Achillini, Alessandro

(b. Bologna, Italy, 29 October 1463; d. Bologna, 2 August 1512)

anatomy.

Alessandro Achillini was the son of Claudio Achillini, of an old family of Bologna. He was graduated doctor of philosophy and of medicine from the University of Bologna in 1484, whereupon he was appointed substitute lecturer of philosophy. After 1495 he taught medicine also. In 1506 he was obliged to leave Bologna, owing to the expulsion of the powerful Bentivoglio family, of whom he was a partisan. He went to Padua, where he was appointed teacher of philosophy. (It is possible that he had taught at Padua before 1506.) In 1508 the regents of the University of Bologna requested Achillini to return. He did so and taught there for three years. He is buried in the Church of Saint Martin, in Bologna. Achillini never married.

During his lifetime, Achillini was known mainly as a philosopher. Today, however, he is remembered for his considerable activity in research on human anatomy. He gave a good description of the veins of the arm, and he described the seven bones of tarsus, the fornix of the brain, the cerebral ventricles, the infundibulum, and the trochlear nerve. He also described, exactly, the ducts of the submaxillary salivary glands—a discovery generally attributed to the Englishman Thomas Wharton (1614–1673)—and the ileocecal valve, described later by Costanzo Varolio and Gaspard Bauhin. Finally, to Achillini is attributed the first description of the two ossicles of the ear, the malleus and incus.

A famous teacher (Magnus Achillinus) and a man of independent critical judgment, Achillini first demonstrated some mistakes of Galen. Among the Italian pre-Vesalian anatomists (Alessandro Benedetti, Gabriele Zerbi, Berengario da Carpi, and Niccolo Massa) the influence of Achillini’s works were slight, chiefly because his work were not illustrated and he used an obscure medieval terminology derived largely from Mondino’s texts and heavily sprinkled with Arabic terms.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Achillini’s major philosophical writings are to be found in Clarissimi Achillini opera. I. Aristotelis, philosophorum maximi, de secretis secretorum ad Alexandrum opusculum: II. Eiusdem de regum regimine; III. De universalibus et de elementis libri tres; IV. De orbibus libri quatuor; V. De signis tempestatum; VI. De mineralibus; VII. Alexandri Aphrodisei de intellectu; VIII. Averrois de animate beatitudine; IX. Alexandri Macedonis de mirabilibus Indiae ad Aristotilem (Venice, 1508, 1516, 1545, 1551, 1568). His major anatomical writings include Alexandri Achillini de humani corporis anatomia (Venice, 1516; Bologna, 1520); “In Mundini anatomiam adnotationes,” in Fasciculus medicinae by John of Ketham (Venice, 1522); Adnotaiiones anatomicae (Bologna, 1520)

II. Secondary Literature. See also P. Capparoni, Profili di medici e naturalisti celebri italiani dal secolo XV° al XVIII°, I (Rome., 1925), 11–14; S. De Renzi, Storia della medicina in Italia, II (Naples, 1845), 358–360. The best essay on Achillini’s work is L. Münster, “Alessandro Achillini anatomico e filosofo nello Studio di Bologna.” in Rivista di storia delle scienze mediche e naturali, 24 (1933), 7–22, 54–77. Further material can be found in B. Nardi, Studi su Pietro Pomponazzi (Florence, 1965); C.D. O’Malley, “The Discovery of the Auditory Ossicles,” in Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 35 (1961), 419–441; A. Pazzini, Storia della medicina, I (Milan, 1945), 614; V. Putti, Berengario da Carpi (Bologna, 1937); G. Rath, “Pre-Vesalian Anatomy in the Light of Modern Research,” in Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 35 (1961), 142–148.

Pietro Franceschini