'The Anatomist' transports readers to 16th-century Venice, where Matthew Columbus, the most famous physician of his time, finds himself behind bars. He has been charged with a crime heretical in the Church's eyes and subversive of the whole secular order of Renaissance society.
Like his famous namesake, Matthew Columbus has made a discovery of enormous significance for mankind. But whereas Christopher Columbus voyaged outwards to explore the world and found America, Matthew looked inwards, across the mons Veneris, and uncovered the clitoris.
'The Anatomist' is an audacious novel. Based on historical fact, it offers a witty excursion into Renaissance Italy, exposing with bland irony not only the social hypocrisies of the day, but also the prejudices and sexual taboos that may still be with us four hundred years later.
