Toutes Les Oeuvres.
Folio [23 x 34.5 cm], (10) ff., including engraved allegorical title & portrait of Du Laurens, 353 (1) pp., (10) ff.; (1)f., 53, (3) ff.; 43, (3) ff.; 57, (3) ff.; 30, (2) ff. Bound in contemporary French calf, gilt-ruled covers with gilt wreath in center, spine with raised bands, rebacked with author-title gilt on spine. Ex Libris of Pierre Americ on front-end pastedown, early ownership inscription of Michaux ... De la Burtieve / Praecevitor S. Capellae Dune.sis (?) on title. Soiling to engraved title with extreme right margin in partial facsimile; preliminary & final leaves remargined without loss; light waterstain in upper margin of scattered leaves; some other leaves soiled or spotted in margin. According to Krivatsy, the French translation of Du Laurens' Opera Omnia was first published by P. Mettayer in Paris in 1613, and was reprinted by Raphael Du Petit Val in Rouen in 1621. Our copy has an engraved title signed by du Petit Val in Rouen but dated 1613; the Rouen librairie presumably recycled some of the original Paris-printed titles, modifying the original engraving with a cancel. Du Laurens (1558-1609) was the court physician to Marie de Medicis and Henry IV and previously had been professor at the University of Montpellier.
Scarce, French-language edition of Du Laurens'works, with a set of 26 anatomical engravings derived from Vesalius and others. "This is the second edition of the French translation of Du Laurens' collected works... which preceeded the publication of the Latin text. In addition to the author's textbook of anatomy and his account of scrofula, the volume contains works on geriatrics, melancholy and other mental afflictions, and an early opthalmological work which describes the anatomy and diseases of the eye. The volume has an exceptionally well-engraved title page, the author's engraved portrait, and numerous historical and ornamental woodcut initials." - Heirs of Hippocrates, p. 144.
* Wellcome I, 1942; Krivatsy, 3506, 3507; Heirs of Hippocrates, 389.
Price: $3,850.00