by Alys Arden
What could possibly be happening tonight that would be more entertaining than the dissection of a human body?
Just as I decide to go in on my own, Ruscelli, the dean of the school of medicine, walks past, the sleeves of his gown billowing as he animatedly speaks with two other scholars and a gaggle of their favorite students, the sons of Tuscany’s elite. “Disciples” is a more appropriate term, for they follow Ruscelli around like he is Hippocrates himself.
“Why am I not surprised to find you here, Medici?” Ruscelli says, and his followers all stop. “Attending lectures from charlatans? Next thing we know you’ll be telling us that you are leaving university to open a barbershop to perform your own surgeries.” The old man shows not a shred of emotion, but his disciples snicker.
“Have you transformed lead into gold yet, Niccolò?” asks one of his more petulant pupils. “Found the philosopher’s stone?”
“Shall we start calling you a mage?” asks another.
“If learning medicine from human experience makes me a magician, then so be it,” I say, a bold statement that makes the other students quiver. I’ve already been thrown out of school once for presenting my ventricular theory, positioning the heart as the blood-producing organ rather than the liver as the great Galen has dictated. Not that getting expelled matters when your father is the university’s sponsor. “Besides,” I say, “not everything can be learned from the books of antiquity.”
Ruscelli scoffs. I’m not sure which offends him more: my intrepidness for the occult, or my disdain for Aristotle.
“Spoken like a true Medici. You’d better watch out for that empirical influence of your household, Niccolò, or you will soon find yourself falling from star pupil at Siena to its greatest disgrace. Just like your tutor is falling with his heliocentrism.”
“God forbid we not be the center of the universe,” I say with a boldness birthed from my bloodline. It silences the students—noblemen they might be, but Medici they are not.
Of course, Ruscelli insists on having the final word. “Maybe you’d be better suited for the Platonic Academy if you are so indignant regarding our curriculum.”
All eyes go to the books under my arm, and I regret not having hid my copy of De humani corporis fabrica in my sack.
“Niccolò!” someone yells through the piazza.
León, finally.
People part ways, letting him pass.
“Oh, they’re multiplying,” says the old man. He moves on, and his crowd follows, two of the boys in the back craning their necks to peek in through the doors.
“Did I scare them off?” León asks.
“Indeed.”
“You’ll be thanking me later for being tardy. After a bit of haggling at the apothecary and a lot of bribery, I managed to get everything on your list.”
“Eccellente, and you can tell me all about it later!” I tug his sleeve, leading him through the crowds into the enormous theatre. We push through more people in the lobby eagerly waiting for the auditorium doors to open.
“Shall we go to the box?” León asks, referring to our family’s private viewing area.
“No, that’s not the vantage I’m hoping for tonight.”
“Bene,” he says, grabbing my arm.
We slip through a door that leads backstage.
“Niccolò! What a treat to have you in my house tonight on your birthday!” Giacomo, the theatre manager, says. “Shall I escort you and Signor León to the Royal Box?”
“Non, grazie, Giacomo. I am more interested in the fine detail of tonight’s demonstration.”
“Sì, sì! Right this way!” he beckons.
We turn, and he escorts us through the dangling rigs and pulleys, directly onto the candlelit stage, which has been transformed from the set of La favola d’Orfeo to an intimate circle of seats surrounding a marble slab—the makeshift dissection table—sectioned off by a wooden barricade.
The circle of seats is boxed with four rows of benches for the theatre’s top patrons. Giacomo leaves us, and for a moment it’s just Léon and me on stage, and the cadaver resting on the table beneath a cloth. An astringent perfume permeates the air to mask the smell of the corpse. He was a criminal, a murderer fresh from a fatal day at the gallows—a foreigner—so his family doesn’t have to suffer the embarrassment of his insides exposed for anyone who can pay the price.
