Gaspare Tagliacozzi

He studied at the University of Bologna under Gerolamo Cardano for medicine, Ulisse Aldrovandi for natural sciences and Julius Caesar Aranzi for anatomy.

He improved on the work of the Sicilian Surgeon Gustavo Branca and his son Antonio (who lived in Catania in the 15th century) and developed the so-called "Italian method" of nasal reconstruction.

During the ceremony Muzio Piacentini, a colleague of Tagliacozzi, gave the funeral oration, while some of the other participants recited rhymes of praise This operation for nasal reconstruction (rhinoplasty) was developed in Italy due to the popularity of duelling with rapier in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

This process was described by the great anatomist Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564) but, he wrongly advised using the muscle and the skin of the arm to reconstruct the nose.

The Italian method was criticized by Gabriele Fallopio (1523–1562) as such a procedure could force the patient to remain with the arm immobilized for many months, and the result was not guaranteed as the skin would often detach.

Tagliacozzi's method was practiced by Fortunio Liceti, who mentions it in his De monstruorum nature causis et differentiis of 1616; by Henricus Moinichen in Observationes Medical chirurgicae of 1691; and by Thomas Feyens, surgeon to the University of Louvain, who had studied in Bologna with Tagliacozzi, in his work De praecipuis Artis Chirurgicae controversiis which was published posthumously in 1669.