Tabulæ anatomicæ. Romæ : Francisci Gonzagæ, 1714: FIRST EDITION, UNTRIMMED, AMAZING COPY IN ITS ORIGINAL BINDING

First Edition, Untrimmed

Amazing Copy in its original binding

Eustachio, Bartolomeo. Tabulæ anatomicæ clarissimi viri Bartholomæi Eustachii quas è tenebris tandem vindicatas et sanctissimi domini Clementis 11. pont. max. munificentiâ dono acceptas Præfatione, notisque illustravit, ac ipso suæ bibliothecæ dedicationis die publici juris fecit Jo. Maria Lancisius intimus cubicularius, & archiater pontificius. Romæ : ex officina typographica Francisci Gonzagæ in via lata, 1714.

Folio° (40,0 x 27,0 cm), contemporary half vellum binding, boards enriched by coloured paper, pp. XLIV, 115, [15], XLVII plates inserted outside signature; signature a-d⁴e⁶ A-Q⁴χ1 [Emendanda, et addenda].

47 engraved plates, never printed before, recording the results

of Eustachio's renowned anatomical investigations

Click on image to access a video description of the book

First edition of the collection of Anatomical Tables by the italian doctor Bartolomeo Eustachio, engraved by Pier Matteo Pini from his drawings.

This series of 47 plates were prepared in 1552 to illustrate a projected book by Eustachio entitled De dissensionibus a controversits anatomicis, which was never realized before Eustachius' death.

Only the first eight copperplate engravings were published during Eustachius' lifetime, in his Opuscula anatomica, all the other plates remained unprinted and forgotten in the Vatican Library until discovered in the early eighteenth century and presented by Pope Clement XI to his physician, the famous Giovanni Maria Lancisi, who published them for the first time in 1714 adding his own notes.

On three side of the plates there is a scale providing coordinates by which any part of the body could be precisely located on the plate withoutrecourse to identifying marks whitin the plates.

"Eustachi's plates are strikingly modern, produced without the conventional sixteenth-

century decorative accompaniment, and framed on three sides by numbered rules providing coordinates by which any part of the image can be located. The images are generic figures, composites of many anatomical observations, and are mathematically as well as representationally exact." (Haskel Norman. 100 books famous in medicine. Grolier Club)

"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" (ibidem).

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 of Hippocrates)

Bartholomeo Eustachi (1500/1510 – 1574) was an Italian anatomist. He worked in Urbino as physician to the Duke of Urbino and in Rome at the invitation of the Cardinal, Giulio della Rovere. In 1549 he bacome professor at Sapienza.

Together with Andreas Vesalius is credited with founding the science of human anatomy. Eustachio along with Vesalius and a few other contemporary anatomists placed anatomy on firm scientific footing based on personal dissections.

His discoveries include a detailed description of the suprarenal glands, of the bones of the middle ear, the tube that connects the middle ear to the pharynx, the structure that bears his name.

In myology he worked out the insertions and attachment of the sterno-eleido-mastoid muscle, of the coccygeus, the splenius of the neck, the levator of the eyelid, and some others. In neurology his descriptions of the cranial nerves are especially full. His description of the foetal circulation was the most complete up to his time and he recognized the valve on the left side of the opening of the inferior vena cava which serves to direct the blood from this vessel through the foramen ovale into the left auricle. This constitutes the most important distinctive structural difference between the circulatory apparatus of the adult and the child and is called the Eustachian valve. He also gave the first accurate description of the uterus.

Conditions: Few marks of use, but an amazing copy, in very good condition, in its original binding, untrimmed.

Provenence: Paper Ex-Libris Doctor Francoise Moutier at inside front board. II. Ownership signature Lieve Geelvink 1770 at flyleaf.

References: William Le Fanu, Notable Medical Books, Lily Library, 1976, pp. 40-41; Norman, The Haskell F. Nornan Libraiy of Science & Medicine, 740; Garrison & Morton, Medical Bibliography, 391, 1312; Brunet V:1068; Durling, 4532; Heirs of Hippocrates, 324; Mortimer/Harvard Italian, 513; The Haskell F. Norman Library of Science and Medicine -Part I-Wednesday, 18 March 1998, Christie's New York.