KETHAM, Johannes de - Johannes de - Fasciculus medicinae. Ve - Lot 270

KETHAM, Johannes de - Johannes de - Fasciculus medicinae. Venice, Gregorius de Gregoriis, 1513. In-folio, (32) ff., bastard gothic car., numerous ornate woodcuts, ten full-page woodcuts including the title and a plate of diagrams (temperaments and analytical vessels), light wetnesses marg., old annotations marg., qq. small wormholes without harming the text, soft vellum (re-use of leaves from an earlier manuscript). ESSLING 591. SANDER 3751. WELLCOME I, 3545. CHOULANT 121. Last edition printed by Gregorius de Gregoriis who published the Fasciculus seven times from the princeps edition in 1491 to this one. It is similar to the previous editions, taking the copied woodcuts from the original edition (1491) and especially from the one of 1493 completed with four new plates. The woodcuts have been attributed to an artist of the School of Gentile Bellini, sometimes to the illustrator of the Dream of Poliphilo, sometimes to Mantegna or to Gentile Bellini himself. The Fasciculus is a collection of treatises circulating since the thirteenth century and augmented by Mondino's Anathomia first published in Pavia in 1478. It is believed to have been compiled by Ketham (Johannes von Kirchheim), a German physician who taught in Vienna around 1460 and lived in Venice towards the end of the 15th century. First printed book containing anatomical representations. They are renewed compared to the stereotypes of the medieval tradition by presenting more realistic figures as for example for the anatomical woman who instead of being squatted is sitting. Some spectacular plates testify to medical life in Venice during the Renaissance: a consultation scene, a doctor visiting a plague victim, a dissection lesson.