pdf - Roger Gaskell Rare Books

327 x 222mm. Titlepage dustsoiled and wormholes and small marginal
tears repaired; round wormholes in the margins at the beginning of the
book, not aVecting text or plates, some minor staining and soiling here and
there, overall a good fresh copy with bright impressions of the engravings.
Binding: Recent vellum boards.
Provenance: undeciphered circular owner’s stamp in margin of titlepage.
First edition, issued as part of Vol. III of Guidi’s Ars medicinalis (3
vols, 1611) and probably also separately. Krivatsy 5118; Waller 3816;
Norman Library 955; cf. Wellcome 6601 (Ars medicinalis, 3 vols, 1611).
In the history of anatomical illustration, Guidi, a descendant of Ghirlandaio,
is celebrated for the superb large woodcuts in his Chirurgia (1544). Sadly his
anatomy was never published in his lifetime, or it might have been graced with
woodcuts to challenge Vesalius. As Wrst published here, it was edited by his
relative and namesake known as Guido Guidi the younger (his dates are not
known). Roberts and Tomlinson speculate that while
some of the illustrations probably originate with Guidi
the elder, others were probably supplied by Guidi the
younger, plagiarised from the usual sources. The text
mentions Vesalius, Valverde and Colombo, so must
have been written after 1543 and before Guidi’s death
in 1569 and ‘is the work of a scientist fully conscious
of the Vesalian revolution and seeking his inspiration
from nature’ (M. D. Grmek, DSB 5: 580).
Commentators vary in their response to the
illustrations. Choulant remarks that ‘the plates are
mostly new and original. They remind one more of
Eust achius than of Vesalius’, while Grmek Wnds them
‘hideous’. This is certainly unfair. Although many of
the Wgures are familiar, many are not (especially the
internal organs), and the arrangement of Wgures on the
plates is original and the engraving is of high quality.
There is no debate about the quality of the engraved
titlepage signed by Francesco Valesio (1560–1648?)
as the artist and Caterino Doino, with whom Valesio
frequently collaborated, as the engraver. Valesio was
the engraver of the titlepage to Casserius, Tabulae
anatomicae (1627) – with which this titlepage shows
some similarity – and he is usually credited with
engraving the Casserius anatomical illustrations (see
Spighel, De humani corporis fabrica below). Although
the plates here in Guidi’s book are unsigned, Cazort,
does not demur in assigning them all to Doino after
Valesio.
The lavish titlepage surely suggests that De anatome
was intended to be issued separately, as well as forming
part of volume III of Ars medicinalis (not the whole
of volume III as is often stated), the posthumous
edition of Guidi the elder’s work, collected, edited