VALVERDE DE HAMUSCO, JUAN DE. Fl. 1560.


Anatomia del corpo humano. Rome: Antonio Salamanca and Antonio Lafrery, 1560. Folio. (290 x 195 mm). Engraved title-page within an architectural border with skeletons and small scenes of anatomy lessons and 42 full-page engraved plates. 18th-century Spanish limp vellum, edges expertly repaired, endpapers and hinges reinforced. Some pale dampstaining and occasional pale spotting. Quarter cloth folding case. Provenance: Conde de Fuentes (bookplate on verso of title).FIRST EDITION IN ITALIAN, second-issue title-page (dated MDLX). Valverde, a student of Realdo Colombo and a contemporary of Vesalius, first published his book in Rome in 1556. The original edition was in Spanish, but the same publisher printed an edition in Italian four years later. The plates were engraved by Nicolas Beatrizet (fl. 1550), very likely after drawings Gaspar Becerra (1520-1570) both associated with Michelangelo. The plate of a muscleman holding his own skin (see illustration) has been compared to Michelangelo's painting of Saint Bartholomew in the Last Judgment fresco in the Sistine Chapel. "The success of the book owed much to the copperplate illustrations, nearly all of which were taken over from the woodcuts in the Vesalian books. As Valverde explains to the reader: 'Although it seemed to some of my friends that I should make new illustrations without using those of Vesalius, I did not do so, in order to avoid the confusion that would follow ... and because his illustrations are so well done it would look like envy or malignity not to take advantage of them.' ... To what can we attribute the success of Valverde's anatomy? First, its format, although folio, was significantly smaller than Vesalius'. The text, entirely by Valverde though using Vesalius as a guide, was shorter, more direct, rearranged in a simpler manner, and less scholarly ... Lastly, in Valverde's illustrations ... many points were noted as being corrected or improved (from Vesalius)" (Roberts and Tomlinson). Valverde's text is the first where a broad public could find a substantiated account the pulmonary circulation. Adams V-230 (first edition); Brunet V:1067-8; Choulant-Frank, pp 205-8; Garrison-Morton 378.02 (first edition); NLM/Durling 4532; Roberts and Tomlinson pp 210-217.