Costanzo Varolio

Costanzo Varolio, Latinized as Constantius Varolius, was an Italian anatomist and a papal physician to Gregory XIII in the sixteenth century. Born in Bologna, he was a pupil of the anatomist Giulio Cesare Aranzio, who had himself been a pupil of Vesalius, and he took his doctorate in medicine in 1567. In 1569 the Senate of the University of Bologna created an extraordinary chair in surgery for him, with responsibility to teach anatomy as well. He is believed to have taught later in Rome, where he had considerable success as both physician and surgeon and where his memorial plaque refers to his great skill in removing stones. He died in Rome.