Oporinus and the Publication of the Fabrica

OR ONE UNLEARNED in anatomy, and h aving "small Latin and less Greek," it seems presumptuous to speak here of Andreas Vesalius and his Fabrca, or, indeed, of John _ 1 Oporinus the printer and his edition of that great work, for he, too, was a scholar of no mean parts. If I speak with caution of the author-and, indeed, in view of those who also speak here today I have little right to speak at all-I feel more at ease with the printer. The printed book, whether its skin be red or black or yellow, whether it be fat or meager, or tall or dwarfish, whether it speak in the classic tongue or in the vernacular, has an anatomical structure describable in the lingua franca of my trade. When "the Gothic sun set behind the giant presses of Mayence" it left concealed in the shadows the when and where and by whom the art and practice of printing with movable types originated in Europe. But by the time the Fabrica issued from Oporinus' presses European printing was a century old, and its processes had become less a mystery than a mastery. The great formative years in Ger-many and Italy were drawing to a close, even as in Basel the pioneers and the great master had passed away. It was no fortuitous circumstance which brought Vesalius and his book to Basel. The young Belgian genius must have passed through the city on his way to Italy. Basel stood at the gateway to the Rhine valley, between the Jura and the Black Forest, on the great trade route between Italy and central Europe. As became its strategic position, it gave much of its energy to trade; but following the foundation of its university in the fifteenth century it became in time the center of humanism in south Germany. Erasmus and Holbein and Zwingli had given it distinction, and able scholars had taught there. But its special attraction for Vesalius was in the person of a scholar interested in medicine and in publishing. John Oporinus was a native of Basel, the son of an impecunious painter named Herpst. From his father he got his early education;