VENETTE (Nicolas). Lot n° 43

The Generation of Man, or Table of Conjugal Love. Divided into four parts. Seventh edition, revised, corrected, increased & enriched with figures by the Author. Cologne, Claude Joly, 1696. In-12 ivory vellum, smooth spine, handwritten title on the spine (contemporary binding). 13 engraved figures in and out of the text. Freckles, bottom of a plate torn with missing, last quire detached. Author of a Traité du scorbut (1671), the physician Nicolas Venette (1633-1698) is best known for his Tableau de l'amour conjugal, first published in 1686 in Amsterdam under the pseudonym of Salocini, Vénitien (anagram of Nicolas Venette). This work, considered the first treatise on sexology in the West, was reprinted no less than 33 times until 1903, and was translated into English, Spanish, German and Dutch. The author deals in four parts with everything related to sex: anatomy, reproduction, desire, impotence, sterility... The whole presents an ambiguous mixture of serious and light-hearted remarks, bordering on erotic literature (André Dupras, L'apport du Dr Nicolas Venette à l'éducation à la sexualité au XVIIe siècle, in Sexologies, Volume 16, Issue 3, July-September 2007, Pages 171-179). (Quérard, II, 72.)