![BELON, Pierre. L'histoire de la nature des oyseaux, avec leurs descriptions, & naifs portraicts retirez du naturel. Paris: [Benoist Prevost for] Gilles Corozet, 1555. 7 parts in one volume, 2° (325 x 225 mm). Woodcut printer's device on title and sectional titles, woodcut portrait of Belon on title verso, two woodcuts of human and bird skeletons and 158 large woodcuts of birds in text by Pierre Gourdelle and others, numerous 11-line and smaller ornamental woodcut initials and head-pieces. (Some light waterstaining, occasional spotting.) 19th-century calf backed boards, gilt spine, marbled edges (some rubbing to extremities). Provenance: unidentified armorial (on title) – Collegio Divio-Godrani (armorial bookplate on verso of title).](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2014/CSK/2014_CSK_10766_0242_000(belon_pierre_lhistoire_de_la_nature_des_oyseaux_avec_leurs_description123656).jpg?w=1)
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BELON, Pierre. L'histoire de la nature des oyseaux, avec leurs descriptions, & naifs portraicts retirez du naturel. Paris: [Benoist Prevost for] Gilles Corozet, 1555. 7 parts in one volume, 2° (325 x 225 mm). Woodcut printer's device on title and sectional titles, woodcut portrait of Belon on title verso, two woodcuts of human and bird skeletons and 158 large woodcuts of birds in text by Pierre Gourdelle and others, numerous 11-line and smaller ornamental woodcut initials and head-pieces. (Some light waterstaining, occasional spotting.) 19th-century calf backed boards, gilt spine, marbled edges (some rubbing to extremities). Provenance: unidentified armorial (on title) – Collegio Divio-Godrani (armorial bookplate on verso of title).
FIRST EDITION, Corrozet issue. One of the first ornithological texts based on direct observation and illustrated from original drawings. ‘Belon described approximately 230 species (including the bat), most of them European, but including some foreign species observed from his sojourns in Asia Minor and Egypt’ (Norman). Though much of this work is based on Aristotle and Pliny, Belon provided many novel observations as to the appearance, habits and distribution of birds. In addition, he made an important and original contribution to comparative anatomy by comparing in detail the skeletons of birds and man and showing them to be fundamentally identical in structure. Anker pp. 9-10; BM/STC French p. 46; Garrison-Morton 283 (Cavellat issue); Mortimer Harvard French 50; Nissen IVB 86; Norman 180; Schwerdt I, p. 59: ‘the second book is interesting to falconers… the illustrations include a woodcut of a falconer luring a bird, representations of owls, including the eagle owl, much used in hawking… [others] are devoted to the bat, which was accounted a bird a that date’; Souhart 45.
FIRST EDITION, Corrozet issue. One of the first ornithological texts based on direct observation and illustrated from original drawings. ‘Belon described approximately 230 species (including the bat), most of them European, but including some foreign species observed from his sojourns in Asia Minor and Egypt’ (Norman). Though much of this work is based on Aristotle and Pliny, Belon provided many novel observations as to the appearance, habits and distribution of birds. In addition, he made an important and original contribution to comparative anatomy by comparing in detail the skeletons of birds and man and showing them to be fundamentally identical in structure. Anker pp. 9-10; BM/STC French p. 46; Garrison-Morton 283 (Cavellat issue); Mortimer Harvard French 50; Nissen IVB 86; Norman 180; Schwerdt I, p. 59: ‘the second book is interesting to falconers… the illustrations include a woodcut of a falconer luring a bird, representations of owls, including the eagle owl, much used in hawking… [others] are devoted to the bat, which was accounted a bird a that date’; Souhart 45.
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