Tag Archives: Thomas Geminus

Adventures in Rare Book Cataloging

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By Tatyana Pakhladzhyan, Rare Book Cataloguer

At the October festival celebrating the 500th birthday of anatomist Andreas Vesalius, The Drs. Barry and Bobbi Coller Rare Book Reading Room exhibited seven anatomical works drawn from the library’s extensive rare book holdings. Anatomy is one of the library’s major collecting strengths, including works by and related to Andreas Vesalius.

Visitors looking at books on display at 2014's Vesalius 500 festival.

Visitors looking at books on display at 2014’s Vesalius 500 festival. Photograph by Charles Manley.

Since the exhibited materials have been in the library’s collection for decades, I was curious to see how their online bibliographic records looked. As card catalogs turned into online catalogs at the end of last century, collection holdings became increasingly findable from far away. But in the process of converting card catalog records into online records, some items ended up with incomplete or incorrect information reflected in the online catalog. I found that the records of the seven anatomical holdings required some attention.

The purpose of rare book cataloging is to create elaborate catalog records for books printed during the hand-press period (c.1455–c.1830) and to describe and record copy-specific information that would uniquely identify the library’s holding from other copies of the same title. Descriptive cataloging should be sufficiently detailed to represent the work.

Female flap anatomy from The Academy's copy of the 1559 English edition of Geminus’ Compendiosa.

Female flap anatomy from The Academy’s copy of the 1559 English edition of Geminus’ Compendiosa.

Rare book cataloging requires complete and faithful transcription of the title page in its original language, greater detail in the physical description area, and careful and thorough recording of various distinguishing points in the note area, including signature statements, identification of bibliographic format, annotations, pagination errors, illustration techniques and creators, printing method, binding style, and provenance. Full and accurate descriptions allow researchers to find materials in online catalogs. Adding images or links to digital copies is another catalog feature that allows for more sophisticated experience for rare material users.

I was particularly delighted to update the catalog record for the 1559 edition of Geminus’ Compendiosa totius anatomiae delineatio, aere exarata (A complete delineation of the entire anatomy engraved on copper). This beautiful folio is simply a work of art! Read more about the work in a recent blog post.

Male flap anatomy from The Academy's copy of the 1559 English edition of Geminus’ Compendiosa.

Male flap anatomy from The Academy’s copy of the 1559 English edition of Geminus’ Compendiosa.

The title page is an engraved plate, with a hand-colored portrait of Queen Elizabeth at center and the royal motto “Dieu et mon droit” under the portrait. Facing the title is the leaf with arms of the Order of the Garter “Honi soit qui mal y pense,” decorated with jewels. (Thanks to my library colleagues for helping me prove that “Honi soit qui mal y pense” motto is, in fact, the motto of the Order of the Garter.)

The coat of arms, left, and title page, right, of the Academy's copy of the 1559 English edition of Geminus’ Compendiosa.

The coat of arms, left, and title page, right, of the Academy’s copy of the 1559 English edition of Geminus’ Compendiosa.

Checking standard bibliographies for corresponding period and making identifying references is an essential step to rare book cataloging. While consulting A Bio-Bibliography of Andreas Vesalius by Harvey Cushing, (1943, no. VI.C-4, p. 128), I found his comment about known copies at that time, stating that the “leaf before title bearing royal arms and ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense,’ is missing in all copies but London (BM [British Museum]).” Our copy has this leaf, seen above left.

Rare book cataloging also requires pointing out differences between printings, or manifestations, of a particular work. While consulting the English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) that lists more than 480,000 items published between 1473 and 1800, I found that the entry for this work has a note, “a variant state has B7 unsigned.” In the hand-press era, books were printed as sheets with varying numbers of pages per side, with signature marks as letters, numbers, or symbols at the bottom of each leaf to help binders assemble the sheets of a book into the right order. I was curious to find out if the NYAM copy was a variation with signature B7 unsigned, but it is signed, although not on the bottom of the page.

