Details
LEONICENO, Niccolò (1428-1524). De serpentibus opus singulare ac exactissimum. Bologna: Giovanni Antonio de' Benedetti the younger, 25 November 1518.
4° (198 x 147mm). Roman and greek types. Woodcut printer's device on colophon. (Scattered light spotting, unobtrusive wormholes in A1-2.) Old vellum over pasteboard (a little darkened and marked, neatly rebacked, neat repairs on covers). Provenance: occasional marginalia and longer note on margin of M2v in an early hand.
FIRST COLLECTED EDITION of Leoniceno's treatises on snakes and allied species. The son of a physician, Leoniceno studied classics at Vincenza, and philosophy and medicine at Padua, before becoming a teacher at the university of Ferrara, initially of mathematics and philosophy, and then of medicine. Through his translations of classical medical texts, and through his own work, particularly his Libellus de epidemia (Venice, 1497), the first scholarly treatise on syphilis, he established Ferrara as the leading centre of the revival of Galenic medicine. De serpentibus contains two works on reptiles, his De dipsade et pluribus aliis serpentibus and De tiro seu vipera (first published in Venice, c. 1497-8). The two texts, discussing snakes, other reptiles such as crocodiles, and antidotes to their venoms, were printed by Giovanni Antonio de' Benedetti the younger, the son of the Bolognese printer Girolamo Benedetti, whose device appears in this work (EDIT16 lists only three titles printed by Giovanni Antonio). RARE ON THE MARKET. Adams L-501; Brunet III, 986 ('volume peu commun'); Wellcome I, 3740.
4° (198 x 147mm). Roman and greek types. Woodcut printer's device on colophon. (Scattered light spotting, unobtrusive wormholes in A1-2.) Old vellum over pasteboard (a little darkened and marked, neatly rebacked, neat repairs on covers). Provenance: occasional marginalia and longer note on margin of M2v in an early hand.
FIRST COLLECTED EDITION of Leoniceno's treatises on snakes and allied species. The son of a physician, Leoniceno studied classics at Vincenza, and philosophy and medicine at Padua, before becoming a teacher at the university of Ferrara, initially of mathematics and philosophy, and then of medicine. Through his translations of classical medical texts, and through his own work, particularly his Libellus de epidemia (Venice, 1497), the first scholarly treatise on syphilis, he established Ferrara as the leading centre of the revival of Galenic medicine. De serpentibus contains two works on reptiles, his De dipsade et pluribus aliis serpentibus and De tiro seu vipera (first published in Venice, c. 1497-8). The two texts, discussing snakes, other reptiles such as crocodiles, and antidotes to their venoms, were printed by Giovanni Antonio de' Benedetti the younger, the son of the Bolognese printer Girolamo Benedetti, whose device appears in this work (EDIT16 lists only three titles printed by Giovanni Antonio). RARE ON THE MARKET. Adams L-501; Brunet III, 986 ('volume peu commun'); Wellcome I, 3740.
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