An ancestor of the stereotactic atlases: the Tabulae Anatomicae of Bartolomeo Eustachio.

The authors report the history of the Tabulae Anatomicae of Bartolomeo Eustachio (ca. 1510-1574). In the tables, the anatomical illustrations were drawn inside a numerical frame, with pairs of numbers on the y- and x-axes to identify single anatomical details in the reference table. The measures and the references could be calculated using the graduated margins divided by 5 units for each the x-axis and y-axis. The Tabulae Anatomicae can be considered a precursor to modern anatomical reference systems that are the basis of studies on cerebral localization mainly used for stereotactic procedures.