Note "B.vii" hiding at the bottom right of the page. The Academy's copy of the 1559 English edition of Geminus’ Compendiosa.

Note “B.vii” hiding under the text at the right of the page. The Academy’s copy of the 1559 English edition of Geminus’ Compendiosa.

The library’s 1559 edition, the English translation by Nicholas Udall, is a reissue of the 1553 edition, with a slightly different title page, a dedication, and a colophon leaf. Bookseller information from the colophon at foot of last leaf reads: “Imprinted at London within the blacke fryars: by Thomas Gemini. Anno Salutis. 1559. Mense Septemb.”

Final leaf with colophon. The Academy's copy of the 1559 English edition of Geminus’ Compendiosa.

Final leaf with colophon. The Academy’s copy of the 1559 English edition of Geminus’ Compendiosa.

Cataloging rare books is an exciting process and sometimes even an adventure, as older books are unique and carry impressions of their formal owners. Our copy’s provenance includes bookplate of bibliophile George Dunn, “From the Library of George Dunn of Woolley Hall near Maidenhead.” It was a generous gift to the Academy library from Mrs. George S. Huntington, the wife of a prominent anatomist.

Spoiled by a Certain Englishman? The Copying of Andreas Vesalius in Thomas Geminus’ Compendiosa

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Laura Robson, the author of today’s guest post, is our 2014–2015 Helfand Research Fellow. She completed her PhD in Classics at the University of Reading, UK.

“I wish the Epitome had not been spoiled so disgracefully by a certain Englishman (who I think lived with my brother for a time). He took what had been written with great care succinctly as a list in the Epitome and expanded it with excerpts taken from the books of the Fabrica… He utterly corrupted what had made it most praiseworthy and so roughly and absurdly copied what had been set forth with elegant drawing and engraving that he preserved no appearance of Oporinus’ majestic edition.”1

These were the concerns of Franciscus Vesalius, brother of the famous anatomist Andreas Vesalius, published in the preface to The China Root Epistle in 1546. Within only three years of the original publication of Andreas Vesalius’ De Humani Corporis Fabrica and its companion work, the Epitome, a number of medical authors had copied and reproduced the beautiful illustrations that had made Andreas Vesalius and his work so famous.2

Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564). De humani corporis fabrica libri septum. Basel: Johannes Oporinus, 1543. The most famous illustrations are the series of fourteen muscle men, progressively dissected. Some figures, such as this one, are flayed. Hanging the muscles and tendons from the body afforded greater detail, not only showing the parts, but how they fit together.

Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564). De humani corporis fabrica libri septum. Basel: Johannes Oporinus, 1543. Click to enlarge.

The Fabrica was one of the first anatomical treatises of the 16th century to present illustrations of the anatomised body in a naturalistic way. Vesalius promoted the dissection of the human body as the best way to learn about anatomy. By performing human dissections, he uncovered errors in the work of the ancient anatomist Galen, whose use of animals as dissection material to substitute for the lack of human cadavers had dominated the understanding of the body for centuries. Vesalius was caught in a conflict: how to show the anatomical errors in Galen’s treatises without going against such an important medical authority and potentially damaging his own medical career. He used the Fabrica to present his findings and to build on Galen’s important work.

The Fabrica contained 700 folio pages of Latin text and beautiful woodcut illustrations depicting the anatomical body in different poses. Readers were signposted to turn back and forth several times between image and text. This, as well as each image being accompanied by a letter key, encouraged a very active reading of Vesalius’ treatise.3 The work proved popular, with people taking a particular interest in the figures, although people copied, adapted, and reused both the images and text of Vesalius’ work in many different medical treatises. Due to the size and high cost of the Fabrica, cheaper copies were often more accessible than the original, even though the pirating enraged Vesalius and his close circle. Book piracy was common at this time. There was not the modern sense of intellectual property or copyright legislations. Licenses allowed particular printers to print works first, but the Venetian and imperial privileges obtained by the authors to try and protect their books from piracy did little to stop others from copying them.4

