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Details
FRANCIS WILLUGHBY (1635-1672)
De Historia Piscium libri quatuor... Totum opus recognovit, coaptavit, supplevit, librum etiam primum & secundum integros adjecit Johannes Raius e Societate Regia. Oxford: Sheldonian Theatre for the Royal Society, 1687. 2 (373 x 240mm). Engraved additional title by Paul van Somer, engraved title vignette, headpieces and 187 engraved plates. (The 73rd plate split along plate-mark, some light browning.) 20th-century old-style morocco, panelled in blind, spine in seven compartments with raised bands, green morocco lettering-piece in the second. Provenance: extensive early ink annotations; George and Laura Gifford (book-label).
First edition of De Historia Piscium, "almost completely the work of Ray, who compiled it using his and Willughby's notes and the published writings of a number of authorities on fish, particularly Rodolet.. and Ippolito Salviani. The work begins with an introductory essay on the definition of a fish: Ray rejected previous definitions that had indiscriminately encompassed all types of water-living animals, but did include cetaceans with fishes despite their obvious affinities with viviparous quadrupeds. This essay is followed by others discussing the anatomy and physiology of fishes: Ray affirmed that fishes could hear, wrote extensively on the air-bladder, gave an account of the reproductive organs and denied that fish could reproduce through spontaneuos generation. He rejected Rondelet's classification by locality in favor of Aristotle's system of Cetacei, Cartilaginei and Spinosi, which he then subdivided. The book was published in an edition of 500 copies by the Royal Society, many of whose members subscribed money for the plates; the greatest benefactor in this regard was the Society's president Samuel Pepys, whose... contribution covered the cost of seventy-five plates." (Norman II, 1793). Keynes Ray 46; Nissen ZBI 4417; Wing W-2879.
De Historia Piscium libri quatuor... Totum opus recognovit, coaptavit, supplevit, librum etiam primum & secundum integros adjecit Johannes Raius e Societate Regia. Oxford: Sheldonian Theatre for the Royal Society, 1687. 2 (373 x 240mm). Engraved additional title by Paul van Somer, engraved title vignette, headpieces and 187 engraved plates. (The 73rd plate split along plate-mark, some light browning.) 20th-century old-style morocco, panelled in blind, spine in seven compartments with raised bands, green morocco lettering-piece in the second. Provenance: extensive early ink annotations; George and Laura Gifford (book-label).
First edition of De Historia Piscium, "almost completely the work of Ray, who compiled it using his and Willughby's notes and the published writings of a number of authorities on fish, particularly Rodolet.. and Ippolito Salviani. The work begins with an introductory essay on the definition of a fish: Ray rejected previous definitions that had indiscriminately encompassed all types of water-living animals, but did include cetaceans with fishes despite their obvious affinities with viviparous quadrupeds. This essay is followed by others discussing the anatomy and physiology of fishes: Ray affirmed that fishes could hear, wrote extensively on the air-bladder, gave an account of the reproductive organs and denied that fish could reproduce through spontaneuos generation. He rejected Rondelet's classification by locality in favor of Aristotle's system of Cetacei, Cartilaginei and Spinosi, which he then subdivided. The book was published in an edition of 500 copies by the Royal Society, many of whose members subscribed money for the plates; the greatest benefactor in this regard was the Society's president Samuel Pepys, whose... contribution covered the cost of seventy-five plates." (Norman II, 1793). Keynes Ray 46; Nissen ZBI 4417; Wing W-2879.