Basle: Johannes Oporinus, 1543
Vesalius was just twenty-eight when he completed his great illustrated human anatomy De humani corporis fabrica (On the fabric of the human body). The fine woodcuts set new standards for detailed anatomical illustration. In this image, the artistically posed ‘muscle man’ looks out across a scene thought to represent the Paduan countryside. Vesalius was professor of surgery and anatomy at the University of Padua when the Fabrica was published.
Keynes.P.7.20
The Library has three other copies of the first edition of the Fabrica:
N*.1.2(A). Part of the Library’s ‘Stars’ collection: books that were in the Library before the arrival of the ‘Royal Library’ in 1715 (see below). An annotated copy of the 1555 edition of the Fabrica is at classmark N*.1.1, from the bequest in 1594 of Thomas Lorkyn, Regius Professor of Physic at Cambridge.
K.7.3: with inscription of Sir Theodore Turquet de Mayerne (1573–1655), chief physician to James I. The Library also holds Mayerne’s notebooks, journal, and some of his papers. This copy came to the Library as part of the ‘Royal Library’, the collection of John Moore (1646–1714), Bishop of Ely, bought by George I and presented to Cambridge in 1715.
CCA.46.69: with the bookplates of Amadeus Svajer and Professor Alexander Macalister (1844–1919), and an inscription recording purchase by Sir Hugh Anderson, who gave the book to Macalister. Macalister, Professor of Anatomy at Cambridge, who gave summer lectures on the history of his subject, later presented it to the Anatomy Department at Cambridge along with other books, including a magnificent hand-coloured copy of Vesalius’ Epitome of the Fabrica (1543). (E. Barclay-Smith, ‘Professor Alexander Macalister, M.D., F.R.S., etc. 1844–1919’, Journal of Anatomy, 54(1) (1919), 96–9)
