Details
FUCHS, Leonhart (1501-1566). [De historia stirpium commentarii insignes. Basel: ex officina Isingrin, 1542].
2° (373 x 238mm). Hand-coloured woodcut printer's device on verso of final leaf, 512 HAND-COLOURED WOODCUT ILLUSTRATIONS (509 full-page) by Veit Rudolph Speckle after Heinrich Füllmaurer and Albert Meyer, woodcut historiated initials. (Title, portrait from verso of title and leaf of portraits of the artists [fff5r] supplied on 3 leaves of photographic facsimile, neat repairs to some outer margins, large repaired tear to m4.) Modern alum-tawed pigskin over bevelled wooden boards with large sections of contemporary stamped pigskin binding onlaid, including on the upper cover lettering "[HER]BARIUM FUCHSIO MD. XLVIIII".
FIRST EDITION of "PERHAPS THE MOST CELEBRATED AND MOST BEAUTIFUL HERBAL EVER PUBLISHED" (PMM), this copy with finely coloured plates. "This book is important in the history of botanical illustration particularly because of the beauty and size of the woodcuts; full recognition was given to the three men who created them, Füllmaurer, Meyer, and Speckle, their portraits appearing at the end of the book. Fuchs, following Brunfels, was the third of the German Fathers of Botany [Otto Brunfels and Hieronymous Bock being the others]. He gave us forty plants never before figured, and initiated the history of some American plants, among which was maize, though Fuchs thought that it came from Turkey... He was also the first of the modern era to attempt to give a botanical glossary of terms, presenting it in an alphabetical order." (Hunt). Adams F-1099; Fairfax Murray German 175; Grolier/Norman, 100 Books Famous in Medicine, 17; Graesse II, 642; Hunt 48; Nissen BBI 658; PMM 69; Pritzel 3138.
2° (373 x 238mm). Hand-coloured woodcut printer's device on verso of final leaf, 512 HAND-COLOURED WOODCUT ILLUSTRATIONS (509 full-page) by Veit Rudolph Speckle after Heinrich Füllmaurer and Albert Meyer, woodcut historiated initials. (Title, portrait from verso of title and leaf of portraits of the artists [fff5r] supplied on 3 leaves of photographic facsimile, neat repairs to some outer margins, large repaired tear to m4.) Modern alum-tawed pigskin over bevelled wooden boards with large sections of contemporary stamped pigskin binding onlaid, including on the upper cover lettering "[HER]BARIUM FUCHSIO MD. XLVIIII".
FIRST EDITION of "PERHAPS THE MOST CELEBRATED AND MOST BEAUTIFUL HERBAL EVER PUBLISHED" (PMM), this copy with finely coloured plates. "This book is important in the history of botanical illustration particularly because of the beauty and size of the woodcuts; full recognition was given to the three men who created them, Füllmaurer, Meyer, and Speckle, their portraits appearing at the end of the book. Fuchs, following Brunfels, was the third of the German Fathers of Botany [Otto Brunfels and Hieronymous Bock being the others]. He gave us forty plants never before figured, and initiated the history of some American plants, among which was maize, though Fuchs thought that it came from Turkey... He was also the first of the modern era to attempt to give a botanical glossary of terms, presenting it in an alphabetical order." (Hunt). Adams F-1099; Fairfax Murray German 175; Grolier/Norman, 100 Books Famous in Medicine, 17; Graesse II, 642; Hunt 48; Nissen BBI 658; PMM 69; Pritzel 3138.