FIRST EDITION IN FRENCH of "one of the most magnificent illustrated anatomical works of the 16th century (second only to Vesalius's Fabrica [Basle, 1543], and one of the great woodcut books of the French Renaissance ... Charles Estienne's great work has the distinction of being the first published work to include illustrations of the whole external venous and nervous system, and is of crucial importance in the history of neurology as containing the earliest detailed illustrations of pre-Vesalian brain dissections" [Schreiber].

But for a delay in printing, Estienne's work would have preceeded that of Vesalius. This French edition is considered rarer than the Colines Latin edition of a year earlier, and has an extra 2 woodcuts on A6r and A7r. These include the famous skeleton plate on p. 13 which is signed by Mercure Jollat. Another eight blocks are signed by Jollat. Six of the Jollat blocks and one other are also signed with the Lorraine cross. The male figures are thought to be based on designs by Giovanni Battista Rosso drawn from disinterred bodies. The female figures, with their mildy erotic poses, are thought to derive from a series of erotic prints entitled "The Loves of the Gods", engraved by Gian Giacomo Caraglio after drawings by Perino del Vaga and Rosso Fiorentino.