Title page of the De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem

This brightly coloured illustration of a public and live dissection is found at the front of the University of Sydney Library's copy of the first edition of De humani corporis fabrica libri septem (On the fabric of the human body in seven books).

The paints used by the first owner, German physician Caspar Neefe to colour the illustrations would have been made from the pigments available at the time, such as lapis-lazuli, azurite, malachite, calcite, and umber.

The Fabrica is considered one of the most important medical books ever published, and changed the way that anatomy was understood and taught.