This work on cosmetics contains Tagliacozzi’s first publication on rhinoplasty – De reficiendo naso – a letter written to Mercuriale in response to inaccurate statements about Tagliacozzi's methods made by Mercuriale in De decoratione (1585).

Tagliacozzi of Bologna became famous for his work on rhinoplasty, but Paré and Fallopius both abused him and his work, and the Church (which regarded such operations as meddling with the work of God) exhumed his body and reburied it in unconsecrated ground. English translation of Book II in Read, Chirurgorum comes: or the whole practice of chirurgery, London, 1687. The definitive biography of Tagliacozzi by Martha T. Gnudi, and J. P. Webster, New York, 1950 reprints this translation and reproduces the woodcuts from Tagliacozzi’s book. It also contains a history of plastic surgery after Tagliacozzi. A pirated edition with different versions of the woodcuts was published by R. Meietti, Venice, 1597. This was reprinted, Mexico, 1974. A third edition was published in 8vo format in Frankfurt, 1598. However, after this initial flury of interest sparked by the three 16th century editions, Tagliacozzi’s work fell into relative obscurity, remaining mostly forgotten until the revival of plastic surgery by Carpue, von Graefe, Dieffenbach, and others in the early 19th century.