Vesalius opens the body

In the same year as Copernicus, Vesalius publishes De humani corporis fabrica — based on his own dissections rather than on texts, illustrated to an unprecedented standard, and correcting over two hundred of Galen's errors, most of which arose because Galen had dissected animals. The book's method is its argument: look for yourself. It is one of the foundational works of both modern medicine and scientific illustration.