Like that of botany, the beginning of the modern scientific study of anatomy can be traced to a combination of humanistic learning, Renaissance art, and the craft of printing. The father of modern human anatomy generally is accorded to the Belgian anatomist Andreas Vesalius, who studied initially at the rather conservative schools in Leuven (Louvain) and Paris. Most important, Vesalius abolished the practice of having someone else do the actual dissection.

It is perhaps surprising that the great developments in botany during the 16th century had no parallel in zoology. Instead, there arose a group of biologists known as the Encyclopedists, best represented by Conrad Gesner, a 16th-century Swiss naturalist, who compiled books on animals that were illustrated by some of the finest artists of the day. Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), was himself interested in the human form. His work titled, Four Books on Human Proportion (1591), shows five differently constructed types of both male and female figures, all parts of the body expressed in fractions of the total height. Dürer based these constructions on both Vitruvius and empirical observations of "two to three hundred living persons. This fourth book is devoted to the theory of body movement.