1582 PLINY NATURAL HISTORY Woodcuts SCIENCE GEOGRAPHY MEDICINE BIOLOGY Magic Art

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1582 PLINY NATURAL HISTORY Woodcuts SCIENCE GEOGRAPHY MEDICINE BIOLOGY Magic Art:
$1879.00

[Early Printing - Germany - Frankfurt] [Latin classics] [Encyclopedias] [History of Science - Ancient Rome] [Pre-Linnaean Natural History, Zoology and Botany]
[Geography and Ethnography] [Astronomy] [Medicine and Pharmacology] [Agriculture, Gardening and viticulture] [Geology and Mineralogy] [History of Art]
[Early Book Illustrations - Woodcuts - Hans Burgkmair, Hans Weidit, Jost Amman, Virgil Solis]

Printed in Frankfurt, by Martin Lechler for Sigmund Feyerabend, 1582.
Two parts in one volume. Text in Latin.

A desirable, attractively illustrated edition in large folio format of Pliny\'s classic encyclopedia of ancient scientific knowledge, adorned with about fifty fine woodcuts by several renowned German and Swiss Renaissance artists such as Hans Burgkmair (1473 - 1531), Hans Weiditz (1495 - ca.1531), Jost Amman (1539 - 1591) and Virgil Solis (1514 - 1562). The woodcut on p.69 is signed by Hans Weiditz with his initials HW, and the one on p.103 signed by Jost Amman with his initials JA (on the headboard of the sickbed).

The fascinating woodcuts depict various animals and trees, elaborate naval scenes with various kinds of ships, several scenes of medical practice, horology, musical performance, the cosmos, the winds, hunting and fishing scenes, exotic national costumes etc. On p.85 there is a striking illustration of grotesque human monsters, and on p.55 - a half-page map showing the Mediterranean, Asia Minor and North Africa.

According to Dibdin, \"The bookseller and publisher, Sigismund Feyerabendt, was one of the most eminent, and I may add extraordinary, men of his age. He was an artist, and a Patron of art: and some of the wood cuts in this edition are as bold and spirited as they are singular. They are the performances of various masters; and some of them are repeated. Those at pages 22, 26, 85, and 165 are of peculiar merit...\" (Th. Dibdin, An Introduction to the Knowledge of Rare and Valuable Editions of the Greek and Latin Classics, II, p.323)

This \"handsome and valuable edition\" (Holmes) was edited by Sigismund Gelenius (1497 - 1554), a prominent Czech humanist and Greek scholar, with his extensive notes (Castigationes). Born Zikmund Hruby z Jeleni into a family of Bohemian nobles in Prague, Gelenius was well acquainted with Erasmus who held him in high regard. \"At one time [Gelenius] studied Greek under Marcus Musurus and visited Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and France before returning to Prague, where he lectured privately on Greek authors and entered into correspondence with Melanchthon. [...] Probably in 1524 he moved to Basel, where he lived in Erasmus\' household. He spent the remainder of his life working for the Froben press as a scholar, editor, corrector, and translator from the Greek, even declining a position as professor of Greek at Nuremberg for which he was recommended by Melanchthon in 1525 and 1526. [...] In his day there cannot have been many major productions of the Froben press which did not benefit from his selfless scholarly devotion. [...] There is also evidence that he collaborated on a number of editions by Erasmus such as Pliny\'s Historia Naturalis (1525).\" (Contemporaries of Erasmus, II, pp. 84-85).

The massive reference apparatus, Index copiosissimus, printed as a separate volume with its own title-page and signatures, is bound after the Pliny\'s text and Gellenius\' Castigationes.

Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23 - AD 79), better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian. Even up to his death Pliny followed his natural curiosity, preferring to stay and observe the eruption of Vesuvius rather than flee its flames and sulphurous vapors. His monumental encyclopedia, Naturalis Historia (\"Natural History\"), was published circa AD 77–79. It is one of the largest single works to have survived from the Roman Empire to the modern day and purports to cover the entire body of ancient knowledge.

Pliny\'s vast compilation, \"a strange combination of insight, erudition, and folktales\" (Stillwell, Science, p.684) is the only extant work out of over 100 works said to have been composed by him, comprised 37 books covering cosmology, geography, anthropology, medicine, zoology, philosophy, history, agriculture, mineralogy and the arts. By his own account Pliny\'s sources numbered over 2,000, all of whom he scrupulously cited, from which he derived some 20,000 facts. At his death the work was still unfinished. With its extensive tables and indexes, the Historia naturalis fulfilled its author\'s ambition to create a universal reference book, and continued to be the object of study (and excessive reverence) well into the Renaissance. Books 12-27 relate to botany medicine and pharmacology, and include large portions of the writings of two of the ancient herbalists, Diocles and Crataeus, which would otherwise not have survived.

The first edition of Pliny\'s Naturalis historia appeared in print in Venice in 1469.

