Details
VESALIUS, Andreas (1514-1564). Librorum Andreae Vesalii Bruxellensis De humani corporis fabrica epitome. Edited by Nicolaas Fonteyn (fl. 1622-1644). Amsterdam: Jan Jansson, 1642.
2o (385 x 240 mm). Collation: *2 **4 ***1 A-C6 D6(-1) E-I6 K2. 62 leaves, 40 leaves of plates. Engraved title page, author portrait, 39 engraved plates (one double), 3 engraved illustrations printed on leaves with letterpress; ornamental woodcut initials, headpieces and tailpieces. (Outer margin of title strengthened on verso, tiny hole in image area of portrait leaf, a few small tears or natural paper flaws to blank margins, closed tear into the image of one plate with old repair to margin, two plates cropped touching image, one plate cropped to plate mark.) Sprinkled calf antique, gilt spine.
Vesalius' Epitome was originally published in 1543, the same year as his Fabrica, in order to provide a more affordable outline and key to the larger work. Just as the the Fabrica was reprinted and its illustrations copied for other works, both woodcut and engraved, so the Epitome served as the source and model for a number of later editions. The engraved plates in the present edition were copied from the German editions of the Epitome by Jacob Bauman (Anatomia deudsch, Nuremberg 1551, and later), which were themselves based on the plates of the Latin and English editions by Thomas Geminus (see lot 44); the text of the present edition depends on the editions of the Epitome by Hendrik Botter published in 1600 and subsequently. The illustrations in this tradition were in fact copied in large part from the plates of the Fabrica and include the three skeletons and the fourteen musclemen of that work, as well as the "Adam and Eve" plate of the Epitome.
This present edition, by the Dutch scholar Nicolaas Fonteyn, contains three additional illustrations printed with his introductory matter, an infant, the uterus and a full-page plate of the viscera. The preliminaries also include a "Drama Cercopithecium" by Fonteyn. "It has to do with a wise but petulant monkey which put mankind to ridicule in the best Rabelaisian, or better, Jan-Steenian, manner. The Vesalius-Sylvius controversy is brought in by implication and Vesalius is made out a man who, unlike Galen who created men of monkeys, made monkeys of men (his contemporaries who had not trained their eyes sufficiently to distinguish man from monkey)" (Cushing, p. 136). Cushing VI.D.-13; NLM/Krivatsy 12322.
2o (385 x 240 mm). Collation: *2 **4 ***1 A-C6 D6(-1) E-I6 K2. 62 leaves, 40 leaves of plates. Engraved title page, author portrait, 39 engraved plates (one double), 3 engraved illustrations printed on leaves with letterpress; ornamental woodcut initials, headpieces and tailpieces. (Outer margin of title strengthened on verso, tiny hole in image area of portrait leaf, a few small tears or natural paper flaws to blank margins, closed tear into the image of one plate with old repair to margin, two plates cropped touching image, one plate cropped to plate mark.) Sprinkled calf antique, gilt spine.
Vesalius' Epitome was originally published in 1543, the same year as his Fabrica, in order to provide a more affordable outline and key to the larger work. Just as the the Fabrica was reprinted and its illustrations copied for other works, both woodcut and engraved, so the Epitome served as the source and model for a number of later editions. The engraved plates in the present edition were copied from the German editions of the Epitome by Jacob Bauman (Anatomia deudsch, Nuremberg 1551, and later), which were themselves based on the plates of the Latin and English editions by Thomas Geminus (see lot 44); the text of the present edition depends on the editions of the Epitome by Hendrik Botter published in 1600 and subsequently. The illustrations in this tradition were in fact copied in large part from the plates of the Fabrica and include the three skeletons and the fourteen musclemen of that work, as well as the "Adam and Eve" plate of the Epitome.
This present edition, by the Dutch scholar Nicolaas Fonteyn, contains three additional illustrations printed with his introductory matter, an infant, the uterus and a full-page plate of the viscera. The preliminaries also include a "Drama Cercopithecium" by Fonteyn. "It has to do with a wise but petulant monkey which put mankind to ridicule in the best Rabelaisian, or better, Jan-Steenian, manner. The Vesalius-Sylvius controversy is brought in by implication and Vesalius is made out a man who, unlike Galen who created men of monkeys, made monkeys of men (his contemporaries who had not trained their eyes sufficiently to distinguish man from monkey)" (Cushing, p. 136). Cushing VI.D.-13; NLM/Krivatsy 12322.