Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 158

GREGOR REISCH (ca. 1467-1525) Margarita philosophica. Johannes Schottus 1504] 2nd ed. [330] ll., illus., fold. map, diagrs. (2 fold.). 20.4 cm.

Reisch was a Carthusian prior at Freiburg and confessor to Emperor Maximilian I, as well as assistant to Erasmus. His famous book, Margarita philosophica, might be called the first modern encyclopedia. Its twelve divisions cover the trivium, the quadrivium, and the natural and moral sciences. Its numerous illustrations are fine examples of the art of wood-block cutting, and include woodcuts of music, a large folding map of the Eurasian continent and parts of Africa, and astronomical, astrological, and zoological figures. Four of the plates are of great interest to the history of anatomical illustration, and several others are of medical interest: a man with dissected thoracic and abdominal cavities; two figures of the eye (these did not appear in the first edition and are the earliest printed figures of the anatomy of the eye); a phrenological head showing the brain; a lying-in room showing a woman in childbed, with infant and midwife; and a mineral spring bath. Both the eye and visceral manikin are crude in concept, but are often reproduced for their historical importance in the history of anatomical illustration. Much more could be said of this immensely fascinating book; the music and the map (often missing from copies of all editions) make extremely interesting studies in themselves. The book was very popular, as attested to by its sixteen editions in the seventeenth century. This edition, the second authorized edition, was preceded by the first edition of 1503 and a "pirated" reprinting of the first edition which appeared the month before this second edition.

Cited references: Choulant-Frank, pp. 126-129; Cushing R90 (1st ed., 1503); Durling 3847

Gift of John Martin, M.D.