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VALVERDE DE HAMUSCO, Juan (fl. 1560). Anatome corporis humani . Venice: Guinta, 1607.
VALVERDE DE HAMUSCO, Juan (fl. 1560). Anatome corporis humani . Venice: Guinta, 1607. 2 o (308 x 204 mm). Engraved title, engraved portrait of the author, 46 full-page engravings. Contemporary vellum (some repairs to spine). Second Latin edition. Valverde, a Spanish physician, studied anatomy at the University of Padua under Vesalius and Realdo Colombo. His Historia de la Composicion del Cuerpo Humano was first published in Rome in 1556 rather than in Spain, thirteen years after the appearance of Vesalius' Fabrica . Valverde stated in his text that he had Vesalius' illustrations copied, but fifteen plates were original to his work, and Valverde changed a number of Vesalius' images by combining them, or by adding extraneous details such as suits of armor or new heads. Choulant-Frank credits the Spanish painter and sculptor Gaspar Becerra (1520-1570) for the illustrations to Valverde's book. Some, such as the standing flayed man holding his own skin, or the portions of dissected cadavers wearing suits of armor, are among the most dramatic anatomical images of the sixteenth century. The artist, Gaspar Becerra was born at Baeza in Andalusia. He studied at Rome, perhaps under Michelangelo, and assisted Vasari in painting the hall of the Concelleria. While in Rome he collaborated with Valverde, which would explain why the first edition of Valverde's Spanish text was published in Rome. After his return to Spain Becerra was extensively employed by Phillip II, and decorated many of the rooms in the palace at Madrid with frescoes. His fame as a sculptor almost surpassed that as a painter. He became court painter at Madrid in 1563, and played a prominent part in the establishment of the fine arts in Spain. The plates were originally prepared by the French engraver Nicolas Beatrizet (1515-65) who frequently worked for the original publisher of Valverde's book, Antonio Salamanca Besides modifying and adding illustrations Valverde also made over sixty corrections and additions to Vesalius's work, including descriptions of the stapes of the ear, the short palmar muscle, the pregnant human uterus and the pulmonary circuit of the blood. Perhaps his most significant contribution was his statement of the true nature of the cardiac septum, which corrected Vesalius's and Galen's mistaken notion that blood passes through the septum from the right ventricle to the left. Valverde's work was first translated from Spanish into Italian in 1560, and then from Italian into Latin in 1589. Choulant-Frank pp. 207-08; Cushing VI. D.-41; Roberts & Tomlinson pp. 210-17.