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Realdo Colombo

Italian physician

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 21, 2026
Entity authorityQ367016
Source-derived summary

Matteo Realdo Colombo (c. 1515 – 1559) was an Italian professor of anatomy and a surgeon at the University of Padua between 1544 and 1559.

Early life and education

Matteo Realdo Colombo, or Realdus Columbus, was born in Cremona, Lombardy, to an apothecary named Antonio Colombo. Although little is known about his early life, he took his undergraduate education in Milan, where he studied philosophy, and he appears to have pursued his father's profession for a short while afterwards. He left the apothecary's life and apprenticed to the surgeon Giovanni Antonio Lonigo, under whom he studied for 7 years. In 1538, he enrolled in the University of Padua, where he was noted to be an exceptional student of anatomy. While still a student, he was awarded a Chair of Sophistics at the university. In 1542, he returned briefly to Venice to assist his mentor, Lonigo.

Academic career

Realdo Colombo studied philosophy in Milan, and then he trained to be a surgeon for several years under a Venetian named Giovanni Antonio Plato, also known as Lonigo or Leonicus. By 1538, during the years of Andreas Vesalius, Columbo had arrived at Padua, where he studied medicine, anatomy, and he lectured to arts students on sophistics, or logic.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Realdo Colombo” as italian physician. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Realdo, Colombo and Italian.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1515, 1559, 1544, 1538—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1516. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Realdo, Colombo and Italian providing the first useful test.
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Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Realdo Colombo”, the useful work is to connect “italian physician” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q367016. VIAF identifies the subject as 19793212. The Library of Congress control number is n00120379. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1515, 1559, 1544 and 1538.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Realdo Colombo” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.