Sales catalogue 12: R. Lier & Co.

Date:: 1929

Reference:: WA/HMM/CM/Sal/40/8

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sales catalogue 12: R. Lier & Co. Source: Wellcome Collection.

68/124 page 62

153. KETHAM, Johannes de. Fasciculus medicinae. Black letter. Two cols. 32 leaves. With ten splendid full-page outline woodcuts (dissection scene, anatomical figures, etc.). Numerous woodcut initial letters. Folio. Wooden boards covered with blind tooled calf, richly adorned with stamps and ornaments (very fine imitation of an Italian Renaissance-binding). Venice, Gregorius de Gregoriis, 1513. | Frs. 1.875.— One of the rarest (if not the rarest) of all the precious edi- tions of this magnificent and eminent work. ‘This Fasciculus was both the best illustrated book that had yet appeared and the first illustrated medical work. Its illustrations include some of the best specimens of the wood-cutter’s art of the fif- teenth or sixteenth century ’’. (Singer, Fasciculo, R. Lier & Co.). — Choulant, Handbuch, p. 104 (from Panzer). Choulant-Frank, p. 121 (without having seen it), Essling 591, II, p. 58 (quoting only his own copy). Singer, Fasciculo, XI, p. 39: ‘‘ The printed page is much larger than in any previous edition, except the 1491 first edition. The plates are therefore often less clipped by the binder than in any edition since the first, though the blocks themselves are abbreviated ’’. For particulars on Ketham and his authorship of this book confer our publications of Ketham 1491, edited by Prof. Sudhoff and those above mentioned by Charles Singer (full prospectus with specimen page on request). — The woodcuts represent 1. (as frontispiece) Petrus de Montagna sits studying at his desk. 2. Illustration showing urinoscopic consultation. 3. Circle of urine glasses. 4. Vein man. 5. Zodiacal man. 6. Figure of piegnant woman. 7. Wound man. 8. Disease man. 9. A scene in the chamber of a plague patient. 10. A dissection scene. Lippmann (Wood Engr., pp. 99-103): ‘‘ The design is undoubtedly by an artist nearly related to Gentile Bellini. There is a statuesque ease in the arrangement of the composition, which gives them an appearance of relief, and har- monizes admirably with the simple and firm outline drawing ’’. Accor- ding to Friedlander, Der Holzschnitt, the designs are probably due to the same artist who illustrated the celebrated Polifilo of 1499. The book is composed by the following tracts: Iudicia urinarum cum suis accidentiis. Tractatus de flobotomia. De matrice mulierum et impregnatione. Problemata de secretis mulierum. DE CYRURGIA. Al- phabetical list of diseases and their treatment. PIETRO DE TOSSI- GNANO. Pro peste evitanda. MUNDINUS. Anatomia. RHAZES. De egritudinibus puerorum. Pietro da Tossignano flourished in the first half of the 14th cen- tury ; he was professor of medicine at Bologna. ‘‘ His plague tract is divided into four chapters. The first deals with causes of the disease, the second sets forth a detailed preventive regimen, the third enunciates aud replies to eleven queries or difficulties, while the fourth provides a curative regimen. The work lays considerable emphasis on contagion, a matter much less regarded by mediaeval pathology than miasma’’ (Singer). Mundinus, (Raimondo de Luzzi) was born about 1275 and died in 1326. ‘‘ The work of Mondino, is a landmark in the history of Ana- tomy. (Confer, Singer, Fasciculo, our publication, which contains zhe entire English translation of Mondino’s work). See also nrs. 202, 208. Rhazes’ short work on children’s diseases does not appear in any Ketham edition before 1500. Prices in Swiss Francs

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