Charles Estienne (; 1504–1564), known as Carolus Stephanus in

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

and Charles Stephens in English, was an early exponent of the

science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence ...

anatomy Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having i ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. Charles was a younger brother of Robert Estienne I, the famous printer, and son to

Henri Henri is an Estonian, Finnish, French, German and Luxembourgish form of the masculine given name Henry. People with this given name ; French noblemen :'' See the ' List of rulers named Henry' for Kings of France named Henri.'' * Henri I de Mon ...

, who Latinized the family name as . He married Geneviève de Berly. After the usual humanistic training he studied medicine, and took his doctor's degree at

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

. He was for a time tutor to

Jean-Antoine de Baïf Jean Antoine de Baïf (; 19 February 1532 – 19 September 1589) was a French poet and member of the '' Pléiade''. Life Jean Antoine de Baïf was born in Venice, the natural son of the scholar Lazare de Baïf, who was at that time French a ...

, the future poet. It is uncertain whether he taught publicly. His career was interrupted by the oppressive

persecution Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another individual or group. The most common forms are religious persecution, racism, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these ter ...

s in which their

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opinions involved the family. Éstienne, though from a family whose classical taste was their principal glory, did not betray the same servile imitation of the

Galen Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus ( el, Κλαύδιος Γαληνός; September 129 – c. AD 216), often Anglicized as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher in the Roman Empire. Considered to be o ...

ian anatomy as his contemporary,

Jacques Dubois Jacques Dubois ( Latinised as Jacobus Sylvius; 1478 – 14 January 1555) was a French anatomist. Dubois was the first to describe venous valves, although their function was later discovered by William Harvey. He was the brother of Franciscus S ...

. He appears to have been the first to detect valves in the orifice of the

hepatic vein In human anatomy, the hepatic veins are the veins that drain venous blood from the liver into the inferior vena cava (as opposed to the hepatic portal vein which conveys blood from the gastrointestinal organs to the liver). There are usually thr ...

s. He was ignorant, however, of the researches of the

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anatomists; and his description of the

brain A brain is an organ (biology), organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It is located in the head, usually close to the sensory organs for senses such as Visual perception, vision. I ...

is inferior to that given sixty years before by Alessandro Achillini. His comparison of the cerebral cavities to the

human ear An ear is the organ that enables hearing and, in mammals, body balance using the vestibular system. In mammals, the ear is usually described as having three parts—the outer ear, the middle ear and the inner ear. The outer ear consists ...

has persuaded F. Portal that he knew the inferior cornua, the

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and its prolongations; but this is no reason for giving him that honour to the detriment of the reputation of Achillini, to whom, so far as historical testimony goes, the first knowledge of this fact is due. The researches of Éstienne into the structure of the

nervous system In biology, the nervous system is the highly complex part of an animal that coordinates its actions and sensory information by transmitting signals to and from different parts of its body. The nervous system detects environmental changes ...

are, however, neither useless nor inglorious; and the circumstance of demonstrating a canal through the entire length of the

spinal cord The spinal cord is a long, thin, tubular structure made up of nervous tissue, which extends from the medulla oblongata in the brainstem to the lumbar region of the vertebral column (backbone). The backbone encloses the central canal of the sp ...

, which had neither been suspected by contemporaries nor noticed by successors till

Jean-Baptiste de Sénac Jean-Baptiste de Sénac (1693–1770) was a French physician was born in the district of Lombez in Gascony, France. Early life and education Details of his early life are sketchy, however, it is generally thought that he studied medicine at the ...

(1693–1770) made it known, is sufficient to place him high in the rank of anatomical discoverers. In 1551, when Robert Estienne left

for

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, Charles, who had remained a

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, took charge of his printing establishment, and in the same year was appointed king's printer. In 1561 he became bankrupt, and he is said to have died in a debtors' prison. His principal works are: *''Praedium Rusticum'' (1554), a collection of tracts which he had compiled from ancient writers on various branches of

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people ...

, and which continued to be a favorite book down to the end of the 17th century *''Dictionarium historicum ad poeticum'' (1553), the first French

encyclopedia An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles ...

*''Thesaurus Ciceronianus'' (1557) *''De dissectione partium corporis humani libri tres'', with well-drawn woodcuts (1545) He also published a translation of an Italian comedy, ''Gli Ingannati'', under the title of ''Le Sacrifice'' (1543; republished as ''Les Abus'', 1549), which had some influence on the development of French comedy; and ''Paradoxes'' (1553), an imitation of the ''Paradossi'' of

Ortensio Landi ''Gli Innamorati'' (, meaning "The Lovers") were stock characters within the theatre style known as commedia dell'arte, who appeared in 16th century Italy. In the plays, everything revolved around the Lovers in some regard. These dramatic and pos ...

. His daughter Nicole Estienne became a prolific poet.

Works

* ''Sylua : Frutetum; Collis'' . F. Stephanus, Parisiis 153
Digital edition
by the

University and State Library Düsseldorf The University and State Library Düsseldorf (german: Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Düsseldorf, abbreviated ULB Düsseldorf) is a central service institution of Heinrich Heine University. Along with Bonn and Münster, it is also one of t ...

* ''L' agriculture et maison rustique'' as the German Translation''Siben Bücher Von dem Feldbau, und vollkommener bestellung eynes ordentlichen Mayerhofs oder Landguts'', Strassburg 1580, doi:10.3931/e-rara-86649 (Digitized Edition at E-rara).

References

External links

Charles Estienne: De dissectione partium corporis humani libri tres. (Paris, 1545)
Selected pages scanned from the original work. Historical Anatomies on the Web. US National Library of Medicine.
Online Galleries, History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries
High resolution images of works by and/or portraits of Charles Estienne in .jpg and .tiff format. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Estienne, Charles 1504 births 1564 deaths French medical writers French anatomists 16th-century French physicians History of anatomy 16th-century French writers 16th-century male writers French translators French male non-fiction writers