ABSTRACT
One of the most striking and shocking aspects of the broadsheet is its graphic and unsparing representation of the protocol of hanging, drawing and quartering to which the priests were subjected. Each stage in the procedure is shown, nothing is omitted. Images of hanging are followed by those which depict the opening of the thorax and abdomen and the removal of and burning of the intestines and heart. The quartering of the bodies and their transport to the cauldron for boiling followed by their exposure on the walls of the city are all equally carefully presented. The only detail missing is the large amount of blood which would have accumulated at the site of butchering. All these scenes are drawn and engraved in a straightforward, systematic way. It is the broadsheet’s clinical approach to what for those who witnessed the executions must have been harrowing scenes which gives the broadsheet its integrity. It also provides a valuable clue to the background and intellectual concerns of those responsible for its creation. These images of the gradual fragmentation of the bodies of the priests were designed and drawn by someone entirely familiar with the scientific dissection of the human body. Judging by the evidence of the plates they had either taken part in such procedures or had observed and drawn the stages in such dissections. If we are to understand the implications of this we need first to examine the world of the anatomists working in Rome in 1555 because the designers and engraver of our broadsheet were clearly part of this milieu.
