And now, after five years of incessant labor, Vesalius was prepared to leave his much loved Padua and his devoted students.

He had accomplished an extraordinary work.

He knew, I feel sure, what he had done.

He knew that the MSS.

contained something that the world had not seen since the great Pergamenian sent the rolls of his "Manual of Anatomy" among his friends.
Too precious to entrust to any printer but the best--and the best in the middle of the sixteenth century was Transalpine--he was preparing to go north with the precious burden.