A moment of tranquility encapsulates me as I take in the silent stage and the empty theatre, four mezzanines high, the roars of people muffled by the closed doors. I imagine the theatre full, not of the barbaric crowd about to enter, but respectful, curious people all interested in learning medicine for the advancement of human health. The fantasy is intoxicating.
A few other sons of noblemen who dare to watch the demonstration from an arm’s reach join us on stage, and soon all the seats are taken.
The theatre doors burst open, and the crowds pour in, shouting and jostling for the best spots in the balconies, which, from my vantage on the stage, appear to rise all the way to the heavens. They push and shove, screaming lewd things, waving goat skulls and wearing horns, groping at each other’s body parts, acting out the dissection to come.
Tuviani’s assistants enter. One sharpens his razors at a table upstage, while another polishes his tools in a marble basin so they gleam for the audience. I feel a twinge of jealousy watching them and do a mental inventory of each tool, eager to learn about Tuviani’s methods.
Despite not having the overwhelming support of the faculty, my first two years spent away from Firenze have been the best of my life. Joining the ranks of academia has helped me realize that I do not have to choose between art and science, for the questions of existence are questions of both.
León and I are Medici, whether by blood or name, so while we have an obsessive respect for the humanities, the quest for the truth usurps all else. We could never be content with merely the words of Galen and Aristotle from the pages in the library, for without testing radical ideas, how else would the world ever progress? The ancients look at anomalies as instances to be discarded because they break from the mold, but we see them as opportunities for new discovery. We go to the barbershops to inquire about farming our own leeches, and to the apothecary to investigate the origins of dragon’s blood, and to gypsies in small villages to learn about remedies using olive oil, and to the alchemists to learn about the distillation of minerals—all of which drive the scholars mad.
We stay up all hours of the night, drinking wine and debating the roles of sensory experience and empirical evidence in natural philosophy, and then spend all day in the lecture halls and the libraries with equal fervor.
Pairing me with León, who loves the natural sciences just as much as I do, was the most brilliant thing my father has ever done. León is truly gifted—not that you would ever know from the way he speaks about himself: eternally humble, eternally grateful for my father’s patronage.
We travel back to Firenze once a month, always with a group of students and professors who would give their firstborns for a tour of the Medici archives, perhaps the most comprehensive collection of antiquities in the world. The collection has grown tenfold under my father’s control, for he has the Medicean obsession with looking for truth in the world—in humanity.
And so in our quest against a priori, we do not spend our days arguing the academic status quo; we spend our nights proving them wrong, and so here we are at the theatre.
Just when my nerves settle down after the run-in with Ruscelli, the Albizzi brothers sit next to us. I loathe the Albizzi brothers, who wave the flag of the old guard at every given opportunity.
“So, Niccolò,” says Francesco, the younger brother, “how is the transmutation going? Have you produced any gold yet?”
Madonna mia! You ask one simple question about transmutation during seminar and you are forever labeled the alchemist.
“Can I help it if metallics are my favorite of all earthen materials?” I say, sharing a glance with León.
“He loves your sister more than coin,” León says, drawing snickers from everyone within earshot, and his comment becomes reason one million and one why I am eternally grateful for his friendship—and also for Lucrezia Albizzi’s interest in my “poetry” last winter.
Before the conversation can escalate further, the star of the show walks out onto the stage in a feathered velvet cap, a ruffled doublet, and gold cloak so gaudy he looks more like a commedia dell’arte character than a man whose work is destined to be added to future medical-school curriculums. He smiles at the audience before approaching the table. I suppose one has to sell tickets, and it is carnival season. His beard is trim, and his hair is polished and kept in a youthful fashion compared to the mummies who teach us throughout the year. His brow has a thick crease, and his eyes are beady, as if permanently stuck in a state of contemplation.
Giacomo comes out onto the stage and quiets the audience. “È con grande piacere che vi presento. From the University of Padua, Doctor Bernardino Tuviani at the anatomy table.”
