Anatomia corporum adhuc viventium
Anatomia vivorum
Anatomie, das ist Zerlegung der lebendigen Körper
Printing History, Manuscripts. First printed 1577, edited by Gerhard Dorn, who appended the text to his translation of pseudo-Paracelsian treatises: Aurora thesaurusque philosophorum Theophrasti Paracelsi. No manuscripts known.
Editions. Edited by Huser, Chir. 1605, Appendix, 58–70 (German version, translated from Dorn’s Latin text). Not edited by Sudhoff.
Relationship between different versions. Only one known version.
Structure, genre/form, perspective, style. The Anatomia is an instruction on the analysis of human urine. It is written entirely in the third person.
Relationship to other texts.
Authenticity, authorship. The authenticity of the Anatomia was heavily questioned already by Huser, who in 1605 described the text as “attributed” to Paracelsus (“Theophrasto Paracelso zugeeignet”). It was probably written in Latin by Gerhard Dorn, who states, however, that he has just appended his own remarks to the doctrine of Paracelsus (ed. 1577, 131). Dorn had promised to his new patron, Prince François of Valois (1555–1584), Duke of Anjou and Alençon, the French King’s brother, to bring to light new writings of Paracelsus. However, he had seriously fallen out with both Pietro Perna and Adam von Bodenstein since 1573 and had been excluded from the Basel Paracelsian publishing movement, so that no new Paracelsian text was available to him. All he could do was editing spurious texts like the Aurora (§ 4.5) and Thesaurus thesaurorum (§ 4.52), write himself treatises on Paracelsianism like his Monarchia Triadis in Unitate and produce forgeries like the Anatomia corporum adhuc viventium, all of which filled his 1577 volume dedicated to François of Valois.
Time of writing. Probably written in the mid 1570s.
Manuscripts: no manuscripts known
First printed:
- 1577 (Latin; in Aurora thesaurusque philosophorum Theophrasti Paracelsi, ed. Gerhard Dorn (Basel: [Thomas Guarin], 1577); VD16 P 405; Sudhoff, Bibliographia Paracelsica, 302–304 n° 177)
Essential bibliography: Sudhoff, Bibliographia Paracelsica, 303–304, 462–463.
Further bibliographical references:
Didier Kahn, “Les débuts de Gérard Dorn,” in Joachim Telle, ed., Analecta Paracelsica (Stuttgart, 1994), 59–126, on 109, 110.
Kahn, “Le retour de Gérard Dorn” (2010–2011), 135–136, 138.
