 Only in Italy could certain important research methods be used, such as dissections on women.Realdo Colombo (also known as Realdus Columbus) and Gabriele Falloppio were pupils of Vesalius.Columbus, as Vesalius's immediate successor in Padua, and afterwards professor at Rome, distinguished himself by describing the shape and cavities of the heart, the structure of the pulmonary artery and aorta and their valves, and tracing the course of the blood from the right to the left side of the heart.