712 william eamon
respiration, and generation. Building the annual public demonstration at
the university around his “aristotle project,” he used the public forum to
explore the connections between anatomy and natural philosophy and to
produce a systematic study of the parts of the animals based on their bio-
logical function. eventually, the popularity among students of anatomical
dissections led to the construction of permanent anatomical theaters at
Padua, the first built in 1584 and the second in 1594.34
This was the Padua anatomical tradition that the english physician
William Harvey (1578–1657) encountered when he arrived in 1598 to study
with Fabricius, who was then at the height of his power and influence.
after taking his medical doctorate in 1602, Harvey returned to england
and took a position at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, where he continued
his anatomical experiments.35 in 1628 he published his treatise Exercitatio
anatomica de motu cordis et sanguinis in animalibus [anatomical exercise
on the Motion of the Heart and Blood in animals], in which he dem-
onstrated the circulation of the blood. Heavily influenced by aristotelian
philosophy, De motu cordis was the culmination of the Paduan anatomical
tradition.
Aristotelianism at PaduaFabricius’s philosophical approach to anatomy was rooted in its Paduan
environment, where a succession of philosophy teachers, from Pietro
Pomponazzi (1462–1525) to Jacopo Zabarella (1533–89), had reoriented
aristotelian natural philosophy and developed novel approaches to
scientific method.36 Pomponazzi began his studies at Padua in 1484
and, after receiving his degree, taught there for 20 years. during the
12 decades or so between Pomponazzi’s arrival and Galileo’s departure in
34 andrew cunningham, “Fabricius and the ‘aristotle Project’ in anatomical Teaching
and research at Padua,” in andrew Wear, roger French, and i. M. lonie, eds., The Medical
Renaissance of the Sixteenth Century (cambridge, 1985), pp. 195–222. in addition, see
cunningham, Anatomical Renaissance: The Resurrection of the Anatomical Projects of the
Ancients (aldershot, 1997).
35 James G. lennox, “The comparative Study of animal development: William Harvey’s
aristotelianism,” in Justin e. H. Smith, ed., The Problem of Animal Generation in Early
Modern Philosophy (cambridge, 2006), pp. 21–46.
36 J. H. randall, Jr., “The development of Scientific Method in the School of Padua,”
Journal of the History of Ideas 1 (1940), 177–206. For a critique of randall’s thesis of continuity
between the school of Padua and modern science, see Paolo rossi, “The aristotelians and
the ‘Moderns’: Hypothesis and nature,” Annali dell’Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza
di Firenze 7 (1982), 3–28.