| Heartstrings | Damien Ihrig, MA, MLIS
Curator, John Martin Rare Book Room
_laguna_wikimedia.jpg) Happy February, friends. As you enjoy your dusty candy hearts (or the far superior dark chocolate variety), take a beat and consider the organ that inspired them.
Long understood as related to blood, the details of how exactly the heart functioned took millennia to develop fully. William Harvey's work (1628) famously and definitively established the heart's role in the circulation of blood throughout the body.
But the heart has also been considered, either anatomically or symbolically, the "center" of one's humanity, as the seat for the mind, emotions, or the soul. In ancient Egyptian traditions, for example, when the dead arrived before Anubis, it was their heart that was weighed to determine if they were worthy of the afterlife.
It is no surprise, then, that the modern-day heart symbolically represents everything love, from candy to stickers to a certain famous basketball player signaling her family in the crowd. It can be filled with love, warmth, or lust. Love can also break the heart, sometimes literally!
One person who loved the heart was the colorful 16th-century Spanish physician-botanist Andrés Fernández de Laguna (1499-1560). Laguna was a prominent player in the burgeoning Spanish humanist movement. He was fluent in Greek and Latin and was an avid reader and translator of classical authors. His translation of Doscorides's monumental work, De materia medica, became a primary source for botanical medicine and other scientific fields. It was reprinted multiple times, reflecting its lasting impact.
The book we are highlighting this month, though, is his anatomical treatise, Anatomica methodus [Anatomical method] from 1535. Written in a forthright manner, the book has a strong personal tone. His emphasis on empirical observation and dissection helped lay the groundwork for future anatomical studies.
Much like Vesalius, who Laguna became acquainted with while they both resided in Paris, he emphasized the importance of learning anatomy through dissection rather than solely from books. This hands-on approach was innovative at a time when cadaver dissections were still sometimes avoided due to societal taboos. Ironically, Anatomica includes few, if any, direct observations based on dissections and instead mostly rehashes what others had written in support of Aristotle and Galen.
Laguna also felt strongly that the medical profession of his day had fallen to a very low state, writing in Anatomica that it was now in "the hands of cobblers, weavers, and at last public wine sellers...turned over to the tender mercies of the lowest of muleteers." It seems like an unfair shot at muleteers and others, but Laguna clearly thought the folks in charge were not doing what they needed to support and prepare those in medicine and had no qualms about sharing his heartfelt opinion.
Read below to learn more about our copy of Anatomica methodus, Laguna, and how he had his finger on the pulse of early 16th-century medicine.
Stay warm and happy reading!
Hours
The JMRBR is open to the public from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday and by appointment on Friday. For more information, please contact me at damien-ihrig@uiowa.edu or 319-335-9154. | | 
Events
 Curator Guided Tour with Rich Dana
Tuesday, Feb. 18 from 4–5 p.m.
Main Library Gallery
Join curator Rich Dana for a special guided tour of the current Main Library Gallery exhibition, A Roll of the Dice: Symbolism in the Sackner Archive. All are welcome to attend this free event.
This tour is offered in partnership with Free Week, presented by X Marks the Arts.
About the exhibit:
In 1897, French Symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé revolutionized the world of graphic design with a single poem that forever changed the way we look at words. His work illustrated how text conveys meaning not only through words, but also as visual symbols that contain a deeper meaning. For over 125 years, artists and writers have continued to explore the mystery of Mallarmé’s poem “Un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard” [A throw of the dice will never abolish chance]. This exhibition, curated by Sackner Archive Project Coordinator Librarian Rich Dana, features art, books, and ephemera from the Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry that explore the immense influence of “Un coup de dés” since its publication.
Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa–sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact Main Library Gallery in advance at 319-467-1805 or lib-gallery@uiowa.edu.
 Open House for the John Martin Rare Book Room
Thursday, April 24 from 5:30–8 p.m.
John Martin Rare Book Room
The annual John Martin Rare Book Room (JMRBR) open house will be on Thursday, April 24, 2025. All are invited to drop in from 5:30–8 p.m. to tour the space and explore staples of the JMRBR collection. There will also be special materials on display, such as John Gerard’s The herball and Hieronymus Brunschwig’s A most excellent and perfecte homish apothecarye, that will highlight historical examples of medicinal recipes, apothecaries, home remedies, poisons, and herbal medicine.
Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa–sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact Damien Ihrig in advance at 319-335-9154 or damien-ihrig@uiowa.edu.
| | | | LAGUNA, ANDRÉS (1499-1560). Anatomica methodus, seu De sectione humani corporis contemplatio. Printed in Paris by Ludovicum Cyaneum [Lou Blue?—I really hope so!], 1535. 16 cm tall.
Andrés Laguna de Segovia was born in Segovia, Spain in 1499. He was the son of Diego Fernandez de Laguna, a respected local physician. Laguna began his education in his hometown before moving to Salamanca, where he studied anatomy, physiology, philology, and fine arts, earning a baccalaureate.
In 1530, Laguna relocated to Paris, drawn by the cultural and intellectual environment fostered by King Francis I. At the University of Paris, he mastered Greek and Latin, enabling him to read classical medical texts in their original languages. He also studied medicine and botany, earning degrees in both fields. During his time in Paris, he published our book of honor this month, Anatomica methodus (1535).
Laguna returned to Spain in 1536, lecturing at the Universities of Alcalá de Henares and Toledo. His expertise soon caught the attention of Emperor Charles V, who invited him to the Imperial Court in the Netherlands in 1539. During an epidemic plague in Metz in 1540, Laguna moved there and served as a city doctor for five years.
Laguna then traveled to Italy, where he attended dissection classes at the University of Padua and later became a professor at the University of Bologna. In Rome, he served as a personal physician to Popes Paul III and Julius III and contributed significantly to urology with his book Methodus cognoscendi, extirpandique excrescentes in vesicae collo carunculas [Method of identifying and removing caruncles growing in the neck of the bladder].
Despite his extensive travels and professional achievements, Laguna remained connected to his roots. He returned to Spain in 1557, serving as a physician to Charles V and King Philip II and creating the Botanical Garden of Aranjuez. He passed away in 1559 and was buried in the church of San Miguel in Segovia.
As well as an anatomical treatise, Laguna infused Anatomica methodus with personal and often | | | humourous anecdotes. In one anecdote, he describes in detail how, when he was a child, he almost stole a purse from one of his father's patients. He expressively and inexplicably describes the incident in a section of the book on light and vision.
In Anatomia, Laguna described the muscle fibers and valves of the heart, noting the movements of the heart in animals and the propagation of blood to the arteries. This was a precursor to the later detailed studies of blood circulation by William Harvey.
Anatomia is also an example of pre-Vesalian anatomical illustration. The banner above shows the one and only illustration from the book. In it, two cadavers appear to commiserate mid-dissection. As with many of his contemporaries, although Laguna stressed hands-on dissection as vital to medical education, the illustration and the accompanying text lacked the intense detail and thorough descriptions of Vesalius's epochal work, De humani corporis fabrica libri septem.
Our copy was rebound at some point in modern vellum over paper boards and with rubricated edges on the textblock. The unfortunate cost of this was the trimming of marginalia and the loss of the original cover.
Overall, though, the book is in great shape, with only some minor foxing throughout. Have a heart and take some time to visit this interesting little anatomical artifact of the 16th century!
Contact me to take a look at this book or any others from this or past newsletters: damien-ihrig@uiowa.edu or 319-335-9154. | | | |
