Ian Ehling
Head of Department
Lot 59
ROBERT HOOKE'S COPY OF VESALIUS, RECORDED IN HIS DIARY. VESALIUS, ANDREAS. 1514-1564. De humani corporis fabrica. Venice: Franciscus Francisci and Johannes Criegher, 1568. 2 parts in one volume.
10 December 2020, 11:00 EST
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ROBERT HOOKE'S COPY OF VESALIUS, RECORDED IN HIS DIARY.
VESALIUS, ANDREAS. 1514-1564. De humani corporis fabrica. Venice: Franciscus Francisci and Johannes Criegher, 1568. 2 parts in one volume.
2 parts in one volume, small folio (312 x 214 mm). Large woodcut device on title, numerous woodcut anatomical illustrations, woodcut initials and head-pieces, leaf 2d5 (p. 321) contains figures to be cut out and superimposed on the illustration on 2d3 is left intact in this copy. Later calf, corners renewed, rebacked, old spine laid down, some mostly marginal staining, M4 torn and repaired, M5 possibly supplied from another copy, last leaf torn and laid down.
Provenance: Robert Hooke (1635-1703) English scientist and author of the Micrographia with his name and purchase information on preliminary blank ("Lib. R. Hooke Aug. 21, 1680" crossed out, the purchase is mentioned in his diary 21 August 1680 "I received Books from Mr. Kite...," sold Bibliotheca Hookiana, London, 29 April 1703, lot 99); Francis Looker, English surgeon (his name dated "1716" on title).
Third illustrated edition of Vesalius and the 4th edition of the text. "In 1564, the year of his death, Vesalius stopped in Venice on his way to the Holy Land and submitted his last book, a reply to Fallopius, to the printer Francesco Senense for publication. This same printer, four years later, in collaboration with a Pomeranian engraver, Johannes Criegher, whose name he generously coupled with his own as printer, ventured to print a complete text of the 1555 Fabrica in a smaller format and with all of the wood-blocks recut in smaller size ... The new woodcuts for the illustrations, however, were so well executed that the engraver might almost have passed for the same person who in Venice at the behest of Vesalius had cut the original blocks for the larger work. It must have been not only an expensive undertaking but a venturesome one" (Cushing). The collaboration with Johannes Criegher is mentioned by Franceschi in his dedication to Antonio Montecatini. Adams V-606; Cushing VI.A-4; Harvard Italian 529; Osler 569.
2 parts in one volume, small folio (312 x 214 mm). Large woodcut device on title, numerous woodcut anatomical illustrations, woodcut initials and head-pieces, leaf 2d5 (p. 321) contains figures to be cut out and superimposed on the illustration on 2d3 is left intact in this copy. Later calf, corners renewed, rebacked, old spine laid down, some mostly marginal staining, M4 torn and repaired, M5 possibly supplied from another copy, last leaf torn and laid down.
Provenance: Robert Hooke (1635-1703) English scientist and author of the Micrographia with his name and purchase information on preliminary blank ("Lib. R. Hooke Aug. 21, 1680" crossed out, the purchase is mentioned in his diary 21 August 1680 "I received Books from Mr. Kite...," sold Bibliotheca Hookiana, London, 29 April 1703, lot 99); Francis Looker, English surgeon (his name dated "1716" on title).
Third illustrated edition of Vesalius and the 4th edition of the text. "In 1564, the year of his death, Vesalius stopped in Venice on his way to the Holy Land and submitted his last book, a reply to Fallopius, to the printer Francesco Senense for publication. This same printer, four years later, in collaboration with a Pomeranian engraver, Johannes Criegher, whose name he generously coupled with his own as printer, ventured to print a complete text of the 1555 Fabrica in a smaller format and with all of the wood-blocks recut in smaller size ... The new woodcuts for the illustrations, however, were so well executed that the engraver might almost have passed for the same person who in Venice at the behest of Vesalius had cut the original blocks for the larger work. It must have been not only an expensive undertaking but a venturesome one" (Cushing). The collaboration with Johannes Criegher is mentioned by Franceschi in his dedication to Antonio Montecatini. Adams V-606; Cushing VI.A-4; Harvard Italian 529; Osler 569.