{"product_id":"tagault-s-renaissance-surgical-manual","title":"Tagault’s Renaissance Surgical Manual","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Rare First German Edition of One of the Great Renaissance Surgical Manuals with 22 Woodcuts, Several by Jost Amman after Vesalius\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTagault, Jean and Jacques Houllier. \u003cem\u003eGründtliche vnd rechte Underweysung der Chirurgiæ oder Wundartzney: Nemlich\/ Von allerley Apostemen\/ Peulen vnd Geschwulsten. Item\/ Von allen frischen Wunden \/ vnd alten offenen Schäden…\u003c\/em\u003e Frankfurt am Main, [Georg Rab the Elder and Sigmund Feyerabend], 1574.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne of the great illustrated surgical books of the Renaissance and the rare first German edition of Jean Tagault’s celebrated manual of surgery, printed in Frankfurt in 1574 and illustrated with 22 striking woodcuts, several designed by Jost Amman and others derived from Andreas Vesalius’ revolutionary anatomical imagery.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe work offers an unflinching view into sixteenth-century medicine: amputations, trepanations, battlefield wounds, fractures, surgical instruments, poisoned bites, gunshot injuries, and anatomical studies rendered with extraordinary directness and visual intensity.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eEdition \u0026amp; Bibliographic Information\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e)(6 a6 b8 A-Z6 a-r6 s4 t-v6 x4 = 20 leaves, 244 numbered leaves, 14 leaves (index). Without the errata leaf and likely final blank. Title printed in red and black. Printed with marginal commentary columns throughout; index in double columns.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIllustrated with 22 woodcuts, including two repeats, several signed with the monogram “IA” of Jost Amman, together with three reduced copies after Vesalius’ \u003cem\u003eTabulae anatomicae\u003c\/em\u003e. Folio (320 × 200 mm).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eContemporary vellum binding over smooth spine with manuscript title at head and entirely red edges. The volume remains remarkably free from active signs of practical medical use despite occasional faint dampstaining and increasing worming toward the end.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eSurgery Before Anesthesia\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe title page already announces the brutal scope of the work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBeneath the extensive printed title appears a dramatic surgical scene in which an amputation is actively underway in the foreground while another patient undergoes cranial trepanation nearby. In the background, wounded and crippled figures move uncertainly through hospital interiors and recovery rooms.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFurther illustrations depict shattered limbs, battlefield injuries, invalids, surgical instruments, skeletal studies, fracture devices, and the extraction of bullets from gunshot wounds. Particularly striking is the image of a collapsed cavalier while surgeons attempt to remove the tiny projectile of an arquebusier lodged near the heart.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe imagery captures Europe at the precise moment when warfare, anatomy, and surgery were becoming inseparably linked through the emergence of firearms and increasingly devastating battlefield trauma.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eJean Tagault and Renaissance Medical Humanism\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJean Tagault, professor of surgery and dean of the Paris medical faculty between 1534 and 1537, belonged to the generation of Renaissance physicians who sought to recover and purify ancient medical knowledge through direct engagement with Greek and Latin sources.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThough Tagault’s work drew heavily upon Guy de Chauliac’s medieval \u003cem\u003eChirurgia magna\u003c\/em\u003e of 1363, it represented far more than a simple compilation. Renaissance humanist medicine increasingly regarded medieval medical transmission as corrupted through mistranslation, barbarized terminology, and excessive dependence upon later Arabic authorities. Tagault therefore sought to restore clarity by returning directly to Hippocrates, Galen, and classical anatomical language.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe sixth book, devoted to medicines and therapeutic remedies, was prepared by Tagault’s collaborator Jacques Houllier, one of the leading Parisian medical scholars of the age and likewise committed to reviving the relative simplicity of Hippocratic medicine against what humanists increasingly regarded as the overly complicated Galenic-Arabic tradition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eVesalius and the New Anatomy\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eParticularly important are the three skeletal illustrations copied after Andreas Vesalius’ \u003cem\u003eTabulae anatomicae\u003c\/em\u003e. Their inclusion places the work directly within the great anatomical transformation of the sixteenth century initiated by Vesalius’ \u003cem\u003eDe humani corporis fabrica\u003c\/em\u003e of 1543.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Renaissance surgeon increasingly required not merely inherited textual authority, but visual anatomical knowledge grounded in direct observation of the body itself. The woodcuts therefore stand at the intersection of medicine, anatomy, warfare, and print culture.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eJost Amman and Surgical Illustration\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSeveral illustrations bear the monogram “IA” of Jost Amman, among the most important woodcut designers active in late sixteenth-century Germany. His contribution gives the book a remarkable visual coherence and dramatic immediacy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe hospital interiors, surgical scenes, and wounded bodies possess an almost theatrical intensity, transforming the manual into one of the most visually compelling surgical books of the Renaissance.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eThe Rare First German Edition\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe work first appeared in Latin in Paris in 1543 and went through at least twenty-one further editions by 1645, together with Italian, Dutch, French, and German translations.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe present German translation by Dr. Gregor Zechendorffer — physician in Eger and dedicated to Elector August of Saxony — appeared in 1574, notably before the first French translation of 1580. The edition is today extremely rare.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eLiterature\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNot in Adams; cf. Andresen I, 422f., no. 250; BM STC 848; not in Durling; Gurlt II, 624; Hirsch\/Hübotter V, 507; VD16 T 67; Waller 9446.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor a fuller scholarly description and illustrations, see \u003cem\u003eWunderkammer\u003c\/em\u003e Catalogue 90, number 58a:\u003cbr\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/issuu.com\/heribert-tenschert\/docs\/katalog_90_vol_2_web?utm_source=chatgpt.com\"\u003eWunderkammer Catalogue 90, Volume II\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Atelier Zweig Rare Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46838223863996,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0736\/1285\/3436\/files\/p106_img01.jpg?v=1779174501","url":"https:\/\/atelierzweig.com\/products\/tagault-s-renaissance-surgical-manual","provider":"Atelier Zweig Rare Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}