Lot 43: COLONNA, Fabio (1567-1650?). \KFYTOBASANO\kC sive plantarum aliquot historia... accessit etiam piscium aliquot, Plantarúmque novarum Historia . Naples: Giovanni Giacomo Carlino & Antonio Pace, 1592.

COLONNA, Fabio (1567-1650?). \KFYTOBASANO\kC sive plantarum aliquot historia... accessit etiam piscium aliquot, Plantarúmque novarum Historia. Naples: Giovanni Giacomo Carlino & Antonio Pace, 1592.

2 parts in one volume, 4o (198 x 140 mm). Small woodcut pilgrim device of the printer Orazio Salviani on title-page, initials, head- and tail-pieces, 37 full-page etchings (26 botanical in part one, 11 botanical and some aquatic in part 2) set within type ornament borders. (Skilful paper restoration to worm holes throughout sometimes affecting the text and occasionally affecting images, title-page lightly soiled, some mostly marginal dampstaining.) 19th-century roan backed marbled boards.

ONE OF THE EARLIEST BOOKS WITH INTAGLIO ILLUSTRATIONS OF PLANTS

FIRST EDITION. Colonna, a member of the Italian nobility and a lawyer by training, suffered from epilepsy, and was led to the study of botany after discovering in Dioscorides the sedative properties of valerian, which reputedly cured him. In his \KFytobasanos\k or "Plant Touchstone", Colonna set out to improve the descriptions of plants given by Dioscorides and other classical authorities. He is believed to have executed the etchings himself after drawings from actual specimens (the original drawings are preserved in the Biblioteca Nazionale, Naples). Colonna approached the Dioscoridean descriptions with a critical eye, and was in advance of his time in showing details of plant parts decades before their taxonomic importance was recognized. Adams C-2394; Blunt and Stearn, pp. 99-101; Harvard/Mortimer Italian 130; Hunt 165; Nissen BBI 386; Pritzel 1822; Wellcome I. 1540.