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This paper examines the uses and meanings of the word ingenium in Renaissance anatomical writings. The technical skills of the surgeon displayed in beautiful demonstrations of dissections or in delicate surgical procedures were readily described as ingenious. These skills relied on a refined sense of touch and were therefore embodied in the dissecting hand, heavily represented in the visual culture of anatomy. Was the surgeon’s ingenio, like his manual expertise, epitomized by his hand and located in his sense of touch? Did the matter of the medical craft – human flesh – determine the nature and identity of these ingenious ‘artisans of the body’? Did ingenio encapsulate the ways in which anatomy crafted the human body? By examining the cultures of ingenuity that suffused the realm of medical technè, this paper will chart the languages of experience (peritia) shaped by the sensible bodies of medical practitioners, drawn from repeated – tacit – experiences of touching other bodies.
