Bonhams 1793 : FUCHS (LEONHARD) De historia stirpium commentarii insignes, 1542

De historia stirpium commentarii insignes, first edition, woodcut device on title and at end, woodcut portrait of Fuchs on verso of title, portraits of the artists Heinrich Füllmaurer, Albrecht Meyer, and Veit Rudolph Speckle on recto of leaf 3f5, over 500 full-page woodcut illustrations of plant in the text, title-page on a guard and with foremargin extended, lacks 8 leaves after title, and final leaf with device, short Latin inscription in margin of leaf after title, eighteenth century carta rustica binding, title lettered on spine, GOOD MARGINS [Nissen BBI 658; Hunt 48; PMM 69; Pritzel 3138; Stafleu TL2 1909], folio (280 x 245mm.), Basel, Michael Insingrin, 1542

Sold for £5,625 inc. premium

Footnotes

A TALL AND VERY CLEAN COPY OF "Perhaps the most celebrated and most beautiful herbal ever published" (PMM).

Leonhard Fuchs (1501-1566), professor of medicine at Tübingen, is considered is one of the three German fathers of modern botany, alongside Otto Brunfels and Hieronymous Bock. Fuchs gives accurate descriptions of nearly 500 plants, of which forty had never before been depicted. Approximately 400 were native German plants, the others foreign, initiating the history of some American plants including maize (mistakenly thought by Fuchs to have come from Turkey).

The Historia "is important in the history of botanical illustration particularly because of the size and beauty of the woodcuts" which were realised by Heinrich Füllmauer, Veit Rudolph, and Albert Meyer, who drew the original images from life, mostly using samples from Fuchs' garden. Their portraits, with that of the author, appear in the book, being "one of the earliest examples of such a tribute paid to artists in a printed book" (PMM).

Category: Books / Books, Maps and Manuscripts

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