Imprimerie

Folio (210 x 294 mm). (48), 421 pp., 1 leaf of errata, plus 2-leaf illustrated insert after p. 354 as called for. With 10 full-page woodcuts in text. Bound in contemporary vellum with endpapers skillfully renewed. Stored in custom-made half calf clamshell box. Rare first edition, and the only folio printing, of the author's chef d'oeuvre, published in the same year as "De corporis humani fabrica", the similarly grand production of his most famous pupil, Andreas Vesalius. Although lesser-known as a text than his student's groundbreaking masterpiece, Tagault's "De chirurgica institutione" provides an essential piece of the puzzle in understanding the context in which Vesalius came to break new ground. The book's publishing history uncannily mirrors that of "De fabrica", and several of its anatomical diagrams were in fact plagiarized from the "Tabulae sex" through a chain of events yet to be elucidated. - Although he cannot be held in the same light as his eminent pupil, Tagault was an important figure on the cusp of the Vesalian revolution. O'Malley calls him "one of the few members of the faculty actively interested in anatomical studies" (p. 425) and notes that he was performing public dissections as early as 1535, during the period in which Vesalius studied under him (cf. p. 58). O'Malley also notes a story to the effect that the anatomist Jacobus Sylvius - a successful instructor at the University of Paris, but also terribly jealous of Vesalius's rising star - was responsible for advising Tagault on stylistic changes to improve the presentation of his "De chirurgica institutione". - The five books of Tagault's treatise elaborate the writings of Guy de Chauliac (1300-68) on the surgical aspects of tumors, wounds, hernias, ulcers, fractures, and dislocations. 2 full-page woodcut figures ultimately based on Gersdorff show the wound-man and the extraction of an arrow on the battlefield; a further three, in fact plagiarized from the "Tabulae sex", are found on the two leaves inserted at p. 354 following Tagault's treatise, accompanied by numbered legends in Latin and Greek. The precise circumstances surrounding their appearance in this work are intriguing; their position suggests a late addition, perhaps in a nod to the growing popularity of his former student. According to Cushing, the four chief suspects in the transfer of the woodcuts are the anatomist Louis Vassé, the printers Charles Estienne and Christian Wechel, and Tagault himself. Moritz Roth (Andreas Vesalius Bruxellensis, 1892) indeed traced in detail the extent of the plagiarism and cross-flow of the woodblocks between successive editions of Tagault and Vesalius. - The sixth book contains the first appearance in print of Jacques Houiller's "De materia chirurgica", discussing and illustrating the tools of surgery in use during Vesalian times before Pare and Wurtz. - Like "De fabrica", later editions of "De chirurgica institutione" were issued only in reduced format to make the work more widely accessible; the present first edition is the only printing in folio, presenting its marvellous full-page woodcuts to full effect. The large number of editions which Tagault's text enjoyed during the 16th century certainly rivals that of Vesalius and perhaps suggests that the two texts might have competed on the European stage. - Unlike the first edition of "De fabrica", which is readily obtainable in commerce, we have not traced any copy of the first edition of "De chirurgica institutione" at Anglo-American or German auctions in the last 50 years. It is one of just two editions edited by Tagault himself and published during his lifetime; the second edition (1544) was a much less impressive (and far more commonly-encountered) octavo. - A very good copy, fresh and charming despite a very light dampstain to the upper blank margin of a few leaves. Cushing 27. Waller 9444 (lacking index). Not in the Wellcome. Heirs of Hippocrates 190 (the earliest edition noted being 1560).