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Details
MERCATI, Michele (1541-1593). Metallotheca. Opus posthumum. Edited by Giovanni Maria Lancisi. Rome: Johannes Maria Salvioni, 1719.
2 parts, 2° (375 x 250mm). Engraved frontispiece, 2 engraved portraits and 5 plates, 2 folding, titles in red and black with engraved vignettes, numerous engraved illustrations in text. (Without half-title, scattered spotting.) Contemporary calf, spine gilt (crack to head of upper joint, extremities rubbed).
FIRST ILLUSTRATED EDITION. Mercati, a physician and superintendent of the Vatican Botanical Garden, formed a collection of minerals under the aegis of Pope Sixtus V, as early as 1574. Although the collection was dispersed on Mercati's death, his catalogue remained to be published almost 150 years later. It represents ‘a landmark treatise in the history of mineralogy and metallurgy describing what was among the first organized mineralogical museums ever established’ (Schuh). The separately paginated appendix was not included in the first edition of 1717. Brunet III, 1644; Caillet 7390; Hoover 581; Ward & Carozzi 1541.
2 parts, 2° (375 x 250mm). Engraved frontispiece, 2 engraved portraits and 5 plates, 2 folding, titles in red and black with engraved vignettes, numerous engraved illustrations in text. (Without half-title, scattered spotting.) Contemporary calf, spine gilt (crack to head of upper joint, extremities rubbed).
FIRST ILLUSTRATED EDITION. Mercati, a physician and superintendent of the Vatican Botanical Garden, formed a collection of minerals under the aegis of Pope Sixtus V, as early as 1574. Although the collection was dispersed on Mercati's death, his catalogue remained to be published almost 150 years later. It represents ‘a landmark treatise in the history of mineralogy and metallurgy describing what was among the first organized mineralogical museums ever established’ (Schuh). The separately paginated appendix was not included in the first edition of 1717. Brunet III, 1644; Caillet 7390; Hoover 581; Ward & Carozzi 1541.
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