De humani corporis fabrica, lib. VII

VESALIUS, Andreas

Published by Jean de Tournes, Lyons, 1552

About this Item

THE FINEST EXTANT COPY OF THE 1552 VESALIUS. Second edition of the Fabrica, the Norman-Freilich copy in a superb fanfare binding for Pietro Duodo. "The work of Andreas Vesalius of Brussels constitutes one of the greatest treasures of Western civilization and culture. His masterpiece, the Humani Corporis Fabrica . established with startling suddenness the beginning of modern observational science and research. [The] author has come to be ranked with Hippocrates, Galen, Harvey and Lister among the great physicians and discoverers in the history of medicine. However, his book is not only one of the most remarkable known to science, it is one of the most noble and magnificent in the history of printing. In it, illustration, text and typography blend to achieve an unsurpassed work of creative art; the embodiment of the new spirit of the Renaissance directed towards the future with new meaning" (Saunders and O'Malley, p. 9). "No other work of the 16th century equals it, though many share its spirit of anatomical inquiry. It was translated, reissued, copied and plagiarized over and over again and its illustrations were used or copied in other medical works until the end of the 18th century" (PMM). "Published when the author was only 29 years old, the Fabrica revolutionized not only the science of anatomy but how it was taught. Throughout this encyclopedic work on the structure and workings of the human body, Vesalius provided a fuller and more detailed description of the human anatomy than any of his predecessors, correcting errors in the traditional anatomical teachings of Galen. Even more epochal than his criticism of Galen and other . authorities was Vesalius's assertion that the dissection of cadavers must be performed by the physician himself. As revolutionary as the contents of the Fabrica and the anatomical discoveries which it published, was its unprecedented blending of scientific exposition, art and typography" (Garrison-Morton). This unauthorized pocket-sized edition, which closely follows the text of the 1543 edition but reproduces only four of the woodcuts, was one of a series of small format editions of texts of proven success produced by Jean de Tournes I from the mid-1540s through the 1560s. During the previous decade Lyons had become a center for the publication of pocket editions of the medical classics, usually translated into French. The printer's note on the verso of the first title explains that the edition was printed for the use of students, but clearly, "Jean de Tournes' venture could scarcely have been a profitable one, for the Fabrica without [its] illustrations was not the same book by any means" (Cushing). Cushing noted that copies with both volumes in matching bindings are rare. Provenance: Pietro Duodo (1554-1611), Venetian ambassador to the Court of Henri IV from 1594 to 1597 (binding). This bibliophile had a portable library of which all the books (about 150 small volumes acquired during his stay in Paris) were bound in the same way, only the color of the morocco varied according to the themes: olive green or havana was reserved for works of literature, lemon for medicine and botany, and red for history, philosophy, theology and law. These bindings were once attributed to the Eve workshop and it was long thought, because of the presence of a daisy among the characteristic floral decoration, that they were made for Queen Marguerite de Valois; 19th-century shelfmark or lot label on front free endpaper to vol. I, '365/2'; '991' in ink on front pastedown of vol. II; Haskell F. Norman (bookplate, his sale, Christie's New York, 18 March 1998, lot 215); Joseph A. Freilich (label, his sale, Sotheby's New York, 11 January 2001, lot 537); Christie's, 16 June 2015. "Several motives underlay the composition and publication of the Fabrica. According to Vesalius medicine was properly composed of three parts; drugs, diet, and 'the use of the hands,' by which last he referred to surgical practice and especially to it. Seller Inventory # 5373

Bibliographic Details

Title: De humani corporis fabrica, lib. VII

Publisher: Jean de Tournes, Lyons

Publication Date: 1552

Edition: First edition.