Juan de Valverde de Hamusco (ca. 1525 - ca. 1587)

RA Collection: People and Organisations

Valverde Studied medicine in Padua and Rome under Realdo Columbo and Bartolomeo Eustachi. He published several works on anatomy, including De animi et corporis sanitate tuenda libellous (Paris, 1552). Valverde’s most famous work was Historia de la composicion del cuerpo humano, first published in Rome, 1556. All but four of its 42 engraved copperplate illustrations were taken almost directly from Andreas Vesalius’s De humani corporis fabrica. Vesalius bitterly commented on Valverde’s plagiarism, accusing him of having performed very few dissections himself. Occasionally, however, Valverde corrected Vesalius’ images, as in his depictions of the muscles of the eyes, nose, and larynx. One of Valverde’s most striking original plates is that of a muscle figure holding his own skin in one hand and a knife in the other, which has been likened to Saint Bartholomew in The Last Judgment by Michelangelo of the Sistine Chapel. The original illustrations were most likely drawn by Gaspar Becerra (1520–1570), a contemporary of Michelangelo, and the copperplate engravings are thought to have been carried out by Nicolas Beatrizet (1507?-1570?), whose initials “NB” appear on several of the plates.