Anatomia Corporum Humanorum.....

in-folio grande (mm 514x365), antiporta, 70 ff. (compreso titolo in rosso e nero, introduzione e 62 ff. di esplicazione delle tavole), legatura coeva in mezzo marocchino granata, ricchi fregi e titolo in oro al dorso, tagli marmorizzati. Con 119 tavole anatomiche incise in rame f.t. (numerate 1-105, ma 106 perché la tavola 11 è doppia; 1-9 e 1-5, ma 4 f.t. perché la quarta e la quinta sono sullo stesso foglio). L'opera anatomica del Cowper, nacque da una operazione di plagio nei confronti della "Anatomia humani corporis" del Bidloo, alla quale però l'autore aggiunse il frutto di sue personali ricerche e 9 nuove tavole nell'edizione originale inglese del 1698. In questa seconda edizione latina del 1750 (prima 1739) ne furono aggiunte altre 5 sulla base di nuovi studi, in particolare sugli organi riproduttivi maschili e femminili. Le 119 tavole comunque costituiscono uno dei punti più alti mai raggiunti dalla iconografia anatomica. "William Cowper was born in England in 1666 and died in 1709. He practiced surgery in London and devoted himself to dissection and anatomical delineations. In 1698 he published a pretentious work The anatomy of the human body. It was a beautiful folio adorned by one hundred and fourteen plates only nine of which were original with Cowper. All the others belong to Bidloo. Bidloo having been told that Cowper was working on an English translation of his (Bidloo's) Anatomy, spoke to him about it when he was in London and offered to communicate to him various additional observations made by him since the printing of his book. Cowper assured Bidloo that he did not understand Latin well enough to undertake such a task. Meanwhile, however, he purchased from booksellers in Holland three hundred sets of Bidloo's plates, including the engraved title-page on which he had his own name skilfully pasted over that of Bidloo. He added a few new plates, made some corrections, and some additions and translated the text from the Latin into English and published the whole under his own name, merely casually referring to Bidloo in the preface" (Power-Thompson). "Among the nine plates newly added by Cowper, which are drawn by Henry Cook and engraved by Michiel van der Gucht, are two well-executed plates, representing the front and back views of the entire musculature" (Choulant)

GARRISON 385, edizione originale. Russell ''British anatomy'' N° 214. Choulant p. 252. Mettler p. 69.