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plate. Another important plate which is more often reproduced is the one
of a child’s skeleton holding cupid’s arrow (pl. 3) – an original illustration
but following Coïter’s example of a child skeleton. Apart from these original
illustrations, most of the others are after Vesalius, but one is after Coïter, and
Haller thought that some of the Wgures were the results of Platter’s personal
investigations (Choulant p. 216). Herlinger reproduces the Wgure of the base
of the skull beside the Vesalius Wgure, and suggests that some details were
added from Coïter’s illustration and notes that ‘several anatomical details
suggest that the artist must have had a skull before him’ (p. 131).
Felix Platter was born in Basle, studied at Montpellier where he knew
Volcher Coïter, and returned to Basle in 1560 to become professor of medicine.
He explains in his preface that he had been given the opportunity to buy the
Vesalius woodblocks, last used in 1555 and evidently still in Basle, but declined
because their large size would have meant a much larger book, less convenient
to students (see Cushing pp. 97–8 for a translation). Ready reference seems in
fact to have been a major consideration. The text of the Wrst two books of the
work is in tabular form; the third book with a separate title ‘Corporis humani
partium per icones delineatarum explicatio’ contains the 50 plates, many with
several Wgures on each plate and Platter suggests that this section could be
bound separately for greater convenience. ‘Moreover, he has been careful to
place the explanatory legend for each illustrated plate on the [facing] page –
and this is indeed a milestone in the history of medical illustration (Herlinger
p. 130).
The copy. Though browned and soiled this copy is interesting for being
entirely untrimmed. The impressions of the plates are mixed, some quite
strong and black, others rather weak.
Bibliographical note. Cushing gives the Wrst gathering as * 4 : here it is a 4 ($2
signed), suggesting that the whole of the Wrst gathering is re­set from the Wrst
issue, not just the title­leaf as Cushing has it. The two preliminary leaves of the
second part are conjugate and probably also both re­set (Cushing omits the
second leaf from his collation for both issues). The Wnal leaf of the Wrst part
(Books 1 and 2), which is not present here, where present is blank apart from
Froben’s device on the verso. Although often found in the second issue (e.g.
in the Manchester copy) it was presumably excised intentionally as this issue
was published by König, not Froben. Some copies of the Wrst issue [and the
second?] have an engraved portrait of Platter printed on the verso of the title
leaf to the second part (Book 3, the plate section), otherwise blank as here.
154
PORTA, Giambattista della (1535–1615)
De distillatione lib. IX. Quibus certa methodo, multipliciq[ue]
artiWcio, penitioribus naturae arcanis detectis, cuius libet mixti in
propria elementa resolutio, perfectè docetur.
Rome: ex typographia Reu. Camerae Apostolicae, 1608.
4to: ✠4 2✠6 A–u4 , 90 leaves, pp. [20] 154 [6]. Woodcut arms on title
and printer’s device on colophon on u4v, typographic headpieces,
woodcut tailpieces and initials; woodcut diagrams in the text.
Dedications in Hebrew, Greek, Chaldee and Illyrian types, and in