Vesling, who studied at Leiden and Bologna under Everhardius Vorstius, was Professor of Anatomy at Padua from 1632 to 1638, after which he devoted his energies to botany. His Syntagma anatomicum was first published in octavo at Padua in 1641, without illustrations. It was reissued in quarto with illustrations in 1647. A very popular textbook used in all the universities of Europe for half a century, it went through many editions and was translated into several languages (English translation by N. Culpeper, 1653). He provides a sound description of the chyle vessels (lacteals), and affirms that there are four pulmonary veins emptying into the left auricle of the heart. The twenty-four copper engravings, from drawings by Giovanni Georgi, are formal representations of anatomy, with no landscape background.