Realdo Colombo - Academic Career

Academic Career

In 1543, he returned to Padua to take over the position of Andreas Vesalius, who had travelled to Switzerland to oversee the printing of his book De Humani Corporis Fabrica. Colombo remained in Padua in this capacity for two years before traveling to Pisa at the behest of Cosimo I de Medici. While in Pisa, he worked extensively with Michelangelo. He intended to collaborate with Michelangelo on an illustrated anatomy text to rival De Fabrica but this never came to pass, likely due to Michelangelo's advanced age. In 1548 Colombo took a position at the Sapienza in Rome which he kept until his death in 1559. Because Colombo was not an expert of Galen, the anatomical authority of his time, and because of his very public disputes with the revered Vesalius and Gabriele Falloppio, he was never very highly regarded in Italy.