ABSTRACT
Looking at early modern Dutch anatomical atlases and textbooks, one cannot fail to notice that almost all anatomists were professing to aim at perfection. Historians of science and medicine have taken up this theme and they have argued that ‘perfection’, together with the theme of vanitas, is crucial in understanding early modern anatomical illustrations.2 Yet, the representation of perfection works out differently for each author. Whether we see depictions of weeping skeletons, ‘happy’ musclemen, ‘babes in bottles’ or cut-up bodies, the anatomists who created them all claimed to have represented perfection. What, I ask in this paper, is the status of the concept of perfection in early modern anatomy?
