Andreas Vesalius, Icones Anatomicae. Munich and New York: Printed by the Bremer Presse for the New York Academy of Medicine and the University of Munich Library, 1934.
Reprint edition of De Humani Corpis Fabrica, limited to 615 copies; drawings attributed to Vesalius, Jan Stephan van Calcar and others.
Vesalius' anatomical studies established a systematic, scientific approach to dissection, and provided a pictorial level of detail and accuracy, such that his anatomical atlas enjoys the stature of being among the more influential medical texts ever produced. The work was immediately popular, and the famous woodcut illustrations published there influenced anatomical depiction for centuries to follow. This edition uses the original sixteenth-century wood blocks that were employed to print the 1543 and 1552-1555 editions of De Humani Corpis Fabrica. Discovery of their existence in the collections of the University of Munich library prompted this 1934 printing; the blocks subsequently were destroyed by the bombing of Munich during World War II. The text duplicates the original but was set specifically for this reprint edition.
Purchase.