Description
FUCHS (Ernst). De Historia Stirpium commentarii insignes, maximis impensis et vigiliis elaborati [...] Basilae, In Officina Isingriniana, 1542. In-folio of [14] ff. (sign. ?6 & ß8), and 896-[4] pp. (=450 ff. sign. A-Z6, a-z6, aa-zz6, aaa-fff6). Rebound copy in its contemporary ivory vellum binding with handwritten title on the spine in brown ink (endpapers renewed). Old stoppage staining in lower margin, restored on first few pages. Short margins, especially in the lower margin, cutting off some of the wood (size of the pages 340 x 235 mm). Small wormholes on the last 10 pages. Apart from these few defects, a very good copy. ORIGINAL EDITION of this obviously reference work, a true monument of the history of botanical illustration, decorated with 510 full-page woodcut figures giving 512 plants, by three artists: Albrecht MEYER who drew the plants from life, Heinrich FÜLLMAURER who transferred the drawings to wood, and Viet Rudolf SPECKLE who engraved the plates. With a full-page engraved portrait of the author on the verso of the title and the portraits of the three artists engraved on the recto of the penultimate leaf. The figures, remarkable for their finesse and accuracy, make this one of the most beautiful illustrated books of the Renaissance. This famous herbarium, which took Leonard Fuchs (1501-1566) no less than ten years to complete, was a revolution in botany comparable to that of Copernicus for astronomy or Vesalius for anatomy. He describes here more than 400 European plants and 100 foreign plants, including the fuchsia, which owes its name to the author, and the pumpkin, which is native to America and represented here for the first time. A very good, complete and well preserved copy (despite the few flaws mentioned above) of this extremely rare first edition with its first edition illustrations. (Pritzel, 3138; Nissen, 658).
113
FUCHS (Ernst). De Historia Stirpium commentarii insignes, maximis impensis et vigiliis elaborati [...] Basilae, In Officina Isingriniana, 1542. In-folio of [14] ff. (sign. ?6 & ß8), and 896-[4] pp. (=450 ff. sign. A-Z6, a-z6, aa-zz6, aaa-fff6). Rebound copy in its contemporary ivory vellum binding with handwritten title on the spine in brown ink (endpapers renewed). Old stoppage staining in lower margin, restored on first few pages. Short margins, especially in the lower margin, cutting off some of the wood (size of the pages 340 x 235 mm). Small wormholes on the last 10 pages. Apart from these few defects, a very good copy. ORIGINAL EDITION of this obviously reference work, a true monument of the history of botanical illustration, decorated with 510 full-page woodcut figures giving 512 plants, by three artists: Albrecht MEYER who drew the plants from life, Heinrich FÜLLMAURER who transferred the drawings to wood, and Viet Rudolf SPECKLE who engraved the plates. With a full-page engraved portrait of the author on the verso of the title and the portraits of the three artists engraved on the recto of the penultimate leaf. The figures, remarkable for their finesse and accuracy, make this one of the most beautiful illustrated books of the Renaissance. This famous herbarium, which took Leonard Fuchs (1501-1566) no less than ten years to complete, was a revolution in botany comparable to that of Copernicus for astronomy or Vesalius for anatomy. He describes here more than 400 European plants and 100 foreign plants, including the fuchsia, which owes its name to the author, and the pumpkin, which is native to America and represented here for the first time. A very good, complete and well preserved copy (despite the few flaws mentioned above) of this extremely rare first edition with its first edition illustrations. (Pritzel, 3138; Nissen, 658).
