SPIEGHEL, ADRIAAN VAN DEN. 1578-1625.


De humani corporis fabrica libri decem. Edited by Daniel Bucretius (ca 1600-1631). Venice: Evangelista Deuchinus, 1627. WITH: CASSERIO, GIULIO. C.1561-1616. Tabulae anatomicae LXXIIX ... Daniel Bucretius ... XX que deerant supplevit et omnium explicationes addidit. Venice: Evangelista Deuchinus, 1627. WITH: SPIEGEL. De formato foetu liber singularis. Padua: Martini and Pasquatus, [1626]. 3 works in 1 volume. Folio (406 x 258 mm). Two engraved titles with architectural border by F. Valesio after O. Fialetti and 106 engraved plates (9 plates in Foetu liber) probably by and after J. Maurer, 20 by Valesio after Fialetti, woodcut initials and ornaments. Contemporary mottled calf, rebacked old spine laid down. Some mostly marginal worming and staining, slight offsetting. FIRST EDITIONS of this magnificent series of anatomical plates. Spieghel succeeded Casseri in the chair of anatomy at Padua. "First publication of the very beautiful copper plates engraved by Francesco Balesio after Odoardo Fialetti, a pupil of Titian. Casseri commissioned these plates covering the whole field of human anatomy for his unfinished master work entitled Theatrum Anatomicum. For this publication, the editor, Daniel Rindfleisch added another 20 plates by the same artist/engraver team" (Garrison-Morton). The plates first published in this volume "are among the finest produced in the seventeenth century and are remarkable for their accuracy, beauty of execution, and tasteful arrangement" (Heirs). Recent scholarship reveals that tables 9 and 10 of Casserius's anatomy represent "the first accurate portrayal of the arterial anastomosis at the base of the brain" (Bender), known as the Circle of Willis. See Bender, "Julius Casserius and the First Anatomically Correct Depiction of the Circulus Arteriosus Cerebri of Willis," World Neurosurgery pp 791-797; Cushing C114 and S361; Garrison-Morton 381; Heirs of Hippocrates 414.