Title Page and Dedication for the "Compendiosa totius Anatomiae delineatio"

Title Page and Dedication for the "Compendiosa totius Anatomiae delineatio"

Thomas Geminus

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Title and dedication page (bound together) of the anatomy book published by Thomas Geminus in London in 1545. The book reproduced the anatomical plates from Andreas Vesalius' "De humani corporis fabrica", combined with the text of the "Epitome" by the same author, both published in 1543. The work counts as one of the first examples of the use of engraving in England. The ony other example of engravings predating the "Compendiosa" are found in "The Birth of Mankind, otherwise named the Woman’s Book", an English version of Eucharius Rösslin’s "Der schwangern Frauwen und Hebammen Rosengarten" of 1513, published first by Richard Jonas in 1540, and in a new version by Thomas Raynalde in 1545. Geminus is sometimes associated with these publications, but the inferior quality of the engraved illustrations speaks against this attribution.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Title Page and Dedication for the "Compendiosa totius Anatomiae delineatio"Title Page and Dedication for the "Compendiosa totius Anatomiae delineatio"Title Page and Dedication for the "Compendiosa totius Anatomiae delineatio"Title Page and Dedication for the "Compendiosa totius Anatomiae delineatio"Title Page and Dedication for the "Compendiosa totius Anatomiae delineatio"

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.