Drawings for Bartolomeo Passarotti's Book of Anatomy

Although several drawings from the collection of Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) are to be found in the Print Room of the British Museum, many others remain in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Library. ¹ Among these are drawings by the sixteenth-century Bolognese artist, Bartolomeo Passarotti (1529-92), bound in a Sloane album of anatomical drawings (MS Add. 5259, fols 18-19). ² The scientific nature of these drawings and of those of three skeletons by Battista Franco (c.1510-1561) in the same volume have perhaps discouraged their transfer to the Print Room and their appreciation by a wider audience. ³