The Pre-Vesalian Kidney: Gabriele Zerbi, 1445–1505

Abstract

Gabriel Zerbi was born in Verona in 1445 and died in Dalmatia in 1505. He was professor of philosophy in Padua at the age of 22, and moved to Bologna where he became professor of medicine and philosophy. In Rome at the time of Sixtus V and Innocentius VIII, he was archiater and professor of medicine. He completed his academic career in Padua where he worked from 1494 to 1505 with a salary of 600 florins a month. A man of vast culture, a philosopher, physician and professor of medicine, he wrote many books: (1) Questiones Metaphysicae; (2) Gerentocomia; (3) De Cautelis Medicorum; (4) Liber anatomiae corporis humani et singulorum membrorum illius; (5) De anatomia infantiis et porci ex traditione Cophonis, and (6) Libellus de preservatione corporum a passione calculosa. His contribution to anatomy was superb. Through him the discipline became the basis of modern medicine. The core of this article deals with some passages of Zerbi’s chapters on the anatomy of the kidneys and bladder.