Programme

Location: Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, Mutsaardstraat 31, Antwerp

09:15 – Registration (Day 1)

09:45 – Welcome

Peter Bols, Dean, UAntwerp Faculty of Pharmaceutical, Biomedical and Veterinary Sciences, Belgium

Session I – The Artist and the Anatomical Body

Chair: Ann Van de Velde & Joachim De Block

10:00 – Inventing a Canon: Artistic Choices and Strategies in Order to Properly Represent the Anatomised Body in Vesalius’s Fabrica

Eleonora Del Riccio, Italy

10:30 – From Flesh to Form - From Studio to Specimen: Artistic Anatomy and Scientific Illustration at the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice

Roberta Ballestriero, Italy

11:00–11:30 – Coffee Break & Portfolio Viewing

Session II – Artistic Practices in Anatomy

Chair: Pascale Pollier & Mariella Devos

11:30 – Anatomy in Wax

Eleanor Crook, UK

12:00 – Medical art: observation and planning for scientific illustration

Joanna Cameron, UK

12:30 – Dr Tulp’s Lesson and Dissection of the Forearm

Wendy Birch, UK

13:00–14:00 – Lunch & Portfolio Viewing

Session III – Dissection in Practice

Chair: Pascale Pollier & Ann Van de Velde

14:00 – Under the Knife: The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Joannes van Buyten (1648) as a Unique Source of Information about Surgery Lessons in Early Modern Antwerp

Beatrijs Wolters van der Wey, Belgium

14:30 – Dissecting Two Arms: One Live, and One Prepared, Following the 2006 Groningen University Study of Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp

Francis Van Glabbeek & Tom Quisenaerts, Belgium

18:30 – End of Day 1

19:30 – Speakers’ Dinner, Hof Van Liere

_{All presentation screens will feature a 16:9 aspect ratio. Resolution will be set at 1920 × 1080 pixels.}

Coordination: Kitty Vancouillie

Audiovisuals: Tom Dietvorst

Location: Grauwzusters Convention Center, Lange Sint-Annastraat 7, Antwerp

08:15 – Registration (Day 2)

08:45 – Welcome

Bob Van Hee

Session IV – Theatrum Anatomicum

Chair: Marc De Roeck & Guido Sold

09:00 – In the Footsteps of His Forefathers in Wesel: Andreas Vesalius’s Origins

Guido Sold, Germany

09:30 – From Obscura Sutura to the Archetype: Vesalius, Goethe, and the Theatrical Staging of Anatomical Knowledge

Theo Dirix, Belgium

10:00 – Connecting Art and Anatomy in Italy

Kevin Petti, Italy

10:30–11:00 – Coffee Break, Poster & Book Viewing

Session V – Anatomical Illustration

Chair: Francis Van Glabbeek & Ann Van de Velde

11:00 – Vesalius’s Epitome (1543): The illustrations and an early proof impression

Monique Kornell, USA

11:30 – The Use of Sculptures in Anatomical Theatres

Christine Beese & Marie Krüger, Germany

12:00 – Books V and VI of Vesalius’s Fabrica: First Dissection Manuals

Jacqueline Vons, France

12:30–13:30 – Lunch, Poster & Book Viewing

Session VI – Academic Framework: Texts, Courses, and Examinations

Chair: Bob Van Hee & Pascale Pollier

13:30 – Vesalian Knowledge Spread Throughout Asia into Japan

Daniel Margócsy, UK

14:00 – Niccolò Massa’s First Letter on Vesalius

Vivian Nutton, UK

14:30 – Vernacular Anatomy: A Sixteenth-Century Yiddish Translation of Vesalius’s Epitome

Daniella Zaidman-Mauer, The Netherlands

15:00 – Audiences and Anatomical Learning after Vesalius’s Fabrica

Louis Caron, Belgium

15:30–16:00 – Coffee Break, Poster & Book Viewing

Session VII – Education through Visual Representation

Chair: Ann Van de Velde & Marc De Roeck

16:00 – Constructing the Body: The Intersection of Standardizing Anatomy, Illustration, and Digitization

Sarah Gluschitz, West Indies

16:30 – The Myth of the Wandering Womb: Imagining versus Dissecting the Early Modern Female Body

Alison Klairmont Lingo, USA

17:00 – Itinerant Bodies: Anatomy and Medicine at the Fairground (19th–20th Century)

Gitte Samoy, Belgium

17:30 – Conclusion

Francis Van Glabbeek

17:45 – Piano Recital

Elke Robersscheuten & Theo Dirix

18:30 – Poster Session / Reception / Walking Dinner

(Optional programme, to be paid separately)

Location: Lambotte Museum, Heilige Geeststraat 21, Antwerp

Adjacent to the Museum Plantin-Moretus and the Vrijdagmarkt, in the historic centre of Antwerp

10:00–12:00 – Guided Visit to the Exhibitions CARITAS & ARS MEDICA and FABRICA VITAE

This year offers a particularly beautiful opportunity for dialogue. The triennial exhibition FABRICA VITAE (founded in 2014, Zakynthos, Greece) enters into conversation with the existing exhibition CARITAS & ARS MEDICA at the Lambotte Museum.

The exhibition space lends itself naturally to exchange and reflection. Glass display cabinets allow room for subtle interventions. Sofie Muller’s sculpture of a seated child on a bed forms a powerful focal point at the heart of the room, while a work by Kiki Smith enters into quiet dialogue with the bronze bust of Andreas Vesalius.

The artists of FABRICA VITAE work with great care and sensitivity—responding to the existing display, entering into dialogue rather than interruption, and collectively shaping a thoughtful and resonant new presentation. The overarching theme is CARITAS. Traditionally translated as charity, CARITAS holds a far broader meaning: an active love for humanity; compassion rooted in responsibility; and care that binds knowledge, medicine, art, and ethics. It speaks not only of giving, but of attention, dignity, and the commitment to stand with one another—body, mind, and spirit.

We would be very happy to explore this with you.

Pascale Pollier, Curator FABRICA VITAE (9 May – 14 August 2026)

12:00 – Adjourn with a Drink at Café ATLAS, located next to the museum