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Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris. Or, A Garden of all sorts of pleasant flowers. London: Humfrey Lownes and Robert Young, 1629.
Details
PARKINSON, John (1567-1650)
Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris. Or, A Garden of all sorts of pleasant flowers. London: Humfrey Lownes and Robert Young, 1629.
A fresh first edition in a contemporary binding of ‘one of the most beloved of all early English books on gardening’ (Hunt). Written by the royal apothecary and botanist to James I and Charles I, it catalogues plants not primarily by medical use, as in traditional herbals, but by their place in pleasure gardens, kitchen gardens, and orchards. This shift marked a decisive move toward horticulture as an aesthetic and practical art in its own right, helping to define gardening as a learned pursuit for elites rather than merely a branch of medicine. It is the 'earliest important treatise on gardening to be published in [England]... of interest and value as a record of the state of horticulture in England at the beginning of the seventeenth century' (Henrey). Henrey I, p. 164 and 282; ESTC S115360.
Folio (327 x 210mm). Decorative woodcut title by A. Switzer, woodcut portrait of Parkinson, one full-page garden design, one small orchard plan, one small woodcut of tools and methods of grafting, and 109 full-page cuts illustrating about 780 varieties of plants (closed tear just into text in margin of Q6 and into illustration in 2H1, faint dampstain to corner in final quires). Contemporary blind-ruled speckled calf, single gilt rule to edges, spine gilt with later lettering piece (rebacked preserving spine panel, recornered). Provenance: Mary Wyseman (ownership inscriptions on front endleaf and 2C5r).
Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris. Or, A Garden of all sorts of pleasant flowers. London: Humfrey Lownes and Robert Young, 1629.
A fresh first edition in a contemporary binding of ‘one of the most beloved of all early English books on gardening’ (Hunt). Written by the royal apothecary and botanist to James I and Charles I, it catalogues plants not primarily by medical use, as in traditional herbals, but by their place in pleasure gardens, kitchen gardens, and orchards. This shift marked a decisive move toward horticulture as an aesthetic and practical art in its own right, helping to define gardening as a learned pursuit for elites rather than merely a branch of medicine. It is the 'earliest important treatise on gardening to be published in [England]... of interest and value as a record of the state of horticulture in England at the beginning of the seventeenth century' (Henrey). Henrey I, p. 164 and 282; ESTC S115360.
Folio (327 x 210mm). Decorative woodcut title by A. Switzer, woodcut portrait of Parkinson, one full-page garden design, one small orchard plan, one small woodcut of tools and methods of grafting, and 109 full-page cuts illustrating about 780 varieties of plants (closed tear just into text in margin of Q6 and into illustration in 2H1, faint dampstain to corner in final quires). Contemporary blind-ruled speckled calf, single gilt rule to edges, spine gilt with later lettering piece (rebacked preserving spine panel, recornered). Provenance: Mary Wyseman (ownership inscriptions on front endleaf and 2C5r).
Brought to you by
Eugenio Donadoni
Senior Specialist, Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts