Beschreibung:

[Science, Medicine & Mathematics] Ryff, Walther H. Des aller fuertreflichsten hoechsten unnd adelichsten gschoepffs aller Creaturen.... (Strassburg: Balthassar Beck, 1541). First edition. 4to. ff. 80; A-M6, N7, 1 blank (collates complete as compared with the copy in the New York Academy of Medicine Library). Illustrated with 26 full-page anatomical woodcuts (including seven depicting brain surgery), as well as 16 smaller in-text anatomical woodcuts (including one schematic of the eye); of the only two complete copies to come to auction since 1967, both called for only 25 full-page plates. Contemporary full "limp" pigskin (boards composed of pressed waste paper), elaborately stamped in blind, extremities worn, boards rubbed, spine ends chipped and worn, bottom rear corner heavily worn with loss to leather and exposing waste paper; modern endpapers; front and rear hinges worn and splitting; repaired short closed tears along bottom edges of ff. 5-7, 11-14, 37, 41-43, 60, 71; six-inch closed tear bottom ff. 56, crudely repaired at bottom; scattered short closed tears along edges; scattered soiling to text; scattered dampstaining at edges. Garrison and Morton, Fifth edition, 373.1. Extremely rare. Published two years before Vesalius’s Fabrica, Ryff's opus, Des aller fuertreflichsten..., was both influential, and controversial, for its time. Charges of plagiarism were levied against Ryff by some of his contemporaries, with Vesalius himself referring to him as “the Strassburg plagiarist”, due to Ryff's recycling of images from previous medical works. According to Garrison and Morton, "This plagarism of Vesalius's Tabulae anatomicae sex contains 25 woodcuts by Hans Baldung Grien (1484/1485-1545), and represents the artist's only contribution to medical illustration. The woodcuts include the best illustrations of brain dissection techniques published before Vesalius's Fabrica." Ryff also used and reworked images from a variety of other Renaissance sources, including Eucharius Rösslin’s Der Rosengarten (1513), and from the anatomies of Johannes Dryander (1536), Jacapo Berengario da Carpi (1522), and Lorenz Fries (1518). You can see evidence of Ryff's alleged plagiarism by comparing the plates in this work with the plates in Dryander's work, also bound here. Bound with: (Ringmann, Matthais) Passio Domini nostri Jesu Christi... [Strassburg]: Joannes Knoblouchus, 1508. Fourth edition. 30 leaves; A-E6. Illustrated with 25 full-page woodcuts by Urs Graf and Hans Wechtlin Fore-edge of most leaves worn, with loss to first four leaves, but not affecting text or plates; small worming at bottom of most leaves; repair at fore-edge of ff. 27; edges of final leaf crudely repaired; soiling to text and plates. Bound with: (Dryander, Johann) (Aetzenei Spiegel gemeyner Inhalt derselbigen, wes bede einem Leib unnd Wundartzt in der Theoric, Practic unnd Chirurgei zusteht) (Franckfort am Meynbei: Christian Egenolff, 1547). Early reprint. ff. 155; *2-*3, A6-c4, 1 blank; lacking title-page and fourth leaf. Profusely illustrated with numerous woodcuts depicting anatomical and surgical diagrams, surgical tools, small in-text vignette scenes (many plates later recycled by Walther Ryff in his work, also bound into this volume). Endpaper and first three leaves loose; edges of first two leaves repaired; bottom corner ff. 131 torn away with some loss to text; loss at fore-edge ff. 148; repairs and short closed tears at bottom edge ff. 152-153; light dampstaining along edges of first 34 leaves; light to moderate soiling to text. Rare, only one other copy found at auction.