VALVERDE, Juan de (c. 1525–1588)

First Latin edition of the most popular manual of anatomy of the sixteenth century. It was originally published in Spanish in Rome in 1556, followed in 1559 and 1560 by an Italian edition. The copperplates were then sold to the Giunta publishing house in Venice, who in 1586 reprinted the Italian edition, with the types newly set, using the Rome copperplates after restoration and with four additional plates of musclemen and a new engraved title-page. In 1588 [engraved title dated 1589] Giunta published the above Latin edition using the Rome 1559/1560 engraved title but restored and with new text inserted into the cartouche. This translation into Latin by Michael Colombo, the son of Valverde’s teacher, Realdo Colombo, made the work available to scholars across Europe. Valverde’s anatomy was also published by the famous Christoph Plantin in Antwerp (first ed. 1566), who had the Valverde plates copied and re-engraved, reversing them in several cases. Valverde’s textbook went through thirteen editions, and became the most widely read and studied anatomical textbook of the Renaissance. Juan de Valverde de Hamusco, a Spaniard from the Kingdom of Leon, studied anatomy at Padua under Vesalius and Realdo Colombo and in Rome under Bartolomeo Eustachi. In Rome Valverde met his fellow countryman Gaspar Becerra, who had worked with Michelangelo in the Sixtine Chapel of the Vatican. Becerra was persuaded by Valverde to execute the drawings for an anatomical textbook in Spanish and he is traditionally mentioned as the artist who illustrated it. Nicolas Beatrizet is supposed to be the engraver as several of the plates bear his monogram NB, for example the portrait of Valverde. Most of the engravings in Valverde’s anatomy are directly copied from the woodcuts in Vesalius’ Fabrica, some with extra details added such as suits of armour and new heads.

Collation: Pp (36) including engraved title and engraved portrait of Valverde (c6 verso), 339 (mispaginated 340), (1) blank. With 46 full-page engravings. The skeleton plate on p 51 is a cancel pasted over the wrong engraving. A few small woodcuts in the margins.

Binding: Old vellum with four raised bands and red sprinkled edges.

Provenance: "Matth. Jacobæi, 1598, Venetiis" (signature on title leaf), also a Latin phrase: "Omnes res quiete reparant vires, et otii negotiid intervalla poseunt". "P. G. Cederschiöld" = Pehr Gustaf Cederschiöld (1782-1848), on front free end paper.

References: Garrison-Morton 378.02 (Rome, 1556); Cushing, VI.D. 38, p 149; Choulant/Frank 205-08; Herrlinger, History of Medical Illustration, 123-27; Meyer & Wirt, 'The Amuscan Illustrations,’ in Bull. Hist. Med., 14 (1943), pp 667-87; Guerra, 'Juan de Valverde de Amusco’ in Clio Medica, 2 (1967), pp 339-62; Roberts & Tomlinson, 210-20. Waller 9798.