Historia De la composicion del cuerpo humano, escrita por Ioan de Valverde de Hamusco.

Juan de Valverde de Hamusco

RA Collection: Book

Record number

03/6648

Author

Juan de Valverde de Hamusco

Imprint

Impressa por Antonio Salamanca, y Antonio Lafrerii,, En Roma.: Año de M. D. LVI.

Physical Description

[12], 106, [59] f.: [42] illus.; 292 mm. (In sixes.)

General Note

Among the fifty-nine unnumbered leaves of text there are forty-two full-page illustrations, numbered 'Tab. Primera (-Setima) Del Lib. Primero; Tab. Primera (-Deziseysena) Del Lib. Degundo; Tab. Primera (-Sesta) Del Lib. Terzero; Tabla De Las Fig. Del IIII. Lib.; Tab. Primera (-Tercera) Del V. Libro; Tab. Primera (-Quinta) Del Lib. Sesto; Tab. Primera (-Quarta) Del Lib. VII'. The first, unnumbered leaf carries the engraved title-plate on its recto and the printed privilege on its verso. The 'Registro delos quadernos' lists the variations in the gatherings.

[T.-pl.; privilege, dedic.] - Al Letor - Tabla De Los Capitulos - Tabla De Todas Las Cosas Notables ... - Prologo; [Text, with illus.] - Registro delos quadernos - Los herrores cometídos en el estampar ... .

Responsibility Note

There are no signatures of draughtsman or engraver on the engraved title-plate, the full-page illustrations, or the decorative initials. But the artist was possibly Gaspar Becerra; the engraver was Nicolas Beatrizet.

The work is dedicated by the author to Ioan De Toledo Cardenal.

References

M. Cazort et al., The Ingenious Machine of Nature [exhibition catalogue] (1996); K.B. Roberts and J.D.W. Tomlinson, The fabric of the body: European traditions of anatomical illustration (1992), p. 210-220; F. Guerra, 'Juan de Valverde de Amusco', in Clio Med., 2 (1967), p. 339-62; L.L. Szladits, 'The influence of Michelangelo on some anatomical illustration', in Journal of the history of medicine and allied sciences, 9 (1954), p.420-7; A.W. Meyer and S.K. Wirt, 'The Amuscan illustration', in Bulletin of the history of medicine, 14 (1943), p. 667-87.

Summary Note

The illustrations of Valverde's book are redrawn and engraved copies of about two thirds of Vesalius's woodcuts. One print shows a flayed man holding a human skin, an image perhaps derived from Michelangelo's depiction of St Bartholomew in the Sistine Chapel.