TABULAE ANATOMICAE clarissimi Viri Bartholomaei Eustachii .. Praefatione ac notis illustravit Joh. Maria Lancisius ..

Rome: Rochus Bernabo at the expense of Laurentii & Thomae Pagliarini, 1728. Hardcover. Very Good. Copperplates (47 full-page numbered but with pl 35 & 37 replaced in good facsimile) + nice large plate of public dissection on TP + 50 large woodcut initials with country & hunting scenes etc.. Folio (378x251mm) newer calf with 5 raised bands, spine compartments gilt, gilt rules, black label with gilt titling. Titlepage in red & black XXVIII +79pp +[x] index & publisher's catalogue + 47 leaves of plates ex collation but numbered in the plate 1-47 (a4 mistakenly bound after b4). Bookplate of Dr.F.A. Sondervorst on marbled endpapers. A clean wide margined copy, no tears, very unobtrusive pale foxing to a few pages, some pages rehinged at gutter, a few with marginal dusting/damp marks but not affecting printed area except in index. Pl.20 minor offsetting from facing text page. As usual without the unnumbered page meant to be cut out and used to rule the scale. Fine thick quality paper, impressions clear & dark, and the binding of plain but sympathetic quality. *A splendid anatomical atlas with few equals. The plates were probably engraved in 1552 by Eustachius in collaboration with Agostino de Musis but only the first few were published in his lifetime. They lay forgotten and lost until rediscovered by Giovanni Maria Lancisi but without any accompanying text. Lancisi wrote text and had them published at Rome in 1714. The accuracy of the design & detail of these plates greatly surpass the woodcut drawings of Vesalius as Eustachius used copperplates which allowed for greater precision. The progress of anatomy might have been accelerated had these plates appeared in the 16th century. Eustachius was considered the most scientific anatomist of his time and unlike Vesalius his plates show a composit of anatomical types based on the study of many cadavers where as Vesalius showed the anatomy of one body. Unique to Eustachius' anatomy was the marginal graduated scale which gave the key to the explanatory text. He also juxtaposed anterior and posterior views (see Garrison & Morton 391, Wellcome II 536, Heirs of Hippocrates 201).