In fact, Franciscus Vesalius accused the wrong man of copying his brother’s work (suggesting, perhaps, that he had not seen a copy of the offending book). The only Englishman known to live with Vesalius was John Caius, when they lodged together in Padua during their studies. Caius went on to be physician to King Edward VI. There is no evidence that he pirated any version Vesalius’ work.5

The work Franciscus refers to is in fact Thomas Geminus’ Compendiosa.6 The first edition is predominantly made up of the Latin text of the Epitome and its illustrations, with the addition of many Fabrica figures. It is believed to be one of the first books to use copperplate illustrations.7 Geminus stated in his dedication that he followed Vesalius, but shortened his book to make it more useful to readers, in particular students.8 Reproducing the images of the Fabrica with the text of the Epitome meant that there was little interaction and connection between the two. However, the publication of the Compendiosa did bring Vesalius’ illustrations to a wider audience as the book was shorter and therefore cheaper than the original.

In order to make the work more accessible to those who could not read Latin, Geminus published an English edition of the Compendiosa in 1553. Nicholas Udall translated the short captions from the Fabrica figures into English. However, the main text of the Epitome was not translated. Instead the illustrations were placed after the text of Thomas Vicary’s The anatomie of mans body, first published in 1548.9 Geminus rearranged this text to follow the order of dissection for the parts of the body that decayed the fastest—the abdomen, the thorax, and the head. Although the images were not rearranged to fit this order, they connected more strongly to the text than in the Latin edition, as readers were signposted to particular figures discussing different parts of the body.

In his preface to the English Compendiosa, Nicholas Udall puts forward some interesting points about the uses of images and texts in medical manuals of his time. He said he did not know whether images or texts were more important when presenting anatomical information. He argued that information is set forth in writing for “high learning” and in pictures for the unlearned. He also explained that surgeons often performed duties like resetting bones by looking at figures alone.10 Surgeons had a low status in the medical profession at this time. They were not university educated like physicians and they were accused of having little knowledge about the science of medicine and healing. This suggests that readers who could not understand Latin, like surgeons, used anatomical figures and not written texts. I believe the English version of the Compendiosa was an attempt at encouraging these readers to read the text as well, by providing it in the vernacular language.

The coat of arms, left, and title page, right, of the Academy's copy of the 1559 English edition of Geminus’ Compendiosa.

The coat of arms, left, and title page, right, of the Academy’s copy of the 1559 English edition of Geminus’ Compendiosa. Click to enlarge.

In 1559 the English edition of Geminus’ Compendiosa was reissued.11 The annotated copy of this edition in the collection at the New York Academy of Medicine reveals hints as to how this anatomical text was used by readers at the time. The coloured and illuminated title page includes a portrait of Queen Elizabeth I. Slithers of gem stones have been attached to her necklace and the coat of arms opposite her on the adjacent page. The nude figures known as Adam and Eve are also coloured, and a reader inscribed the verse, “The Eyes of Them Both were opened, and They knew that They were naked: Genesis Chapter 3 Verse 7.”

Adam and Eve in the Academy's copy of the 1559 English edition of Geminus’ Compendiosa. Click to enlarge.

Adam and Eve in the Academy’s copy of the 1559 English edition of Geminus’ Compendiosa. Click to enlarge.

Two readers annotated this copy, both with different handwriting from the owner who in 1769 wrote his name—“G. Molesworth”—on the title page. One reader underlined key words and sections of the text, marking these with almost illegible notes in the margins. The other reader, though, focused on the illustrations. This second reader annotated the first three Vesalian musclemen images in the copy, adding the letters of the key, along with the Latin names for the body parts they represent.12 This English edition of the Compendiosa seldom uses the Latin names for parts of the body. So our reader did not get the information for his notes from this edition of the text. He must have consulted another text, such as the Latin edition of 1545, or even the original work of Vesalius’ Fabrica, in order to make his annotations.

