Details
[Herbarius Latinus]. Tractatus de Virtutibus herbarum. (Venice: Alessandro Bindoni, 4 April 1520).
4to, 210 x 150 mm., 16th-century stiff vellum, soiled and worn, marginal repairs to title and x8 blank, hole to r7 catching edge of woodcut on recto and a word on verso, small stains to f7r, some soiling and minor staining.
Bindoni's woodcut Justice device on title, 150 numbered half-page woodcuts of plants (a few misnumbered), 7-line criblé initial, 4-line woodcut initials.
Sixth Italian and fifth Venetian edition, a page-for-page reprint of the previous Venice editions, illustrated with the same woodcuts, all but two from the Vicenza, 1491 edition. This was the last edition of the traditional Herbarius in Latin. The popularity of this, the most medieval of the fifteenth-century herbals in concept, classification scheme and illustrations, was perpetuated longest in Italy, and it is significant of the changes in readership that all later editions were printed in the vernacular. Seven or eight editions in Italian were printed from 1522 to 1565 (Nissen lists 7 but omits a 1526 edition cited by Essling), the first, a quarto edition printed by Bindoni, illustrated with the woodcuts from the Venetian Latin editions, the later editions including some blocks copied from the Hortus sanitatis. The Italian market for the Herbarius thus long outlasted its popularity in northern Europe, where by the second decade of the sixteenth century it had already been eclipsed by Schoeffer's second and more elaborate herbal, the Gart der Gesundheit.
Essling 1193; Harvard/Mortimer Italian 228; Hunt I, 19; Klebs/Becher 14; Nissen BBI 2311; NLM/Durling 2269 (imperfect); Sander 615.
Provenance: "Alexandri di Dainesiis", 17th-century inscripiton on title; some 17th or 18th-century marginalia -- Kenneth K. Mackenzie; Horticultural Society of New York, bookplate.
4to, 210 x 150 mm., 16th-century stiff vellum, soiled and worn, marginal repairs to title and x8 blank, hole to r7 catching edge of woodcut on recto and a word on verso, small stains to f7r, some soiling and minor staining.
Bindoni's woodcut Justice device on title, 150 numbered half-page woodcuts of plants (a few misnumbered), 7-line criblé initial, 4-line woodcut initials.
Sixth Italian and fifth Venetian edition, a page-for-page reprint of the previous Venice editions, illustrated with the same woodcuts, all but two from the Vicenza, 1491 edition. This was the last edition of the traditional Herbarius in Latin. The popularity of this, the most medieval of the fifteenth-century herbals in concept, classification scheme and illustrations, was perpetuated longest in Italy, and it is significant of the changes in readership that all later editions were printed in the vernacular. Seven or eight editions in Italian were printed from 1522 to 1565 (Nissen lists 7 but omits a 1526 edition cited by Essling), the first, a quarto edition printed by Bindoni, illustrated with the woodcuts from the Venetian Latin editions, the later editions including some blocks copied from the Hortus sanitatis. The Italian market for the Herbarius thus long outlasted its popularity in northern Europe, where by the second decade of the sixteenth century it had already been eclipsed by Schoeffer's second and more elaborate herbal, the Gart der Gesundheit.
Essling 1193; Harvard/Mortimer Italian 228; Hunt I, 19; Klebs/Becher 14; Nissen BBI 2311; NLM/Durling 2269 (imperfect); Sander 615.
Provenance: "Alexandri di Dainesiis", 17th-century inscripiton on title; some 17th or 18th-century marginalia -- Kenneth K. Mackenzie; Horticultural Society of New York, bookplate.