VESALIUS, Andreas

 

 

key words

의학사

medicine

의학

해부

해부학

 

 

 

 

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VESALIUS, Andreas
De humani corporis fabrica libri septem.

 

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Venice: Francesco de Franceschi & Johann Criegher, 1568.

The 3rd Folio Edition of the book often called the greatest of all medical works, and the cornerstone of modern anatomy, first printed in Basel in 1543.
 
This scarce edition is Illustrated with 223 superb woodcut illustrations, copied (in somewhat reduced size) by Johannes Criegher from the original drawings for the monumental Basel edition, ascribed to Jan van Calcar, a Flemish-born Italian painter and a pupil of Titian.
 
"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).
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Folio (315 mm x 210 mm). Bound in modern (circa 1950) vellum over boards, title stamped in red on spine.
 Pagination: [12], 510, [40] (of [46] index) pages.
Collation: *6 A-Z6 Aa-Yy6 Zz8 [-Yy5,6; -Zz1].
Lacking 3 leaves of Index only, otherwise complete with all text and illustrations present (including leaf Dd5 with woodcut figures intended to be cut and superimposed on Dd3v, here left intact).
 
Printed in roman and italic letter, with occasional use of Greek and Hebrew types. Fraceschi's 'Pax' device on title-page. Illustrated with 223 fine anatomical woodcuts, of which many are full-page. Numerous woodcut initials.
 
Extensive Index (leaves Vv4r-Zz8r). Register on Zz8r. Preliminaries include Vesalius' dedicatory preface to the Holy Roman emperor Charles V from the first edition (dated 1542). Vesalius' prefatory epistle to Oporinus from the second edition, and printer's dedication to Antonio Montecatini.
 
Provenance: Dr. Erich Letterer, Professor of general pathology and pathological anatomy, and the Director (1939 - 1964) of the Institute of Pathology at the University of Tübingen (presented to him on his 60th birthday 30.VI.1955 by his colleagues and/or students, with a printed address leaf with fourteen signatures inserted after the front free endpaper).
 
Clinica Ginecologica del Dott. F. Keppler, Venezia (rubber stamp on front binder's blank).
 
Ex bibliotheca Sta Maria Pratalea (?) (Inscription in 17th (?) century hand on leaves *2r and Zz8r.
 

Lacking 3 leaves of Index, otherwise complete and very good copy. Title page slightly soiled, with some ink markings and with two discrete marginal repairs to blank verso. First two leaves of text with several words underlined in colored pencil. Some leaves slightly browned. Small brown stain to leaf C6. Leaves Ss1-Zz1 at the end with a brown stain to the outer margin (text not affected). A few leaves at the beginning and the end with minor marginal repairs (without loss). Early possession notes on leaves *2r and Zz8r. Generally, a clean and tight copy with ample margin and superb woodcuts.
 

Harvard/Mortimer-Italian 529; Adams V606; Bibliotheca Belgica vol.5, p.697, V84; Choulant/Frank p. 182; Cushing VI.A-4; Durling 4580; Osler 569; Waller 9902.
 

"This work is the first modern treatise on anatomy based upon dissections of the human body... Vesalius really described the body as we know it, for the first time fully, and for the first time accurately... The veneration with which his works were regarded was as for a gospel, like the feeling men have towards the sacred Scriptures." (Osler)
 
Andreas Vesalius (1514 - 1564) was Born Andreas van Wesel in Brussels, He received his medical education in Louvain and Paris. He moved to Padua, where he began teaching anatomy, and eventually became physician of the German emperors Charles V and his son Philip II. his revolutionary findings challenged older medical teaching based on Galen, whose anatomy had been based on the dissection of only animals. In Padua, Vesalius developed his new observations through human dissection, working on the bodies of executed criminals. His De humani corporis fabrica libri septem (The Seven Books on the Structure of the Human Body) was first published in 1543 in Basel.
 

 

With this epoch-making work published when he was only twenty-nine years old, Vesalius revolutionized the science of anatomy. Throughout this encyclopedic work on the structure and workings of the human body, Vesalius provided a fuller and more detailed description of human anatomy than any of his predecessors, correcting errors in the traditional anatomical teachings of Galen (which had been obtained from primate rather than human dissection), and arguing that knowledge of human anatomy was to be obtained only from human sources. Even more revolutionary than his criticism of Galen and other medieval authorities was Vesalius's assertion that the dissection of cadavers must be performed by the physician himself -- a direct contradiction of the medieval doctrine that dissection was a task to be performed by menials while the physician lectured from the traditional authorities. Only through actual dissection, Vesalius argued, could the physician learn human anatomy in sufficient detail to be able to teach it accurately. This "hands-on" principle remained Vesalius's most lasting contribution to the teaching of anatomy. Because it was then legal only to dissect the cadavers of executed criminals, and these cadavers were always in short supply, Vesalius urged physicians to take their own initiative in obtaining material for dissection. The Fabrica contains several amusing and unrepentant anecdotes of how students had robbed graves to obtain cadavers, especially those of women, since female criminals were rarely executed in those days.
 
The Fabrica also broke new ground in its unprecendented blending of scientific exposition, art and typography. Anatomical illustrations had never before appeared in such number or been executed in such minute precision as in the Fabrica. Vesalius sent the woodblocks, made under his close supervision, to the printer with precise instructions as to placement within the text, and with exact marginal references which brought about direct relationship of text to illustrations, or even details within illustrations.
 
The 223 woodcut illustrations in this 1568 Venice edition are "reduced copies of the blocks cut for the first edition. The copying was donefrom the Oporin edition of 1555 and includes eight additions made in 1555. The Basel woodcuts are attributed to Jan Stephan van Calcar, a pupil of Titian. Franceschi states in his dedication to Antonio Montecatini (leaf *6v) that Giovanni Chrieger cut these Venice copies. In the full-page figures, Chrieger omitted the landscape detail that served to localize the original cuts." (Ruth Mortimer, Harvard College Library: Italian 16th Century Books, II, 529)