Image of annotated muscleman figure in the Academy's copy of the 1559 English edition of Geminus’ Compendiosa. Click to enlarge.

The annotated muscleman figure in the Academy’s copy of the 1559 English edition of Geminus’ Compendiosa. Click to enlarge.

This demonstrates the culture of active reading in the early modern period. This reader engaged with more than one treatise, perhaps even several works, when learning about the dissection of the body. He was familiar with the Latin language, and was therefore not one of the unlearned readers mentioned by Nicholas Udall in his preface to the work.

While Andreas and Franciscus Vesalius opposed the reproduction of the Fabrica and Epitome, the works that copied, adapted, and reused material from these texts allowed for the transmission of Vesalius’ knowledge of the body to a wider audience than the original works could reach. And this new audience interacted with the material, coming to a greater understanding of the dissected human body in the early modern period.

References

1. Andreas Vesalius (1546), Vesalius: The China Root Epistle, translated by Daniel H. Garrison (2015), p. 6.

2. Andreas Vesalius (1543a), De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem, Basel and Andreas Vesalius, (1543b), Andreae Vesalii Suorum de Humani Corporis Fabrica Librorum Epitome, Basel.

3. On active reading in Vesalius’ anatomical texts see, Nancy Siraisi (1994), “Vesalius and Human Diversity in De humani corporis fabrica”, in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 57 p.64 and Sachiko Kusukawa (2012), Picturing the Book of Nature: Image, Text, and Argument in Sixteenth-Century Human Anatomy and Medical Botany, Chicago and London, p. 24.

4. On history of copyright and pirating see Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe (2004), Copyright in the Renaissance: Prints and Privilegio in Sixteenth-Century Venice and Rome, Leiden.

5. See Charles O’Malley (1955), “The Relations of John Caius With Andreas Vesalius and Some Incidental Remarks on the Guinta Galen and on Thomas Geminus,” in Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences Vol. 10.2 pp.147-172.

6. Thomas Geminus (1545), Compendiosa totius anatomie delineatio, aere exarata: Thomam Geminum, London.

7. Leroy Crummer (1926), “The Copper Plates of Raynalde and Geminus”, in Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine Vol 20.1 p. 53.

8. Thomas Geminus (1545), Compendiosa totius anatomie delineatio, aere exarata: Thomam Geminum, London, p. 1.

9. Thomas Vicary (1577 [1548]), A Profitable Treatise of the Anatomie of mans body: compyled by that excellent chirurgion, M. Thomas Vicary esquire, seriaunt chirurgion to king Henry the eyght, to king Edward the. vj. to Queene Mary, and to our most gracious Soueraigne Lady Queene Elizabeth, and also cheefe chirurgion of S. Bartholomewes Hospital. Which work is newly reuyued, corrected, and published by the chirurgions of the same hospital now beeing, London.

10. Thomas Geminus (1553), Compendiosa totius anatomie delineatio, aere exarata: Thomam Geminum, London, p.1.

11. Thomas Geminus (1559), Compendiosa totius anatomie delineatio, aere exarata: Thomam Geminum, London.

12. Ibid. p. Cii.

Brains, Brawn, & Beauty: Andreas Vesalius and the Art of Anatomy

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By Rebecca Pou, Archivist, and Johanna Goldberg, Information Services Librarian

For our October 18 festival, Art, Anatomy, and the Body: Vesalius 500, we exhibited items from the library’s collections showing the history of anatomical illustration. You can still visit the New York Academy of Medicine to view the exhibit in person on the ground floor. If you can’t make it, we offer a digital version below.

The exhibit on display at the new York Academy of Medicine.

The exhibit on display at the New York Academy of Medicine.

