BAUHIN, Caspar (1560-1624)

First edition of Bauhin’s anatomical atlas in which the 140 full-page engravings are printed on rather poor paper. They are reduced copies of the illustrations in the great works of Vesalius, Valverde (from which the engraved title has borrowed many details), Eustachius, Coiter, and others. The plate on page 259 is to be compared with the the two plates in Harvey’s De motu cordis (1628). It is in fact the model for Harvey’s plates, which was not copied from Fabricius De venarum ostiolis (Padua 1603) but from Bauhin’s Vivæ imagines partium (1620). Harvey’s publisher, William Fitzer, was the successor and son-in-law of Bauhin’s publisher, Johann Theodor de Bry, and the copperplate was in the printer’s stock. Bauhin was professor of anatomy and botany in Basle. His first text-book, De corporis humani externis, written at the request of his students, appeared already in 1588 and was to be used in conjunction with the Tabulæ of Vesalius. In 1605 all his anatomical writings were brought together, revised and enlarged, and published with illustrations in his most celebrated text-book, Theatrum anatomicarum, of which an enlarged edition appeared in 1621, a thick volume of nearly 700 pages, but without illustrations. The plates were published separately in Vivæ imagines partium (1620) and became popular among the medical students.

Collation: Pp 64, 67-116, [115 numbered 113] -127, 130-265, (1) blank, pp [1]-21, final blank leaf. Irregular pagination throughout, but totally complete. Engraved title with portrait of Bauhin. 140 full-page engravings numbered i-xxxxi, i-xiix, i-xxxiii (Tab. xxxi omitted), i-xxvii, i-viii, i-iv, i- x. Sign.: A-Z4 Aa-Kk4 a-c4.

Binding: Contemporary vellum.

Provenance: Crossed over signature on front free end paper: "Herm. A....."

References: Choulant-Frank 229; DSB, I, 522-25; Roger Gaskell 'The Plates of Harvey’s De motu cordis, Frankfurt 1628’ in The Book Collector, 39, 2 (1990), pp 205-219. Waller 785.