The logo of the Società Italiana di Chirurgia Plastica Ricostruttiva ed Estetica (Italian Society of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery)

The Società Italiana di Chirurgia Plastica Ricostruttiva ed Estetica (SICPRE) was founded in 1935 as the Società Italiana di Chirurgia Riparatrice Plastica ed Estetica. The society's logo was, at that time, a woman's face in profile, taken from a Greek sculpture in low relief, and appeared on the programme of its first congress held in Bologna the same year.

In 1938, thanks to the proposal of Prof. Gustavo Sanvenero Rosselli, the programme of the third European Congress of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery in Milan sported a new logo2 (Figure 1), which has remained the symbol of the Italian Society of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery ever since.

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Figure 1 Cover of the programme of the third European Congress of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery held in Milan in 1938.

The SICPRE acronimum of the society, who holds the copyright, was added in 2001 (Figure 2).

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Figure 2 The logo of the Società Italiana di Chirurgia Plastica, Ricostruttiva ed Estetica to whom the acronimum SICPRE was added in 2001.

The logo is the VIII plate depicting nasal reconstruction (Figure 3) as described by Gaspare Tagliacozzi in his testbook ‘De Curtorum Chirurgia per Infitionem’1, translatable as Plastic Surgery by Grafting, published in Venice in 1597 and printed by Gaspare Bindoni junior (Figure 4). A series of fine engravings illustrate each step of the entire operation in meticulous detail.

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Figure 3 The plate number VIII from the Tagliacozzi textbook.

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Figure 4 The front page of the ‘De curtorum chirurgia per infitionem’, published in Venice in 1597 and printed by Gaspare Bindoni junior.

Evidence of surgery being practised empirically can be found in Sicily and Calabria, the southern Italian regions, back in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In this part of Italy, a small number of surgeons, jealous of their methods, handed down their closely guarded techniques from father to son. The procedures and secrets of the art of surgery were not to be, and indeed were not, written down.

Gustavo Branca and his descendents in the Sicilian city of Catania and the Vianeo family founded by Vincenzo in Calabria had empirical expert knowledge of nasal reconstruction techniques3.

Did they invent the method? Or had they perhaps learned it from the Arabs, who for many years had ruled over Sicily? We do not know. What we do know is that medieval laws provided for the punishment of certain crimes by cutting off the nose and then there were soldiers wounded in battle, lepers disfigured by the disease…

Both families of surgeons enjoyed great fame and had flourishing practices.

It is not known whether there was any contact between the two. It is likely, however, that the Vianeo family studied under the Brancas, from whom they learned to perform the art of nasal reconstruction with great mastery. They originally practised in Maida, a village in Calabria, but with the arrival of success they moved to the better-known town of Tropea on the Tyrrhenian Coast, home to many aristocratic families.

In 1570 the last surviving member of the Vianeo family died and in the same year Gaspare Tagliacozzi graduated in medicine at the University of Bologna. While still a student, he had been elected ‘anatomist’, a position that involved lecturing to fellow students revising for exams and, perhaps, preparing cadavers to be used in anatomy lessons.

As a man of science, Tagliacozzi offered a technical description of what had already become an art in the expert hands of surgeons operating in the south of Italy. He claimed that the idea of reconstructive rhinoplasty had come to him ‘ex agrorum cultura’ (meaning from farming culture), but this is very hard to believe!

According to a number of sources, however, the publication of this technique may well be the first case of an unauthorized report on data stolen from other scholars. There is in fact an amusing story about this reconstructive procedure, rightly known as the Italian method. It seems that in the sixteenth century the fame of the Branca and Vianeo families had spread beyond the borders of southern Italy and reached the University of Bologna, where Tagliacozzi was, at that time, studying and working as an anatomist.

With the pretext of having to operate on a relative, an Army Surgeon from the same university by the name of Leonardo Fioravanti asked the Vianeo family if they would allow him to watch an operation. He did not say he was a doctor. He was admitted to the operating theatre and was able to carefully observe each step of the reconstruction. Once back in Bologna he revealed all the secrets of the operation to Tagliacozzi4, who learned the method and than published it in his treatise a few years later. He never quoted, as we said, the source of his knowledge.

Nothing new under the sky!