Milestones of Science Books

CASSERIO, Giulio Cesare (CASSERIUS, Iulius) / SPIEGEL, Adriaan van de.

Tabulae Anatomicae LXXIIX... Daniel Bucretius ... XX que deerant supplevit et omnium explications addidit / De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Decem / De Formato Foetu Liber Singularis Aeneis Figuris Exornatus Epistole du ae Anatomical Tractus de Arthritide.

Venice: Evangelista Deuchinus, 1627.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Good. Item #002152

Tabulae Anatomicae LXXIIX ... Daniel Bucretius . XX que deerant supplevit et omnium explications addidit. Venice, 1627. Folio. Engraved title with border as above by Valesio after Fialetti. 96 (of 97, lacking pl. 78 / Tab. XV, Lib. VIII) full-page engravings numbered to 95, 77 probably by and after J. Maurer, 20 by Valesio after Fialetti, explanatory text on verso, Woodcut ornaments. Some ink staining & occasional paper loss to plates.[Bound as issued with] SPIEGEL, Adriaan van den. De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Decem. Edited by Daniel Bucretius. Venice: Evangelista Deuchinus, 1627. Folio (410 x 260 mm). Engraved title with architectural border by F. Valesio after O. Fialetti. Woodcut initials and ornaments. Some dampstaining to title. [Bound with]: SPIEGEL, Adriaan. De Formato Foetu Liber Singularis Aeneis Figuris Exornatus Epistole du ae Anatomical Tractus de Arthritide. Padua: Martini et Pasquati, (1626). Folio. 9 full-page engraved illustrations, woodcut device on title-page. Contemp. vellum; worn & defective, chipping & wear to edges throuhgout. Shaken. With many leaves loose. ----

Roberts & Tomlinson, The Fabric of the Body, pp. 262-63; see also pp. 259-61; Cazort, Kornell, Roberts, The Ingenious Machine of Nature: Four Centuries of Art and Anatomy (1996) pp. 167-68; Choulant-Frank 225; Garrison-Morton 381; Heirs of Hippocrates 414; NLM/Krivatsy 2202; 11297 (citing Casserio's and Spiegel's works separately); Sappol, Dream Anatomy pp. 110-111, 113; Waller 9121 and 1812. - FIRST EDITION OF THIS MAGNIFICENT AND ORIGINAL SERIES OF ANATOMICAL PLATES drawn by the late-Mannerist Italian painter and printmaker, Odoardo Fialetti (1573-1638) and engraved by Francesco Valesio. Born in Bologna, Fialetti initially apprenticed with Giovanni Battista Cremonini, and later under Tintoretto, with whom he was a favorite. Fialetti painted some of the churches at Venice, where he settled in 1604 in preference to Bologna, in order to avoid competition from the Carracci. Fialetti also engraved many plates, and was the author of works on costume, the arts, and a treatise on anatomy for artists. Since before 1600 Casserio had been working on a fully-illustrated anatomical treatise, which he hired Fialetti to illustrate. His De Vocis of 1601 concludes with a promise to publish a treatise on the anatomy of the whole human body with illustrations. However, at the time of his early death in 1616 Casserio left 86 spectacular anatomical drawings by Fialetti, and also possibly their engravings, but no text. Casserio and the co-author of this work, Adrian van der Spiegel, both studied under Fabricius ab Aquapendente (Fabrici) at the University of Padua. Both worked closely with their teacher for many years, and in 1608 Casserio succeeded Fabrici in Padua's chair of surgery and anatomy, which passed in turn to Spiegel upon Casserio's death in 1616. Spiegel (Spigelius) (1578-1625) wrote an unillustrated treatise on anatomy that remained unpublished during his lifetime; in his will he appointed Daniel Bucretius (ne Rindfleisch) to see the work into print. To illustrate Spiegel's treatise, Bucretius obtained 77 of Fialetti's original 86 anatomical plates from his Casserio heirs, and commissioned 20 more by Fialetti and Valesio to complete the series (the remaining 9 plates left by Casserio were used to illustrate Spiegel's De Formato Foetu [1626]). "In the complete series, the largest number of plates, forty-three-and these perhaps the most memorable-are to be found in Liber IV, on the muscles. There are also interesting illustrations on the genito-urinary system in Liber VIII and on the brain in Liber X-one of these, showing the arterial circle at the brain, predates the Willis-Wren illustration [from Willis's Cerebri Anatome (1664)]... Except for those few plates which were derived from Vesalius, the anatomists--Casserio first and Bucretius later--had reconsidered ways of presenting human anatomy. In doing so they produced the first original.

On Hold