Everything From the Egg

De generatione animalium (1651)
- detail -
From William Harvey, by Richard Gaywwod

Writen on the frontispiece of "De generatione animalium" (1651) :

Exercitationes de generatione animalium. Quibus accedunt quaedam de partu : de membranis ac humoribus uteri & et conceptione

London : William Dugard, for Octavian Pulleyn

The Aristotelian William Harvey is most famous for discovering the circulation of blood, but his work on reproduction was important too. He opposed earlier theorists who believed human life began with a seed produced by the male. Harvey theorized that all life came from eggs : not only for birds, but also for mammals. Because the microscope had not yet been invented, he had no way to prove his theory, but he became famous for the dictum "Ex ovo omnia" ("all from the egg").
The engraved frontispiece of his treatise "On the generation of living creatures" - detail above - shows Zeus (Jupiter) opening an egg and releasing all forms of life into the world (humans, other animals and plants) and so drew on earlier representations of Pandora’s mythical box.