KETHAM, Joannes

Fasciculus Medicinae

      Gregorio de Gregoriis Small folio [30 x 20 cm] (32) ff. Bound in reverse calf. Handful of marginal comments in an early hand. Some soiling generally outside of woodcut border, several minor tears expertly repaired; a good copy with margins. An attractive copy with good impressions of the blocks of the first medical work to be illustrated with woodcuts. The Fasciculus Medicinae is an anthology intended for the use of students and practitioners during the Renaissance. It includes both traditional medical lore as well as more recent writings, of which the most important by far is Mondino's Anothomia, the first modern treatise on anatomy. The outstanding feature of the work, however, "is that it includes the first printed anatomic illustrations of any kind" (G&M 363) and contains "...among the best woodcuts of the fifteenth and early sixteenth century" (Heirs of Hippocrates, p. 46). In the northern Italian style of Mantegna, to whose school they have been attributed, the woodcuts depict the Zodiac Man, the Bloodletting Man, the Planet Man, a dissection scene, the female figure with uterus, and the full-page woodcut of Petrus de Montagnana teaching. The work was first published in 1491 and went through many editions, though as a book which saw constant use in some uncommonly messy places, it is now rare. Copies in good condition with margins around the many full-page illustrations seldom appear on the market. Little is known about Ketham. A German born in Swabia, he is thought to have been Professor of Medicine and Surgery at Venice, and to have prepared this work for his students.*Waller 5175; not in Durling; Choulant pp. 115-122; Garrison & Morton 363; Cushing K58; Charles Singer, ed., The fascicula de medecina, p. 40 ff.; Histoire de la medecine et du livre medicale, p. 49 ff.; see Dibner, Heralds 122; see PMM 36 (1493/4 ed.).