The audience roars as Tuviani lifts the barricade surrounding the marble slab. One of his assistants removes his cloak and doublet, and another rolls and pins his shirtsleeves. A third ties a protective robe over his clothes.
Giacomo addresses the crowd once again. “And at the lectern, Siena’s own Doctor Matteo Ruscelli!”
My heart sinks, for I didn’t realize tonight would be a debate rather than a simple demonstration of internal medicine. So that’s how they packed the house so tightly. With Ruscelli here, the argument is guaranteed to be the spectacle of the century.
“One of the most distinguished and celebrated authorities on medicine,” Giacomo continues.
On medicine of ancient times, perhaps.
But still the crowd roars, as most of the university is in the house, many of whom would take any opportunity to stay in his good graces. The very best way to do that, however, is to memorize his arguments, for that is the very essence of the school of medicine: to memorize first the infallible wisdom of the ancients, and then every rebuttal to modern arguments that challenge the old wisdoms.
“Without further ado,” Giacomo yells with fervor, “let the show begin!”
Ruscelli dives straight into a lecture—a direct rebuttal to one of Tuviani’s recent publications on the proper technique for bloodletting—and vigorously defends Galen’s method in doing so.
Tuviani, seemingly unbothered by the words, removes the sheet as Ruscelli preaches in the background. Those of us seated in the circle gather closer around the table. I take the best vantage point, directly across from Tuviani.
As Ruscelli’s tone becomes more sharp, Tuviani picks up a blade and carefully makes the first incision. He continues to open the chest cavity from neck to pelvis. As he saws bone and peels back each layer of tissue and muscle, his assistants quietly clean up the liquid that drains from the cadaver.
I watch in wonderment. León takes feverish notes on the man’s techniques and his theories regarding blood and the venous system.
As the night progresses, Ruscelli’s ardor grows grander, as does the length of his sentences, only pausing to suck in breaths. His lecture becomes more cutting as Tuviani calmly cuts, moving from organ to organ, explaining their function and connection before separating them from the cadaver and holding them up. Tuviani quickly becomes the favorite of the crowd, whose cheering grows proportionally with the amount of blood that oozes from the cadaver.
I can’t tell what drives Ruscelli madder: Tuviani’s candor or the calmness of his responses.
With the crowd roaring, Ruscelli’s disdain crescendos, and he is practically frothing at the mouth as he wildly gesticulates his concluding remarks. Tuviani, up to his elbows in blood, finally yells, “And today, I prove Galen wrong about the phlebotomy!”
Gasps rise from the orchestra, where most of the students are sitting.
From the crowd, a voice says: “Because Galen didn’t know the correct placement of the vein. He had never seen one. Now, who other than a fool believes something that the evidence contradicts!”
“Who? Who said that?” Tuviani asks, and it’s not until all eyes swing to me that I realize it was I who had spoken.
For the first time that night, the audience truly hushes. Léon’s expression is near terror.
Instead of refuting me, instead of humiliating me, Tuviani says, “Go on, then.”
“There—therefore, the best point for revulsion would depend on the location of the festering wound, because the blood flows circularly through the body . . . to the heart.”
He laughs deeply. “To the heart? But certainly you believe that the heart is the organ through which the life-giving spirits flow to heat the body. And the liver is where all four of the humors are produced, including blood?”
My answer is undoubtedly going to get me expelled from school again. “Well, according to my calculations—”
“Calculations!” shouts Tuviani. “Who brings mathematics, an empirical approach, to medicine?”
The medical students in the crowd erupt in laughter, and I make the mistake of turning to Ruscelli, whose head looks like a pustule about to rupture.
Sì, undoubtedly going to get me expelled.
“I should have you at all of my demonstrations,” Tuviani continues, “speaking out such unfathomable ideas, so as to make my own theories more palatable!”
“The valves,” I say, keeping my voice steady despite the lingering laughter from the crowd. “They are tiny, but they are there. Near-invisible flaps, keeping the blood flowing in a single direction to the heart.”
