Born December 1514 at Brussels, Belgium; died June 1564, Zacynthus, Greece. Reorganized the study of anatomy and overthrew devotion to the works of Galen. Author of the first complete textbook on human anatomy, De Humanis Corporis Fabrica (On the Workings of the Human Body). The statement that he was hampered by ecclesiastical authority and the Inquisition is erroneous, as is the charge that the Church was opposed to anatomy. The latter charge is founded on a misinterpretation of a Bull of Boniface VIII, "De Sepulturis."