Vesalius, Andreas

Folio (15 5/8 x 10 5/8 in.; 397 x 270 mm). Roman and italic types, with some Greek and Hebrew, woodcut title page with Vesalius performing a dissection, woodcut portrait of the author, over 200 woodcut anatomical illustrations, including 21 full-page and 2 folding-sheet figural woodcuts of the skeletal, muscular, vascular and nervous systems, extra-illustrated with an engraved plate of the muscles of the knee bound between leaves B3-4, seven 14-line, 186 seven-line and 22 four-line historiated woodcut initials depicting dissection, surgery, obstetrical practice, and other medical arts, woodcut printer's device on last leaf; title stained and mended in fore-edges and lower margins with two repaired tears affecting image, title and second leaf strengthened on stubs, a few stains on portrait leaf of which one is in the image, foldout leaf m3 without added anatomical details, mostly marginal dampstains and spotting the latter heavier on a few leaves, a few leaves lightly browned, clean tear in lower margin of A1 entering 9 lines of text, wormtrack in upper margin of quires A–C and in lower margin of C–H, wormtrack in lower outer corner of quires O–Q, added plate repaired in margin just entering hatching of thigh, contemporary marginalia pp. 13–19 and elsewhere, mended tear in fore-margin of S2, tear in fore-margin of leaf Z4 entering text, m2 tear mended entering text, tears mended in last two leaves affecting text of index, printer's name struck through and rewritten on colophon leaf. Eighteenth-century mottled calf, spine richly gilt; scuffed, corners and edges torn, wormed at head and foot of spine.

Unidentified oval armorial library stamp on title verso (chevron beneath 3 stars) — Huntington Williams (bookplate, gift inscription dated 26 June 1971) — McKim Williams

Garrison-Morton 375; Grolier/Horblit 98; Norman 2137, PMM 71; Adams V-603; Choulant-Frank 178; Durling 4577; Wellcome 6560

De humani corporis fabrica libri septem. Basel: ex officina Joannis Oporini, 1543 Folio (15 5/8 x 10 5/8 in.; 397 x 270 mm). Roman and italic types, with some Greek and Hebrew, woodcut title page with Vesalius performing a dissection, woodcut portrait of the author, over 200 woodcut anatomical illustrations, including 21 full-page and 2 folding-sheet figural woodcuts of the skeletal, muscular, vascular and nervous systems, extra-illustrated with an engraved plate of the muscles of the knee bound between leaves B3-4, seven 14-line, 186 seven-line and 22 four-line historiated woodcut initials depicting dissection, surgery, obstetrical practice, and other medical arts, woodcut printer's device on last leaf; title stained and mended in fore-edges and lower margins with two repaired tears affecting image, title and second leaf strengthened on stubs, a few stains on portrait leaf of which one is in the image, foldout leaf m3 without added anatomical details, mostly marginal dampstains and spotting the latter heavier on a few leaves, a few leaves lightly browned, clean tear in lower margin of A1 entering 9 lines of text, wormtrack in upper margin of quires A–C and in lower margin of C–H, wormtrack in lower outer corner of quires O–Q, added plate repaired in margin just entering hatching of thigh, contemporary marginalia pp. 13–19 and elsewhere, mended tear in fore-margin of S2, tear in fore-margin of leaf Z4 entering text, m2 tear mended entering text, tears mended in last two leaves affecting text of index, printer's name struck through and rewritten on colophon leaf. Eighteenth-century mottled calf, spine richly gilt; scuffed, corners and edges torn, wormed at head and foot of spine.
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First edition of this "epochal publication, one of the most beautiful scientific books ever printed"(Grolier/Horblit). This publication revolutionized the study and teaching of anatomy; because of Vesalius's insistence on empirical observation, it "undermined the widespread reverence for authority in science and prepared the way for independent observation in anatomy and clinical medicine" (Garrison-Morton).

Vesalius studied medicine at the University of Paris and received his doctorate in medicine from the University of Padua in 1537. There he lectured on surgery and anatomy, beginning his practice of performing dissections himself while conducting his lectures instead of assigning a barber-surgeon that function. Shortly thereafter, a judge of the Paduan criminal court made available to Vesalius the bodies of executed criminals, which provided him with sufficient specimens to produce, at the age of twenty-nine, his monumental anatomical study.

The importance of the Fabrica in the history of medicine can scarcely be exaggerated. His remarkably accurate text is coupled with woodcut anatomical illustrations of artistic and technical brilliance in a comprehensive study of bones, muscles, blood vessels, nerves, abdominal viscera, thoracic organs and the brain. "Galen was not merely improved upon: he was superseded; and the history of anatomy is divided into two periods, pre-Vesalian and post-Vesalian" (PMM).