pdf - Roger Gaskell Rare Books

is included in the standard chemical bibliographies of Cole, Duveen, Ferguson
and Neu, only Duveen lists Fodinae regales.
Knighted by Charles I in 1641, Pettus was captured and imprisoned by
Cromwell in 1651. In 1655 he petitioned the Protector, expressing his Wdelity
to the government, and was rewarded with the deputy governorship of the
Royal Mines in 1655, a post he kept for more than 35 years. The title of his
translation of Ercker, Fleta minor refers to his imprisonment for debt in the
Fleet prison while he was working on it.
153
PLATTER, Felix (1536–1614)
De corporis humani structura et usu libri III. Tabulis methodicè
explicati, iconibus accuratè illustrati. Qui libri cùm operi practico
recens ab eodem autore edito plurimùm inserviant, denuò sunt
publicati.
Basle: apud Ludovicum König, 1603.
Folio: a4 A–2B4 (–2B4); c2, [1–12] 4 [13] 2 , 155 of 156 leaves, pp. [8]
197 [1]; V. [2] 50. The second part has a titlepage, ‘Liber tertius.
Corporis humani partium pericones delineatarum explicatio’ dated
1603 followed by a leaf of text and the 50 unsigned leaves with full
page plates on rectos numbered 1–50 with letterpress explanations on
verso of preceding leaves, the verso of f. 50 blank.
305 x 205mm, untrimmed. Worm hole in Wrst title aVecting a couple
of letters; fairly heavy browning and foxing, water stains on a few
leaves, the browning somewhat lighter in the second part (with the
engraved illustrations) though these leaves are soiled in the margins
and there is some waterstaining towards the end.
Binding: French vellum backed marbled boards with printer’s waste
from Meynet, Notice Notice historique des tableaux qui se trouvent au
Musée d’Avignon (Avignon, 1802) used as endleaves.
First edition, second issue with cancelled preliminary leaves (Wrst issue
1583). Krivatsy 9069; Manchester 1914.
An important anatomy, printed by Froben in Basel, where Vesalius, De humani
corporis fabrica, was Wrst printed in 1543. But unlike the Vesalius illustrations
which are in woodcut, Platter’s illustrations, derived from Vesalius with
additions and improvements, are etchings. This was the Wrst time that etching
had been used for medical illustration’ (Herlinger p. 130). ‘The engravings are
drawn in a free and spirited manner. The bones and muscles are the best after
the manner of the contemporaneous Swiss painters, Christoph Maurer and
Tobias Stimmer. The etching was done perhaps by Abel Stimmer [brother of
Tobias]’ (Choulant p. 216: the attribution to Stimmer is generally accepted,
if not for all the plates).
Among the original illustrations is the Wrst printed illustration of a female
skeleton (pl. 2); this was copied by Bauhin in 1605, and the signiWcance of
this illustration can perhaps be appreciated by the fact that the next original
female skeleton was in Monro­Sue (1759) and the next Soemmering’s 1797