EUSTACHIUS, BARTOLOMAEUS. C.1505-1574.


Tabulae anatomicae. Edited by Giovanni Maria Lancisi. Rome: Francisco Gonzaga, 1714. Folio (394 x 265 mm). Large engraved vignette on title, engraved graduated scale plate and 47 engraved plates. Contemporary boards, rebacked in modern calf, uncut. Some rubbing and staining to boards. Some marginal browning and staining, plate 29 with marginal tear touching platemark. Provenance: J. Summers (18th-century signature and purchase note in pounds on front free endpaper); Warden H. Ayer (signature on front free endpaper and title-page, dated 1934); Haskell F. Norman (bookplate, his sale, Christie's New York, 18 March, 1998, lot 86).FIRST EDITION. 47 plates were prepared in 1552 to illustrate a book by Eustachius, De dissensionibus ac controversiis anatomicis, which was never realized. Early in the 18th-century the plates were discovered and Giovanni Maria Lancisi, who published the full series of 47 plates along with his notes. "Had Eustachi's full series of [47] anatomical copperplates been published at the time of their completion in 1552, Eustachi would have ranked with Vesalius as a founder of modern anatomy" (Norman). "Eustachio's plates are remarkable not only for the advanced anatomical knowledge shown, but also for the original method of identification of structures drawn on the plates, and for their artistic qualities" (Heirs). Brunet V:1068; Durling 4532; Heirs of Hippocrates 324; Mortimer/Harvard Italian 513; Norman 740 (this copy).