Abati's work on the amazing nature of the viper and its miraculous powers.

For centuries since Herodotus, writings on those "footless lizards" touched on serpents, their types, appearance, habitat, anatomy external and internal, physiology, reproduction and venomy. However, the status of information remained much the same from Aristotle (B.C. IV) to Coiter (A.D. XVI). In 1589 a new era began with the publication of a book by Baldo Angelo Abati. Its factual illustrations, the first to depict the viper's internal anatomy, were soon republished, in part confirmed and in part contradicted, generally agreed upon by late 1600.