Alessandra Giliani (1307 – 26 March 1326) is best known as the first woman to be recorded in historical documents as practicing anatomy and pathology,[1] and is thought to be an Italian natural historian.

[1] Celebrated as the first recorded female anatomist of the Western World, she is reputed to have been a brilliant prosector (preparer of corpses for anatomical dissection).

[3][page needed] Giliani is said to have carried out her own anatomical investigations, developing a method of draining the blood from a corpse and replacing it with a hardening coloured dye—and possibly adding to scientific understanding of the coronary-pulmonary circulatory system.

Some scholars consider her to be a fiction invented in the sixteenth century by  Alessandro Machiavelli (1693–1766)[5] whilst others hold that the participation of a woman in anatomy at that time caused her to be edited out of history.

[2] Barbara Quick's novel, A Golden Web, published by HarperTeen in 2010, is historical fiction based on the life and times of Alessandra Giliani.