In 1543, Andreas Vesalius was a 28-year-old professor of surgery and anatomy at the University of Padua, one of Europe’s best known medical schools. That year, he published his most famous work, De humani corporis fabrica, translated as On the Fabric of the Human Body. Vesalius dedicated the work to Charles V; he subsequently received the appointment of physician to the imperial family.

Working from three images from the Fabrica—a skeleton, a figure of muscles, and an illustration of the brain—this exhibit shows the many ways Vesalius’ work built on past anatomists, and exerted its influence well into the future.

Images from great works in our collection, from Magnus Hundt’s 1501 Antropologium to Dominici Santorini’s 1775 Anatomici summi septemdecim tabulae, show the evolution of artistic style and scientific understanding. Some show examples of “borrowing” Vesalius’ images and placing them in new contexts.

Click an image to view the gallery.

Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564). De humani corporis fabrica libri septum. Basel: Johannes Oporinus, 1543. Vesalius’ De humani corporis fabrica is a monumental work, notable for its departure from medical tradition, as well as its impressive woodcuts. As a student and young anatomist, Vesalius conducted numerous dissections. In doing so, he discovered that the second-century Greek physician, Galen—the absolute medical authority in Vesalius’ time—had made mistakes. Vesalius sought to correct these errors in the Fabrica, as well as demonstrate the value of dissection and first-hand observation in medicine. The volume includes over 200 images, depicting the smallest bones up to full figure views of human skeletons and musculature. In this skeletal figure, two ossicles of the ear, the hyoid bone, and another skull rest on the sarcophagus next to the skeleton.
Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564). De humani corporis fabrica libri septum. Basel: Johannes Oporinus, 1543. The most famous illustrations are the series of fourteen muscle men, progressively dissected. Some figures, such as this one, are flayed. Hanging the muscles and tendons from the body afforded greater detail, not only showing the parts, but how they fit together.
Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564). De humani corporis fabrica libri septum. Basel: Johannes Oporinus, 1543. The last section of the Fabrica is devoted to the brain, with illustrations more detailed than those in earlier works, such as Hundt and Dryander. Here, the dura mater has been peeled away, exposing the brain with its thin membrane and vessels.
Magnus Hundt (1449-1519). Antropologium de hominis dignitate, natura, et proprietatibus: de elementis, partibus, et membris humani corporis… Leipzig: Wolfgang Stöckel, 1501. Magnus Hundt was a physician and theologian. His Antropologium, published in Leipzig in 1501, is a philosophical and religious work on the human body containing 17 anatomical woodcut illustrations. These are not the earliest anatomical illustrations, but they were the most detailed depiction of the organs created up to that point. The simple illustrations were intended as diagrams rather than realistic representations of the body and organs, and bones and muscles were not represented. The diagram of the head shows the three intellectual functions divided among three physical parts: common sense and imagination in the first, thought in the middle, and memory in the last.
Johann (Eichmann) Dryander (1500-1560). Anatomiae, hoc est, corporis humani dissectionis pars prior… Marburg: Eucharius Cervicornus, 1537. Dryander’s work contains a series of woodcuts depicting the dissection of the brain, starting with the removal of the upper skull and continuing through the hemispheres, cerebellum, and skull base. His book also contains a diagram of the brain’s ventricles. Illustrations like these had appeared since at least the 1300s, and Dryander’s artist took inspiration from Hundt’s Antropologium. Dryander’s illustrations—including his brain figures—in turn influenced anatomical texts to come, many of which (like the Fabrica) showed the anatomy in greater detail.
