Background
Thomas Geminus was born in 1510 in Lille, France.
Thomas Geminus was born in 1510 in Lille, France.
Thomas studied engraving, printing, and instrument making in France.
Thomas migrated about 1540 to England, where he practiced the arts of engraving, printing, and instrument making, the last possibly with the assistance of Humphrey Cole. The unique copper-engraved anatomical figure of a woman, now in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library, was probably the work of Geminus, as were the Compendiosa totius anatomie delineatio and the unique copy of Morysse and Damashin Renewed and Encreased. Geminus both engraved and printed a map entitled Nova descriptio Hispaniae on four sheets, and printed Britanniae insulae nova descriptie. The unique copies of both are now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. He also printed Leonard Digges’s Prognostication of Right Good Effect in 1555 and a second edition in 1556, and he was possibly responsible for the diagram of the signs of the zodiac on the title page. In addition, he produced and engraved several astrolabes: one with the arms of the duke of Northumberland, Sir John Cheke, and Edward VI, dated 1552 (now in the Royal Belgian Observatory, Brussels), two about 1555 (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, and Museo di Storia delle Scienze, Florence), and another for Queen Elizabeth (Museum of the History of Science, Oxford).
Geminus’ most important work was the series of handsome, copper-engraved anatomical figures, most of them plagiarized from Vesalius’ Fabrica and a few from his Epitome. Upon being presented with a set of these engravings in 1544, Henry VIII urged Geminus to issue them in the form of a book. This was done in the following year, under the title Compendiosa totius anatomie delineado, published in London by J. Herford rather than by Geminus, who apparently had not yet established his own press. The illustrations were accompanied by the Latin text of Vesalius’ Epitome, slightly defective in its concluding chapter as the result of verbal compression, and by the Latin text of Vesalius’ descriptions of his illustrations. It appears likely that this first plagiarism of the major Vesalian texts and illustrations was intended as a treatise to accompany the anatomical lectures given at the recently organized United Company of Barber-Surgeons of London.
Although Geminus’ book introduced Vesalian anatomy to England, it appears to have been too advanced for the surgeons, who, moreover, because of guild rather than university training, were unable to comprehend the Latin text. In consequence of what was probably a disappointing sale, the Compendious Anatomy was published again in 1553, with an English “Treatyse” substituted for the Latin text of the Epitome and the Vesalian descriptions of the illustrations translated into English. The translations and the new text were the work of Nicholas Udall, the new text being basically the same as that employed by Thomas Vicary in his Anatomie of Mans Bodie. To this Udall added some sections from Ludovicus Vassaeus’ Galenic In anatomen corporis humani tabula quatuor and a few fragments from Guy de Chauliac.
The result, therefore, was essentially a medieval anatomical text factually denied by the accompanying Vesalian illustrations and their Vesalian descriptions. It could have been of little use for anatomical instruction despite the relatively low level of anatomical studies in England at that time. It was probably because of the spectacular Vesalian illustrations rather than the text that another edition of the Compendious Anatomy seems to have been called for in 1559, this time with some but very slight editorial assistance from Richard Eden.
Despite the questionable value of the text, Geminus’ plagiarized illustrations were of considerable influence and were plagiarized in turn for Raynold’s Byrth of Mankynde, William Bullein’s Government of Health, Vicary’s Profitable Treatise of the Anatomie of Mans Body, and Banester’s Historic of Man Sucked From the Sappe of the Most Approved Anathomistes. In 1560 or shortly thereafter Geminus’ plates were acquired by the Parisian printer André Wechsel and, with the editorial assistance of Jacques Grévin, were reproduced with Latin and French texts borrowed from Geminus’ first edition of 1545. In turn, these Parisian editions led to still others in France, Germany, and the Netherlands as late as the mid-seventeenth century.
