The exceedingly rare true first edition

Folli, Cecilio (1614-1682).

Caecilii Folii equitis Nova auris internae delineatio. Venice, Giovanni Antonio Giuliani, 1645. (bound with:)

Cima, Francesco (b. 1633). Exercitationis medicae de recta acceptione arthritidis, & podagrae ab excellentissimo Antonio Molinetto Patavini Lycaei anatomico, & theorico editae. Examen Francisci Cimae medici Veneti. Venice, ex typographia Leniana, 1662. (bound with:)

Patin, Charles (1633-1693). De febribus oratio, habita in Archi-Lycaeo Patavino, die 4. Nov. 1677. A Carolo Patino Doctore Medico Parisiensi Medicinam Praticam Interpretante. Padua, Pietro Maria Frambotto, 1677. (bound with:)

Cima, Francesco (b. 1633). Vindicata veritas a Francisco Cima medico veneto in epistolam admonitoriam nomine cuiusdam Baijer typis mandatam. Venice, ex typographia Leniana, 1663.

Precious medical miscellany, including the exceedingly rare first edition, in first issue, of the Nova auris internae delineatio by Cecilio Folli, the most accurate description of the ear up to its time.
Born in Fanano, near Modena, Folli studied philosophy and medicine at the University of Padua, demonstrating great interest in anatomical and physiological investigations. His career developed in Venice, where he was elected public anatomist in 1636 and primary physician in 1650. Using his personal prestige, Folli promoted the construction of an anatomical theatre in Venice based on the model of that of Padua. Inaugurated in 1671, the theatre was later destroyed by a fire.

The Nova auris internae delineatio is undoubtedly Folli’s most esteemed and sought-after text. Its fame is due to the engraved plate containing six figures that offer an extremely accurate and analytical description of the middle and inner ear, some structures of which had never before been observed. Among the many remarkable morphological details shown in the plate and described in the text, the depiction in the Figura Secunda of the long process of the malleus, also called the “Folli or Follian process”, is of particular importance. The physician also identifies the lenticular process of the anvil which he calls os globulus, and which is first illustrated in the Figura Tertia.

The work was sent as a letter – the dedication is dated Venice, 10 May 1645 – to the well-known Danish physician and mathematician Thomas Bartholin (1616-1680), revealing their mutual esteem and friendship; Folli went often to Padua, where Bartholin resided, both to discuss with him the development of his research and to make practical demonstrations of anatomy. Bartholin also contributed to the circulation of the Nova auris internae delineatio as is shown in the copy now preserved at the Augsburg State Library, bearing Bartholin’s dedication to the German physician Lucas Schrockius (1620-1689). Two variants of the edition are known, each having a different fingerprint and with the printer’s device of the eagle and vase of lilies appearing in two different sizes. Our copy certainly corresponds to issue A with the larger version of this device.

The Nova auris internae delineatio was reprinted in Venice a century later, in 1745, in commemoration of the first edition. Responsible for the publication was the outstanding Venetian physician Giambattista Paitoni (1703-1788), who entrusted a Venetian printer to issue a facsimile of the pamphlet, with the addition of a typographical note on the verso of the title-page: “Hoc rarissimum opusculum recusum est Venetiis in usum Jo: Baptistae Paitoni juxta autoris editionem, Dominico Burgo typographo mdccxlv”. Although the title-page faithfully reproduces the original imprint, the text was entirely reset, the plate was recast with minimal variants, and a different printer’s device was used, now depicting a woman symbolizing the goddess Concordia. According to the Opac SBN, seven copies of the Nova auris internae delineatio of 1645 are recorded among Italian institutional libraries, but their descriptions tend to be misleading

as there is some confusion between the two issues of the original edition and the reprint of 1745. This is the case, for example, with the vellum copy kept at the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice (Membr. 52), which – given the presence of the Concordia printer’s device – seems not to belong to the 1645 edition, but rather to Paitoni’s celebratory initiative of 1745. It would be interesting to determine how many copies of this extremely rare pamphlet listed in institutional libraries worldwide belong in fact to the original 1645 edition as opposed to the 1745 reprint.

The other three editions bound in this miscellany are likewise rare, and all are linked to the Paduan medical milieu: two dissertations by Francesco Cima, and the oration held at the University of Padua in 1670 by the renowned Parisian physician Charles Patin.

Garrison-Morton 1542G (for Folli’s Nova auris internae delineatio); A. B. Bosatra, “La Nova auris internae delineatio di Cecilio Folli”, Acta medicae historiae Patavina, 1 (1954-55), pp. 1-16 (includes a facsimile of the 1645 edition); C.D. O’Malley – E. Clarke, “The Discovery of the Auditory Ossicles”, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 35 (1961), p. 441 and fig. 5; S. Minuzzi, Sul filo dei segreti. Farmacopea, libri e pratiche terapeutiche a Venezia in età moderna, Milan, 2016, p. 191.