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Historical Bibliography Updated: July 30, 2021

Tabulae anatomicae sex.

Publication Details

Venice: sumpt. J. S. Calcarensis, 1538 CE.

Vesalius’ first anatomical publication, consisting of six oversized anatomical charts, resembling fugitive sheets. The three skeletal woodcuts are signed by the artist, Jan Stephan van Calcar, who also acted as the publisher. This is the only publication by Vesalius in which Calcar is specifically credited with authorship of images in Vesalius's works. The other woodcuts were engraved after drawings by Vesalius. Only two complete sets of the original edition exist–one in the Bibliotheca Nazionale Marciana, Venice, and the other in the Hunterian Collection at the University of Glasgow Library, donated by Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, who published a limited edition facsimile of his copy for private distribution (London, 1874). Singer and Rabin, A prelude to modern science, Cambridge, 1946, reproduces the sheets half-size with commentary. A full-size facsimile appears in Vesalius, Tabulae Anatomicae, Munich: Bremer Press, 1934. The woodcuts also appear with commentary in Saunders and O’Malley, The illustrations from the works of Andreas Vesalius, Cleveland: World Publishing, 1950.

Catalog MetadataReference Information
Entry Number#372
Permanent Linkhttps://hom-sveltekit.fly.dev/entry/468
Author Bio LinkWikipedia ↗
External URLtabulae-anatomicae-sex

Geographic Context

Publication place: Venice

Mentioned in annotation: Cambridge, MA; Cleveland, OH; Glasgow; London; Munich