No Other Work of The Sixteenth Century Equals it VESALIUS, Andreas. De humani corporis fabrica libri ſeptem. Baſel: Johannes Oporinus. 1555. POA Folio (415 x 270mm). Original full vellum binding by Wendelin Rihel ſtamped to upper and lower boards; pp. [6] + 824 + [24, index] including 2 with folding extenſions, printer s colophon and device, woodcut title page, frontiſpiece portrait of Veſalius, 23 plates and around 200 text illuſtrations attributed by Vaſari and others to Jan Stephan van Calcar (1499 1546), Titian s pupil; manuſcript biography of Veſalius in Antoine Portal s hand to four rear flyleaves, ſimilar to that found in Portal s Hiſtoire de l Anatomie et de la Chirurgie (Didot, 1770 73); binding a little marked, a little browning to title page, ſmall wormhole to top of pp. 1 32, marginal notations in red ink by unknown hand to p. 663, otherwiſe extremely clean in its handſome original binding, a remarkably good copy.
rovenance: ownerſhip inſcription dated 1746 of Henry Hoſpinian to front prelim, ink ſignature of Charles Frederic Sahler to fep, with handwritten receipt made out to Sahler by Nicholas Linder dated 1783 tipped-in to ffep. The provenance of this volume is faſcinating. The binding is certainly by the humaniſt printer Wendelin Rihel (fl. 1535 55) in Straſburg, as the endpapers bear the watermark that was uſed by him and his family in the period 1550 60 and which includes the ſymbol of the Straſburg republic. This was moſt likely done for the humaniſt academy, as indicated by the ſtamps on the front and back of the vellum binding, where it ſtayed for an unknown number of years before ſurfacing at Leiden Academy, where Hoſpinian bought it in 1746, as his Latin inſcription ſtates. Hoſpinian, a deſcendant of the great Swiſs reformer Rudolf Hoſpinian, was a phyſician ſtudying in Leiden. He died ſoon after, in 1747, after which ownerſhip of the book paſsed to Charles Frederic Sahler. How this happened is ſomewhat obſcure, as the book does not appear in the poſthumous catalogue of Hoſpinian s books. Sahler was probably not even born when Hoſpinian died; we know that he publiſhed his doctoral theſis in 1786 and was married in 1791. There is a clue, however, in the dedication of his theſis to John Buxtorf III, whoſe family came, like Sahler, from Montbeliard near Baſel and who ſeems to have acted as a father figure to him. Buxtorf, ſcion of the great Swiſs academic dynaſty, was a phyſician who knew Antoine Portal; he features in Portal s Hiſtoire. His and Hoſpinian s families alſo had a long hiſtory of friendſhip and collaboration. It ſeems poſsible that Buxtorf obtained the book from Hoſpinian before his death and paſsed it on later to Sahler, perhaps with the involvement of Portal who included his own potted biography of Veſalius to complete the gift. It ſeems very likely that Portal was alſo involved in its next move, as he knew Nicholas Linder well through their work together at the Haarlem Academy, where they improved its reſearch facilities. Linder bought the book from Sahler in 1783, as the tipped-in receipt ſtates, although by this time Linder was at Baſel, where he had been given the title with which he ſigns his name, Miniſt Academ. The book s whereabouts after this time are more myſterious; its condition is remarkable given the centuries of upheaval and war that it has lived through before finally emerging onto the market in Paris in the early 2000s. This may be partly explained by Linder s curious deſcription of the book as Specimina Academica, which may mean that it was treated as a perfect ſpecimen to be kept away from the public and hence conſerved for poſterity.
