wounds (London: Printed by E.
Flesher, for William Jacob, 1678), engraving facing page 37. Wellcome
Images L0009988.
John Browne, A compleat discourse of wounds (London: Printed by E.
Flesher, for William Jacob, 1678), engraving facing page 37. Wellcome
Images L0009988.
over 300 years shows the capacity of this image instantly to bring the
reader into the gruesome yet serious space of the surgical professional.
But it also speaks to the ability of the wound man to capture the
attention of any reader who stumbled across him. As his recent
reappearance in the NBC TV series ‘Hannibal’ suggests, the morbid wonder he encapsulates still holds true for viewers today.
Further reading:
Chiara Benati, ‘Physical impairment in the first surgical
handbooks printed in Germany’, Fifteenth-Century Studies, 35 (2010),
12–22.
Chris
Coppens, De vele levans van een boek: de Fasciculus medicinae opniew
bekeken (Brussels: Koninklijke Academie voor Geneeskunde van België,
2009).
Tizania Pesenti, Il ‘Fasciculus medicinae’ ovvero le metamorfosi del libro umanistico (Treviso: Antilia, 2001).
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