\"The \'Natural History\' of Pliny is more than a natural history: it is an encyclopedia of all the knowledge of the ancient world [...] The Historia soon became a standard book of reference: abstracts and abridgments appeared by the third century. Bede owned a copy, Alcuin sent the early books to Charlemagne, and Dicuil, the Irish geographer, quotes him in the ninth century. It was the basis of Isidore\'s Etymologiae and such medieval encyclopedias as the Speculum Majus of Vincent of Beauvais and the Catholicon of Balbus. \" (Printing and the Mind of Man)

Pliny\'s Natural History is \"full of erudition as varied as nature itself. It treats of the stars, the heavens, wind, rain, hail minerals, trees, flowers, and plants, besides an account of all living animals, birds, fishes and beasts; a geographical description of every place on the globe, and a history of every art and science, of commerce and navigation, with their rise, progress, and improvements. He is happy in his descriptions as a naturalist; he writes with force and energy, and though many of his ideas and conjectures are sometimes well-founded, yet he possesses that fecundity of imagination, and vivacity of expression, which are requisite [...] to render a history of nature pleasing, interesting, and, above all, instructive.\" (Lempriere, A Classical Dictionary, p.76).

While it certainly emphasizes subjects pertaining to the physical world, the Naturalis Historia also includes discussions of literature and arts. Its description of techniques such as chasing in silver and description of sculpture and painting make it an important source for the history of ancient art. The sections on the history of painting and sculpture provide the earliest known art history, and the rich illustrations of Roman life reveal Pliny to have been a vigorous critic of contemporary society as well as an enthusiastic admirer of nature.

The contents of the 37 books of Pliny\'s Natural History can be summarized as follows:

I: Preface and tables of contents, lists of authorities,
II: mathematical and physical description of the world;
III-VI: geography and ethnography;
VII: anthropology and human physiology;
VIII-XI: zoology;
XII-XXVII: botany, including agriculture and horticulture (including much material on wine and viticulture);
XXVIII-XXXII: medicine and pharmacology (including several chapters on occult arts and various types of magic in Book XXX);
XXXIII-XXXVII: mineralogy, especially in its application to life and art, including chasing in silver, statuary in bronze, painting, modelling, and sculpture in marble.

Bibliographic references:

Adams P 1579; Graesse V, p.340; Wellcome I, 5122; Nilsen BBI/ZBI, 3191; Dibdin, Greek & Latin Classics, II, p.323; New Hollstein, Amman book illustr. 193.

Physical description:

Tall Folio, leaves measure 35 cm x 22 cm. Bound in 18th-century mottled calf; spine richly gilt-tooled and with six raised bands (label missing).

Two parts in one volume.

Pagination: [32], 100 103-528, [52], [184] pp.
Signatures: )(4 [- )(4 blank] *6 **4 ***4 [- ***4 blank] A-B6 C-Z4 [-M3] a-z4 Aa-Zz4 Aaa4 Bbb6; 2A-Z4.
Lacking one text leaf M3 (pp.101-2), and the two blanks )(4 and ***4, otherwise complete.

Main title-page printed in red and black; woodcut printer\'s device on main title-page, and on the title-page (2A1r) to the Index part. Woodcut incorporating several coats of arms on the dedication page )(2r, and around 50 fine woodcuts of various sizes in text. Woodcut tail-pieces and initials in text.

Main text printed in Roman letter; marginal notes, some preliminaries and the entire index are printed in Italic type. Main text printed in single column; Gelenius\' Castigationes in double columns; the index part in triple columns.

Includes dedicatory preface by Feyerabend on leaves )(2r - )(3v dated September 1582.
Gelenius\' Castigationes occupy leaves Vv1r-Bbb6r, following Pliny\'s text. Errata on Bbb6r (verso blank).

Extensive Index bound at the end printed as an independent part with its own title page (2A-Z4). Colophon on recto of the final leaf 2Z4r (verso blank).

Provenance:

A long 18th-century gift inscription in Latin on front pastedown indicating that the book was presented as a graduation prize to Johannes Broers of Mechelen (near Antwerp, Flanders), dated 27 Aug. 1765.

A small sticker of Oeuvre Nationale des Aveugles, Brussels (Belgium) at bottom corner of rear pastedown.

Condition:

Good antiquarian condition. Binding rubbed with some scuffing and wear to edges; repairs to joints, corners, head and foot of spine, and a few patches to leather on the covers; spine label missing. Front free endpaper removed and front hinge reinforced at gutter of the title-page. First 2 leaves slightly creased. Occasional light spotting/foxing, and some minor marginal soiling. Several leaves with light and harmless marginal water-staining. Generally brighter and cleaner than a typical copy of this edition. Lacking one leaf of text (M3), otherwise a very clean, solid example of this attractive edition, with ample margins and excellent impression of the fascinating woodcuts.

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