Estienne, Charles:

De dissectione partium corporis humani libri tres. Una cum figuris & incisionum declarationibus à Stephano Riverio chirurgo co(m)positis.

      Paris, Simon de Colines, 1545. (24), 375 (recte 379) SS. Mit 62 ganzseitigen und 101 kleineren Textholzschnitten. Folio (365 x 240 mm) Moderner brauner Maroquinbd.mit Blindprägung, goldgeprägtem Rückentitel und Goldschnitt. Adams S 1725; Garrison-M. 378; Heirs of Hippocrates 256; Norman 728; Renouard, Colines 409/410; Schreiber, Colines 222; Mortimer 213 (bes.zu den Illustrationen). Erste Ausgabe des prachtvollen und reich illustrierten anatomischen Werkes. Wenn es auch erst zwei Jahre nach Vesals Fabrica erschien, so war es im Manuskript schon 1539 weitgehend vollendet und auch der größere Teil der Holzschnitte war bereits gedruckt, als die Weiterarbeit per Gerichtsbeschluß vorübergehend eingestellt werden mußte. Die schönen Holzschnitte, von denen einige signiert sind, werden u.a. G.B. Rosso, Jean Jollat und P. Woeiriot zugeschrieben. Titelblatt mit Restaurierung im w.Rand, zu Beginn einige geschlossene Einrisse in den weissen Rändern. Ungewöhnlich sauberes und sehr breitrandiges Exemplar in einem schlichten, neuen Maroquineinband. - First edition of the finest anatomical work of the French Renaissance, with exotic images unique in the history of anatomical art (Anatomy as Art: the Dean Edell Collection). Charles Estienne studied medicine in Paris, completing his training in 1540. In 1535, during his course of anatomical studies under Jacobus Sylvius, Estienne had Andreas Vesalius as a classmate. At the time the only illustrated manuals of dissection available were the writings of Berengario da Capri, and the need for an improved, well-illustrated manual must have been obvious to all students of anatomy. Estienne did not hesitate to fill in this need. The manuscript and the illustrations for "De Dissectione" were completed by 1539, and the book was set in type halfway through book 3 and the last section, when publication was stopped by a lawsuit brought by Etienne de la Rivière, an obscure surgeon and anatomist. However, had "De Dissectione" been published in 1539, it would have stolen much of the thunder from Vesalius's Fabrica (1543): it would have been the first work to show detailed illustrations of dissection in serial progression, the first to discuss and illustrate the total human body, the first to publish instructions on how to mount a skeleton, and the first to set the anatomical figures in a fully developed panoramic landscape, a tradition begun by Berengario da Capri. Our copy is complete and with expertly marginal restorations to title and the first quires. Bound in recent brown morocco with gilt edges. A very clean and crisp copy with very wide margins.