In Harvey’s time, the “seven liberal arts” studied at university included geometry and arithmetic, so the intellectual culture was not separated in two, but one and indivisible. A broad sympathy, based on a shared language and a common set of ideas and aims, connected each scholarly discipline, so that everything seemed to be touching everything else. Public dissections began with a theological declaration: “anatomy is sacred and divine, since it bears witness to the wisdom of God”. Preachers, government officials and lawyers often attended Harvey’s anatomies, deriving “much profitable knowledge” concerning the “mysteries of the body”, as well as ideas that could be applied to the social “body politic”.