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Lot 28
ESTIENNE, CHARLES. 1504-1564. La dissection des parties du corps humain. Paris: Simon de Colines, 1546.
21 September 2015, 13:00 EDT
New YorkSold for US$12,000 inc. premium
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ESTIENNE, CHARLES. 1504-1564.
La dissection des parties du corps humain. Paris: Simon de Colines, 1546.
Folio (316 x 220 mm). a8 A-Z8 AA-BB8 CC4 (-CC4, final blank). Illustrated with woodcut vignette on title and 64 full-page anatomical woodcuts, woodcut illustrations and initials in text. Modern quarter red morocco and marbled boards. Marginal restoration and browning to title and final leaf of text, lacking final blank, faded pen-trials to title.
FIRST EDITION IN FRENCH OF "ONE OF THE FINEST OF ALL ANATOMICAL TREATISES ... the full-page woodcuts, artistically presenting the anatomical subjects in special poses before unusual background settings, are unusually sumptuous and imaginative" (Heirs of Hippocrates). With two full-page woodcuts not included in the Latin edition of the year before. Estienne, of the famous family of printers, received his medical degree in 1542 but had been begun work on the treatise at least a decade before. In fact, the work was finished by 1539 with much of the text already set in type when a lawsuit held up publication for several years. "Had De dissectione been published in 1539, there is no question that it would have stolen much of the thunder from Vesalius's Fabrica: it would have been the first work to show detailed illustrations of dissection in serial progression, the first to discuss and illustrate the total human body, the first to publish instructions on how to mount a skeleton, and the first to set the anatomical figures in a fully developed panoramic landscape, a tradition begun by Berengario da Carpi in his Commentary on Mondino. Nonetheless, Estienne's work still contained numerous original contributions to anatomy, including the first published illustrations of the whole external venous and nervous systems, and descriptions of the morphology and purpose of the "feeding holes" of bones, the tripartate composition of the sternum, the valvulae in the hepatic veins and the scrotal septum. In addition, the work's eight dissections of the brain provide more anatomical detail that had previously appeared" (Garrison-Morton 378, Latin ed). Heirs of Hippocrates 256 (Latin ed); USTC 24290; Wellcome 6077.
Folio (316 x 220 mm). a8 A-Z8 AA-BB8 CC4 (-CC4, final blank). Illustrated with woodcut vignette on title and 64 full-page anatomical woodcuts, woodcut illustrations and initials in text. Modern quarter red morocco and marbled boards. Marginal restoration and browning to title and final leaf of text, lacking final blank, faded pen-trials to title.
FIRST EDITION IN FRENCH OF "ONE OF THE FINEST OF ALL ANATOMICAL TREATISES ... the full-page woodcuts, artistically presenting the anatomical subjects in special poses before unusual background settings, are unusually sumptuous and imaginative" (Heirs of Hippocrates). With two full-page woodcuts not included in the Latin edition of the year before. Estienne, of the famous family of printers, received his medical degree in 1542 but had been begun work on the treatise at least a decade before. In fact, the work was finished by 1539 with much of the text already set in type when a lawsuit held up publication for several years. "Had De dissectione been published in 1539, there is no question that it would have stolen much of the thunder from Vesalius's Fabrica: it would have been the first work to show detailed illustrations of dissection in serial progression, the first to discuss and illustrate the total human body, the first to publish instructions on how to mount a skeleton, and the first to set the anatomical figures in a fully developed panoramic landscape, a tradition begun by Berengario da Carpi in his Commentary on Mondino. Nonetheless, Estienne's work still contained numerous original contributions to anatomy, including the first published illustrations of the whole external venous and nervous systems, and descriptions of the morphology and purpose of the "feeding holes" of bones, the tripartate composition of the sternum, the valvulae in the hepatic veins and the scrotal septum. In addition, the work's eight dissections of the brain provide more anatomical detail that had previously appeared" (Garrison-Morton 378, Latin ed). Heirs of Hippocrates 256 (Latin ed); USTC 24290; Wellcome 6077.