Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 324

BARTOLOMEO EUSTACHI (1520?-1574) Tabulae anatomicae . . . quas è tenebris tandem vindicitas . . . praefatione, notisque illustravit . . . Jo. Maria Lancisius. Ex officina typographica Francisci Gonzagae 1714 xliv, 115 [13] pp., 47 plates. 34.9 cm.

For more information on this author or work, see number: 322

With the intention of publishing an anatomical text, Eustachi had completed the drawings for his work and the plates had been engraved by 1552. The text, however, was never completed and Eustachi's notes to the plates were lost except for the eight which had been published in his lifetime. The plates were inherited by Eustachi's assistant and were eventually deposited in the Vatican Library, where they were uncovered a century and a half later and published by the papal physician, Giovanni Maria Lancisi (see No. 687 ff.), who added his elucidations and included the previously published eight plates with Eustachi's commentary. In all, there are forty-seven plates. Although from an artistic standpoint they are not as well done as the anatomical plates of Vesalius, from the point of view of anatomy they are sometimes more accurate than Vesalius'. Had the plates been published at the time they were executed, Eustachi would undoubtedly have ranked with Vesalius as a founder of modern anatomical studies. Indeed, the title page vignette illustrating a dissection, the forty-seven plates themselves, and the large initial capital letters decorated with pastoral and hunting scenes make his a splendid anatomical atlas, with few peers and fewer superiors.

See Related Record(s): 687

Cited references: Choulant-Frank, p. 202; Cushing E113; Garrison-Morton 391; Osler 2543; Wellcome II, p. 536

Gift of John Martin, M.D.