The iconography of frontispieces of anatomical treatises of Mondino, Vesalius and Realdo Colombo, briefly presented here, let us accompany a central development of the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries: the process by which the authority of the word (of the scholastic tradition texts) gives way for the evidence of the facts (established by experimental observation). The remarkable scientific-technological development that followed the consolidation of mathematician-experimental method was not accomplished, however, without producing contradictions. Discomfort associated with controversial issues of further scientific progress, such as the reducing of the living body into inert and manipulable matter (proper to mechanism) and the overvaluation of the power to control (proper to technological compulsion), can be foreseen very early. This is suggested here by the interpretation of a notable work of art of the 17th century: the painting "The anatomy's lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp" by Rembrandt.
Modern science; Authority; Evidence; Experimental method; Mechanism; Control of nature; Anatomy's lesson; Mondino; Vesalius; Rembrandt
