⊕ Click main image below to view enlargements and captions.
Tab. 1, Lib. 1, Number 1
Tab. 2, Lib. 1, Number 2
Bucretius anatomy detail
Bucretius anatomy detail
Bucretius anatomy - sold
Bucretius anatomy - sold
Bucretius anatomy - sold
Bucretius anatomy - sold
Bucretius anatomy - sold
Bucretius anatomy - sold
Bucretius anatomy - sold
Bucretius anatomy - sold
Bucretius anatomy - sold
Bucretius anatomy - sold
Tab. 1, Lib. 1, Number 1

Science, Medical, Anatomy, Diagram, De Humani Corporis, Antique Prints, Venice, 1627 (Sold)

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Odoardo Fialetti (1573-1638) (after)
Francesco Valesio (born c. 1560) (engraver)
Joseph Maurer (artist and engraver)
Adriaan van den Spiegel (1578-1625), Giulio Cesare Casseri (Casserio) (1561?-1616) and
Daniel Rindfleisch (Bucretius) (d. 1631) (authors)
from De humani corporis fabrica libri decem
Evangelista Deuchino, Venice: 1627
Copperplate engravings, uncolored
15.25 x 9.75 inches, each overall

Plates from an important early 17th-century Venetian atlas of human anatomy. Most of the engravings show male figures, standing in landscape settings; some also shows details of parts of the anatomy. The work was combined by the German physician Daniel Bucretius (né Rindfleisch) from two unfinished and unpublished works by former chairs of anatomy and surgery at the University of Padua. The engravings are historically significant as the first original series portraying human anatomy since those of Vesalius, Estienne and Eustachio, all of whom published their works in the 16th century. They also improved on earlier woodcut engravings. Given their size, these plates apparently are from the 1627 folio edition of Bucretius’s work, like the one in the collection U.S. National Library of Medicine (see References below). Later editions were published in Germany in quarto sizes with reduced size plates.

Product description continues below.

Description

When first published in 1627 under Bucretius’s direction, the engravings accompanied Adriaan van den Spiegel’s unillustrated anatomical text, De humani corporis fabrica libri decem. In his will, Spiegel had directed Bucretius to finish the work. To accompany the text, Bucretius purchased a group of copperplate engravings that had been commissioned from Joseph Maurer by Giulio Cesare Casseri, also known simply as Casserio, who had been working for more than 16 years on an atlas of human anatomy when he died in 1616. Bucretius used 77 of Maurer’s plates and commissioned 20 more from the Odoardo Fialetti, a Venetian painter, which were engraved by Franceso Valesio.

Casseri and Spiegel both had studied at the University of Padua under the renowned physician Fabrici. Casseri succeeded Fabrici as chair of anatomy and surgery at the university in 1608, and Spiegel succeeded him in 1616.

Odoardo Fialetti was an Italian artist, born in Bologna, the son of a French-born professor at the great universities at Padua and Bologna. Fialetti studied with Cremonini, then entered the studio of the renowned painter Tintoretto in Venice, where he became close to his mentor and was named executor of the estate. He produced at least 38 paintings for Venetian churches, including those of San Marco and Sant’Andrea de Murano. He also engraved more than 300 plates after his own drawings and those of other masters. Today several of his paintings are in the collections of Hampton Court and Kensington Palace.

Franceso Valesio was a painter, engraver, designer and art dealer. He engraved numerous plates for books, notably Illustrium Anachoretorum Elogio (1612) — a series on hermits by the Benedictine monk Jacobus Cavacius. He also is known for portraits and for town views after Pietro Vaccini and others.

References:

Bénézit, E. Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs. France: Librairie Gründ, 1966. Vol. 3, pp. 739-740 (Fialetto), Vol. 8 p. 456 (Valesio).

“Sale 1885, Lot 27.” Christie’s. 5 October 2007. http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/books-manuscripts/spiegel-adriaan-van-den-de-humani-4959884-details.aspx (21 April 2013).

“Spiegel and Giulio Casseri:De humani corporis fabrica libri decem.”Historical Anatomies on the Web, U.S. National Library of Medicine. 5 June 2012. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/historicalanatomies/casseri1_home.html and http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/historicalanatomies/casseri_bio.html (19 April 2013).

Additional information

Century

17th Century