[Metamorphoses of commentary. Editorial projects and formation of anatomical knowledge in the 16th century]

The new anatomical knowledge, which began to come into existence in the first half of the 16th century, generated intellectual and material tools for the acquisition and transmission of knowledge on the basis of a methodological program which reworked the relationship between the written word of the authorities and sensorial observations. The reception and critical evaluation of inherited texts was carried out through the adoption and transformation of modes of writing and editorial devices put into the service of the new relationships to the past history of the discipline in the formation of knowledge of the body. The traditional form of commentary and the techniques which are associated with it, initially adopted by Berengario da Carpi and which are then to be found at the base of Andreas Vesalius' work, played a central role in this sense.