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Details
PARE, Ambroise (c.1510-1590). Discours d'Ambroise Paré ... A sçavoir de la mumie, des venins, de la licorne et de la peste. Paris: Gabriel Buon, 1582.
4° (222 x 172mm). Complete with final blank, copper-engraved portrait of Paré by Etienne Delaune in first state and 12 wood-engraved illustrations in the text, nearly all full-page, wood-engraved printer's device on title, initials and headpieces. (R1 with tiny marginal nick, tiny marginal wormhole at gutter to title and following 3 leaves.) Contemporary limp vellum, titled on spine in ink manuscript with library shelfmark (upper cover lightly wrinkled), plexiglass box. Provenance: Cécile Eluard (booklabel; sold 20 February 1992, lot 53) -- Francis Pottiée-Sperry (bookplate; sold Sotheby's Paris 27 November 2003 lot 122).
FIRST EDITION, VERY RARE, OF PARE'S TRACT AGAINST ANCIENT MEDICINE, DENOUNCING EMPIRICAL PRACTICES, AND ILLUSTRATED WITH 12 BEAUTIFUL WOODCUTS. THE CECILE ELUARD-POTTIEE-SPERRY COPY.
Paré was among the first to oppose the medical use of 'mummia' or 'mummy' (a substance used in the embalming of mummies). In this book, he explains how the Chevalier Des Ursins, a French nobleman who had been injured, had been treated by many doctors and surgeons including himself. During his convalescence, Des Ursins inquired why he had not been given mummy to drink, to which Paré replied that it would have done more harm than good, as would have unicorn's horn. Paré wrote this book to explain his reasons for not giving it and he supports his arguments by many experiments on living and inanimate objects. This important book is illustrated with a handsome portrait of Paré, aged 75 (here in first state) engraved by the Strasbourg artist Etienne Delaune and 12 beautiful woodcuts (6 already used in the 1575 Oeuvres and 6 full-page specially cut for this book).
Adams P-316; Brun, p.267; Brunet IV, 366; Adhémar/Linzeler, Inventaire du fonds français – Graveurs du seizième siècle, I, p. 280 (for the portrait); J. Doe, A bibliography of the works of Ambroise Paré. Amsterdam, 1976, n° 24; Tchemerzine V, 39.
4° (222 x 172mm). Complete with final blank, copper-engraved portrait of Paré by Etienne Delaune in first state and 12 wood-engraved illustrations in the text, nearly all full-page, wood-engraved printer's device on title, initials and headpieces. (R1 with tiny marginal nick, tiny marginal wormhole at gutter to title and following 3 leaves.) Contemporary limp vellum, titled on spine in ink manuscript with library shelfmark (upper cover lightly wrinkled), plexiglass box. Provenance: Cécile Eluard (booklabel; sold 20 February 1992, lot 53) -- Francis Pottiée-Sperry (bookplate; sold Sotheby's Paris 27 November 2003 lot 122).
FIRST EDITION, VERY RARE, OF PARE'S TRACT AGAINST ANCIENT MEDICINE, DENOUNCING EMPIRICAL PRACTICES, AND ILLUSTRATED WITH 12 BEAUTIFUL WOODCUTS. THE CECILE ELUARD-POTTIEE-SPERRY COPY.
Paré was among the first to oppose the medical use of 'mummia' or 'mummy' (a substance used in the embalming of mummies). In this book, he explains how the Chevalier Des Ursins, a French nobleman who had been injured, had been treated by many doctors and surgeons including himself. During his convalescence, Des Ursins inquired why he had not been given mummy to drink, to which Paré replied that it would have done more harm than good, as would have unicorn's horn. Paré wrote this book to explain his reasons for not giving it and he supports his arguments by many experiments on living and inanimate objects. This important book is illustrated with a handsome portrait of Paré, aged 75 (here in first state) engraved by the Strasbourg artist Etienne Delaune and 12 beautiful woodcuts (6 already used in the 1575 Oeuvres and 6 full-page specially cut for this book).
Adams P-316; Brun, p.267; Brunet IV, 366; Adhémar/Linzeler, Inventaire du fonds français – Graveurs du seizième siècle, I, p. 280 (for the portrait); J. Doe, A bibliography of the works of Ambroise Paré. Amsterdam, 1976, n° 24; Tchemerzine V, 39.
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