Juan Valverde de Amusco

Juan Valverde de Amusco (about 1525 to an unknown date), also written de Hamusco, was a Spanish anatomist born in the Crown of Castile who studied medicine at Padua and Rome under Realdo Colombo and Bartolomeo Eustachi. He published several works on anatomy, including a short book on keeping mind and body healthy (Paris, 1552). His most famous work was the Historia de la composicion del cuerpo humano, first published in Rome in 1556, whose 42 engraved copperplate illustrations were, with four exceptions, taken almost directly from Vesalius's De humani corporis fabrica. Vesalius commented bitterly on the plagiarism and accused him of having performed very few dissections himself, though Valverde sometimes corrected Vesalius, for example in his depictions of the muscles of the eye, nose and larynx. One of his striking original plates shows a muscle figure holding his own skin in one hand and a knife in the other. The drawings are thought to be by Gaspar Becerra and the engravings by Nicolas Beatrizet.