“Sì, in a dreamer’s world, passerotto, but there is no hand so delicate as to manage the handling of veins for the proof.” He turns back to his assistant for his scalpel.
“Mine is.”
“Yours is what?”
“My hand is so delicate.”
“It has never been done before.”
“As far as you know, but I’ve performed the procedure.”
León’s eyes grow wide, and I realize I’ve given away the fact that we practice on cadavers.
“On calves!” I quickly add. “I’ve done it on calves.” If the authorities knew how much of my weekly allowance supports grave robbers, albeit in the name of science, I’d be imprisoned for the rest of my life, and if they knew how much I spend under the table at the apothecary, I might be tried for heresy, a crime difficult for even the Medici to appeal.
“Well then, my young friend, why don’t you give us all a demonstration? Never mind that the fine people paid good money to see one of the most renowned anatomists in all of Europe do a complete dissection. Shall we instead watch you perform your own little experiment?”
The rhetorical question is meant to put me in my place, but what the foreigner doesn’t understand is that there is no place in Toscana where a Medici would feel out of place—and at the surgery table is where I feel most in my element.
The theatre crowd gasps once again when I lift the barricade and step to the table.
“Leave it to a Medici to move from calf to human with such confidence,” says Ruscelli.
Tuviani’s eyebrow rises at the mention of my name, and then he dramatically hands me a scalpel, as if my assistant.
I wave my hand politely. “I have my own.” I pull a small case from my purse and remove my knife. “I am very particular about my tools,” I say, and pray that Tuviani is impassioned rather than humiliated by what I am about to show him, for humiliation is not my intention. I just love anatomy more than anything—because I love people more than anything.
Shuffles come from the auditorium as everyone tries to get a better view.
I lean over the body, paying particular attention to its stillness in contrast to my own movements. I slow my breath, and all the sounds in the room fade away. Everything fades, until it’s just the corpse and me. My eyes slip shut. I envision all
of the organs, just how León has drawn them a hundred times from our cadavers.
I use a little sleight of hand to misdirect my audience and ensure all eyes are focused exactly where I want them—on the blade and the incision, and not the way I grip the handle.
The scalpel makes contact, and I focus on the beating of my own heart, listening for the flow of blood missing from the cadaver. The scalpel moves slowly with the grain of the heart membrane, and I angle the blade carefully so as not to penetrate a single extra layer. Before I can ask, León removes a curve of wire from my tool purse and hands it to me.
“Light, please,” I say.
Tuviani’s gaggle of assistants hold candles nearer as I slip the wire into the vein, careful only to probe it so that the little flap protrudes without ripping.
“Lens!” Tuviani yells, and his assistant hands him a magnifier. He peers back at the vein and then to me, and then to my knife.
I pull the scarf out of his apron pocket to wipe the blade.
“Obsidian,” I say. “I find the glass blade so much more precise.”
“Well, young Medici,” he says, “you have perhaps the most delicate touch with a scalpel I have witnessed on three continents.”
“You could almost say I don’t touch it at all.”
León and I share another glance, and I know he is mentally scolding me for being so brazen.
Ruscelli gives me a different kind of look, one that very clearly says, I hoped you enjoyed your stay in Siena. But I do not care, for Tuviani has made this birthday one that I could never foresee being topped.
For the rest of the demonstration, I make sure not to interfere. I go back to taking notes, but I can sense the excitement in Tuviani’s speech.
After the seminar, Tuviani invites us to his dressing room backstage. One of his assistants pours wine into chalices while another vigorously scrubs the caked blood from beneath his fingernails.
“Niccolò and León,” he says, “I will be in residency at La Sorbonne starting this spring. Please know you have an open invitation to Paris.” He shakes his fingers dry. “Don’t be scared, Niccolò. Don’t ever be scared of Ruscelli or any of them. And don’t waste your breath trying to change their minds. It’s like trying to stop the plague from spreading.”
