Fine Books and Manuscripts

Bernardi Siegfried Albini. Explicatio tabularum anatomicarum. Bartholomaei Eustachii, anatomici summi. Auctor recognovit, castigavit, auxit, denuo edidit. Leiden: Joannem & Hermannum Verbeek, 1761. Second edition.Quarter leather over contemporary boards (44 cm. tall), with expected wear; rebacked, with gilt lettering to spine and seven raised bands. Contents collated as complete. Illustrated with 89 plates; two gatherings of which pull loose from the binding, which is otherwise sound. Seven dated ownership inscriptions, from 1832 until 1956, noted in various hands on front endpaper; undecipherable signature to end of text. With short catalogue for Verbeek publishing house on verso of final leaf. Accompanied by envelope of correspondence, including letter of gift to Dr. Sidney Schulman, famed Chicago neurologist. Plates and text preserved in remarkable condition, with minor soiling to a handful.The accompanying letter of gift provides a comprehensive description: "I had great fun tracking down a book that might be appropriate for you. I wanted to find early anatomical plates of the nervous system, more particularly the brain, but I settled for this 1761 edition of the plates of Eustachius with a text by Albinus (the Latinized name used by a famous professor of anatomy at Leiden; his real name was Bernhard Siegfried Weiss). Eustachius finished these fine copper plates in 1552, but only a few were published during his lifetime and his text was lost for the most part. The plates were found in the early 18th century and given to the current Pope (of all things) and he gave them to his physician who published a 1714 edition in Rome... I have the word of Charles Singer, historian of anatomy and physiology, that if Eustachius had published these plates when he finished them, he would have been recognized with Vesalius and Leonardo as a founder of modern anatomy. His plates are not beautiful, as are those of Vesalius, but in many respects they are more accurate and his plate of the sympathetic nervous system, base of the brain and origin of the cranial nerves is supposed to be particularly fine."