Alessandra Giliani (1307-1326) was thought to be an Italian natural historian, best known as the first woman to be recorded in historical documents as practicing anatomy and pathology. However, the historical evidence for her existence is limited. Some scholars consider her to be a fiction invented by Alessandro Machiavelli (1693-1766) . whilst others hold that the participation of a woman in anatomy at that time was so shocking that she has been edited out of history . Giliani is believed to have been born in 1307, in

San Giovanni in Persiceto San Giovanni in Persiceto (from 1912 to 1927: ''Persiceto''; Western Bolognese: ) is a town and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Bologna, northern Italy. Located in the northern part of the Metropolitan City, bordering with the province ...

, in the Italian province of

Emilia-Romagna egl, Emigliàn (man) egl, Emiglièna (woman) rgn, Rumagnòl (man) rgn, Rumagnòla (woman) it, Emiliano (man) it, Emiliana (woman) or it, Romagnolo (man) it, Romagnola (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title ...

. The chronicle of her life holds that she died in 1326, possibly from a septic wound, at the age of 19. Celebrated as the first female anatomist of the Western World, she is reputed to have been a brilliant

prosector A prosector is a person with the special task of preparing a dissection for demonstration, usually in medical schools or hospitals. Many important anatomists began their careers as prosectors working for lecturers and demonstrators in anatomy and p ...

(preparer of corpses for anatomical dissection). She is said to have worked as the surgical assistant to Mondino de' Liuzzi (d. 1326), a world-renowned professor at the medical school of the

University of Bologna The University of Bologna ( it, Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, UNIBO) is a public research university in Bologna, Italy. Founded in 1088 by an organised guild of students (''studiorum''), it is the oldest university in continuo ...

. (Credited with being the father of modern anatomy, de' Liuzzi published a seminal text on the subject in 1316.) Giliani is said to have carried out her own anatomical investigations, developing a method of draining the blood from a corpse and replacing it with a hardening coloured dye—and possibly adding to our understanding of the coronary-pulmonary

circulatory system The blood circulatory system is a system of organs that includes the heart, blood vessels, and blood which is circulated throughout the entire body of a human or other vertebrate. It includes the cardiovascular system, or vascular system, tha ...

. (All evidence of her work was either lost or destroyed.) Alessandra Giliani's short life was honoured by Otto Angenius, also one of Mondino's assistants and probably her fiancé, with a plaque at the "San Pietro e Marcellino degli Spedolari di Santa Maria di Mareto, o d'Ulmareto" which describes her work.

Legacy

She is mentioned by the nineteenth-century historian Michele Medici, who published a history of the Bolognese school of anatomy in 1857. Barbara Quick's novel, ''A Golden Web'', published by HarperTeen in 2010, is a fictional re-imagining of Alessandra Giliani's life and times.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Giliani, Alessandra 1307 births 1326 deaths Italian anatomists History of anatomy 14th-century Italian scientists People from San Giovanni in Persiceto Italian women scientists Women anatomists 14th-century Italian women