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Description: FIRST SPANISH ILLUSTRATED ANATOMY IN THE VERNACULAR . First edition, very rare, of the first separate, and first illustrated, anatomical work in the vernacular printed in Spain. "While Valverde di Hamusco's Historia de la composicion del cuerpo humano (1556) is often credited with introducing into Spain the Vesalian anatomical iconography coupled with a vernacular text, this honor actually belongs to Montaña de Monserrate's Anothomia. Montaña's Anathomia represents the first separate anatomical work in the vernacular printed in Spain, as Lobera de Avila's unillustrated Libro de Anatomia was only a section of the more general Remedio de cuerpos humanos (1542?). Montaña's text, like that of another Vesalian propagandist, Thomas Geminus, was largely derived from the popular Anatomy of the medieval surgeon Henri de Mondeville, and was thus more likely than that of Valverde to have been immediately accessible to Spain's barber-surgeons" (Norman). "The book contains twelve anatomical crosscuts, of which nine are copied from Vesalius' Fabrica or Epitome. These nine drawings are reduced and simplified and include three of Vesalius' male muscle figures, two plates representing the central nervous system, two plates of the venous and arterial systems, Vesalius' figure combining genito-urinary and thoracic organs, and a reversed copy of the Fabrica's first skeleton plate. Of the remaining three drawings, two illustrate skeleton views, derived from Berengario and Dryander, while the third, a crude semi-schematic representation of the thoracic and abdominal organs, is probably an original by an unknown author. This book does not have any anatomical drawings of a female corpse. As the woodcut border bears the initials of the book's printer, Sebastian Martinez, it is likely that he executed the woodcuts" (Reveron, pp. 14-16). ABPC/RBH list four complete copies in the last half-century. Provenance: A few early annotations throughout, including a small diagram of a jointed limb. "The Anothomia of Montaña consists essentially of three parts. The first comprises the anatomy proper to which are appended two chapters, one of which deals with the generation and development of man and the other, with the causes which necessarily lead to death. The second part is a colloquy, the dream of the Marques de Mondejar, presented in the manner of a typical renaissance dialogue between the Marques and Montaña on certain aspects of humoral physiology. And the final section is devoted to the illustrations. "The anatomical section together with the dedicatory epistle, occupies the first seventy-three folios. After the proemium in which the author exhorts the would-be surgeon to select for his training an institution where actual dissection of the human cadaver is performed, there follow three chapters of preliminary materials devoted to definitions, the simple and the compound members. Thereafter the rest of the anatomy of the body is treated successively in the following order: the cranial cavity and contents, the vertebral column, the facial region, the neck, the upper extremities, the thorax, the abdomen, the organs of generation, and finally the lower extremities. One immediately recognizes in the arrangement from head to foot, the scholastic order so popular in mediaeval texts and found in the anatomical treatise of the great French surgeon, Henri de Mondeville (1260-1320). "The second part of the anatomical treatise is divided . into two chapters which treat of generation, development of the foetus, birth and the causes which necessarily lead to death. The principal agent of generation, says Montaña, is arterial blood, which is elaborated and prepared in the testes to be converted into semen. Blood, he continues, is either venal and therefore gross, earthy and impure; or arterial, a purified and subtle form of the former. The purification and conversion of venous into arterial blood is carried on through the medium "of the pores of the substance of the heart." This arterial blood prepared by the testes and converted into semen, when mixed with arterial blood, is the basis of generation. The process of development then proceeds owing to a sort of selective fermentation which thus engenders the natural heat. Thereafter he continues with a discussion of the foetal membranes, the umbilical chord and the placenta, the successive development of the foetus, and the mechanism of its formation with a consideration of the true termination of conception. These conclusions, he informs us, are the result of forty-five years of experience, and he asks pardon for the shades of Hippocrates, Aristotle, Galen and Avicenna because he does not follow their teaching in this regard. "The section on embryology and the mechanism of developmental processes, especially the concept of fermentation as a major factor in the formation of the natural heat and in the elaboration of the various organs of the body, is quite unique. However, we immediately recognize, despite Montaña's protestations, the fusion of Aristotelian and Galenical ideas and therefore suspect that he is for the most part dependent on Arabian sources. His indebtedness is notably evident in his use of anatomical terminology, and we often meet with such terms as mirach for the anterior abdominal wall and siphac for the peritoneum" (Saunders & O'Malley, pp. 91-95). The dream of the Marques de Mondejar, which has a separate title page, is a work on physiology in which the principal functions of the human body are presented in allegory. The colloquy begins with the narration of a dream experienced by the Marques, as told to his doctor, the author himself, in order that he may account for the figures and images that, in the character's words, 'appeared' to him 'most mysteriously.' The Marques' vision was of the magnificent architecture of a stately and gracious mansion in whose interior he sees a fortress being built. Montaña uses footnotes to reveal the links between the architectur
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