econd edition. Scarce; the 2009 cenſus of the ſecond edition identified 113 exiſting copies in private and inſtitutional hands ( Joffe, A cenſus of the edition of 1555 of Andreas Veſalius De Humani Corporis Fabrica, International Archives of Medicine, Volume 2 No. 26, 2009). The firſt edition was publiſhed in 1543 and is rightly acclaimed as the founding text of modern anatomy, overturning many of the teachings of Galen that had remained unqueſtioned for the previous 1400 years and eſtabliſhing obſervations and diſsections of actual human bodies, rather than academic tradition, as the baſis of ſurgical theory. Yet the ſecond edition in many ways overſhadows it. It is more laviſh, with heavier paper, larger type and better plates:... the reviſed edition of 1555 was a different matter entirely. Although its frontiſpiece is ſomewhat cruder, in almoſt every other reſpect the ſecond edition marks a major improvement over its predeceſsor. Its typography is even more elegant, and the illuſtrations are better ſpaced and made more legible. There are many ſmall changes to the Latin, making it even more harmonious, but there are major alterations too... Moſt obviouſly they ſhow the reſults of Veſalius continuing experience of diſsecting corpſes, eſpecially his autopſies. He corrects or amplifies his earlier ſtatements, referring conſtantly to his own experience and playing down his Galeniſm. Two areas in particular are worth noting. His experiences with female corpſes, including pregnant women, enabled him to rewrite much of his anatomy of the womb and the foetus, and to move away from the animal anatomy that had characteriſed earlier deſcriptions. His comments on the heart depart from the Galenic view, from which he had earlier been afraid to diſsent, to a ſtronger inſistence on the facts of anatomy, eſpecially when they appeared to prove that, contrary to Galenic doctrine, the intraventricular ſeptum was impermeable. On the concluſions to be drawn from this challenge to Galenic orthodoxy Veſalius was cautious, expreſsing his doubts about the traditional deſcription of the courſe of the vena cava, and calling for further inveſtigation into theſe, to moſt anatomiſts, novel findings. Although much within the firſt edition remains unaltered, the 1555 Fabrica makes ſubſtantial changes that go far beyond what moſt contemporary authors did in their reviſions. Its overall meſsage was even more uncompromiſing: the human body could only be underſtood by a clear and careful anatomical inveſtigation into human corpſes, and the evidence of the ſenſes muſt take precedence over that of paſt authorities (Vivian Nutton, introduction to On the Fabric of the Human Body: An annotated tranſlation of the 1543 and 1555 editions of Andreas Veſalius De Humani Corporis Fabrica, Illinois: Northweſtern Univerſity, 2003).
he plates, created in cloſe collaboration between Veſalius, the printer Oporinus and the engraver, are juſtly famous. Vaſari and ſubſequent writers attribute the artwork to Jan Stephan van Calcar, a pupil of Titian who had worked with Veſalius on previous projects, although others have mooted the involvement of Titian himſelf. Whoever the artiſt was, the variety of compoſition, from details of ſeparate parts to whole ſyſtems viewed from different angles, realiſed human anatomy in three dimenſions and perfectly complemented each ſtage of the text.as Nutton notes: the Fabrica [is] a defining moment in the hiſtory of illuſtration, and of anatomical illuſtration in particular, for it integrates the viſual into the whole argument of the book. Both image and text are indiſpenſible (ibid). The images are at once dramatic, beautifully compoſed (often with elaborately drawn landſcape backgrounds) and ſcientifically clear. Of contemporary artiſts works only Leonardo s drawings bear compariſon, and theſe were unknown at the time, meaning that Veſalius s artiſt was a true pioneer, guided by the viſion of the author himſelf. Veſalius s guiding principle for the illuſtrations was one of ſhowmanſhip allied to education, as the title page depiction of a public diſsection ſuggeſts: For Veſalius, the diſsection went beyond medical ſtudies to become a theatrical performance for a larger public; his medical textbook was dedicated and preſented to Emperor Charles V as a Renaiſsance coffee-table book. (Dackerman, Prints and the Purſuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe, Harvard Art Muſeums, p. 150). The ſpectacle was the making of Veſalius profeſsionally; Charles V s reſponſe was to appoint him the Imperial Phyſician.
he influence of this book is clear No other work of the ſixteenth century equals it (Printing and the Mind of Man 71) and, deſpite evidence that Veſalius was planning a third edition, the 1555 edition remains the definitive verſion. It is ſimultaneouſly bolder, more beautiful and more rigorous than the firſt, and has a ſtrong claim to being the greateſt work ever publiſhed on human anatomy. PMM 71; Heirs of Hippocrates 283; Waller 9901; Wellcome 6562; Osler 568; NLM 4579.