Translating Learned Surgery1.

This essay explores the increasingly visible or strong relationship between educated surgeons and artisans that can be documented in vernacular translations of Latin surgery texts in the sixteenth century. We often consider the vernacular as a tool for broad dissemination, but vernacular translation was used by educated surgeons for more calculated, professional reasons. In vernacular texts, they began to articulate their role and responsibilities in urban settings (rather than military settings). This essay focuses on the Latin and Italian surgery texts of Giovanni Andrea della Croce, a Venetian, educated surgeon, who began to frame (in text and image) his work according to aspects of artisanal traditions.