Charles (Stephanus) Estienne (1504-1564). De dissectione partium corporis humani. Paris: Simon Colinaeus, 1545. While Estienne’s work was published two years after Vesalius’, it should still be considered a pre-Vesalian anatomy. Estienne completed the work in 1539; it did not get printed until 1545 due to a legal dispute. Estienne’s woodcuts come from several sources and vary greatly in quality, both artistically and anatomically. Some were clumsily altered prior to printing. In the brain dissection plate, for example, the square section showing the open cranium was added or replaced after the completion of the full woodcut. The full-scale figure makes the details in brain structure difficult to see.
Charles (Stephanus) Estienne (1504-1564). De dissectione partium corporis humani. Paris: Simon Colinaeus, 1545. While Estienne’s work was published two years after Vesalius’, it should still be considered a pre-Vesalian anatomy. Estienne completed the work in 1539; it did not get printed until 1545 due to a legal dispute. Estienne’s woodcuts come from several sources and vary greatly in quality, both artistically and anatomically.
Eucharius Rösslin (d. 1526). The byrth of mankynde, otherwyse named The womans booke. [London: Tho. Ray[nalde]], 1545. The byrth of mankind is an English translation of Eucharius Rösslin’s Rosegarten, an obstetrical text first published in German in 1513. Widely read and translated, the Rosegarten was written for midwives and contains the earliest obstetrical woodcuts. The first English edition, based on a Latin translation, appeared in 1540. The second English edition was revised by the physician Thomas Raynalde in 1545. Raynalde incorporated the work of other authors, including illustrations and descriptions from Vesalius’ Fabrica, such as these torsos.
Thomas Geminus (d. 1562). Compendiosa totius anatomie delineatio… London: Thomas Geminus, 1559. Geminus’ Compendiosa totius anatomie delineatio includes copies of many of Vesalius’ illustrations with simplified landscapes, including the one seen here. The Compendiosa was intended as a text for British physicians to use as guidance when dissecting corpses of criminals, a practice legalized by King Henry VIII in 1540. The first edition of the book, published in Latin in 1545, gives Vesalius an acknowledgement, but the two English versions that followed—including the 1559 edition, from which this image comes—do not.
Godefridus Govert Bidloo (1644-1713). Anatomia humani corporis… Amsterdam: J. à Someren, 1685. Bidloo’s Anatomia humani corporis includes 105 anatomical copperplate engravings, recognized as some of the finest illustrations of the Baroque period. Most anatomical books published in the late 16th and 17th centuries emulated the Vesalian style, with animated figures set in picturesque landscapes. Bidloo and Gerard de Lairesse, the artist, took this approach with their skeletal figures, such as this one contemplating an hourglass and the inevitability of time. The rest of the plates departed from this tradition, being realistic drawings of dissections. Table 5 shows the skull and scalp in the first figure and the dura mater and cerebrum in the second.
Godefridus Govert Bidloo (1644-1713). Anatomia humani corporis… Amsterdam: J. à Someren, 1685. Bidloo’s Anatomia humani corporis includes 105 anatomical copperplate engravings, recognized as some of the finest illustrations of the Baroque period. Most anatomical books published in the late 16th and 17th centuries emulated the Vesalian style, with animated figures set in picturesque landscapes. Bidloo and Gerard de Lairesse, the artist, took this approach with their skeletal figures, such as this one contemplating an hourglass and the inevitability of time. The rest of the plates departed from this tradition, being realistic drawings of dissections.
Giovanni Domenico Santorini (1681-1737). Anatomici summi septemdecim tabulae. Parma: Regia Typographia, 1775. Santorini, a physician and professor of anatomy in Venice, made extensive discoveries during his lifetime, most notably identifying the accessory pancreatic duct. Santorini’s student, Michael Girardi, compiled Anatomici summi septemdecim tabulae and published it 38 years after his mentor’s death, including Santorini’s previously unpublished anatomical drawings and observations. The discoveries shared in this work include what is now called Santorini’s plexus, an important contribution to pelvic anatomy. He also described and illustrated facial structures, as seen here, including novel findings still useful to medical professionals. The book is considered one of the best anatomical works of the 18th century due to the high quality of its images and descriptions.