DOMENICO BERTOLONI MELI RELIABILITY AND GENERALIZATION IN EARLY MODERN ANATOMY INTRODUCTION Recent literature on 17-century investigations of nature has focused on the dichotomy between singular contrived experiment conducted at specific

Recent literature on 17-century investigations of nature has focused on the dichotomy between singular contrived experiment conducted at specific places and times versus generalized experience, observing nature in its normal course: the former has often been characterized as primarily active and interventionist, the latter as a more passive recording of nature undisturbed. Probably Charles Schmitt and Peter Dear have written the most influential pages on this topic. Schmitt drew a distinction between Jacopo Zabarella’s (15321589) neo-Aristotelian emphasis on the investigation of the normal course of nature versus Galileo’s (1564-1642) contrived experiments, probing nature in unusual or peculiar settings. Dear has discussed a number of strategies to tackle the problem of induction, or to bridge the gap between individual cases and general statements; these strategies were both rhetorical and in the experimental practice, with the emphasis on appropriate narrative styles, witnesses, and repetition, for example. My primary aim in this paper is to take this dichotomy as a starting point to examine problematic evidence in anatomy and related areas, including natural history and medicine. In this paper I