Lot 55: HERNANDEZ, Francisco (1514-1587). Rerum Medicarum Novase

HERNANDEZ, Francisco (1514-1587). Rerum Medicarum Novase Hispaniae Thesaurus; Historiae Animalium et Mineralium Novae Hispaniae Liber Unicus. Ed. by Nardo Antinio de Recchi, with notes by Giovanni Terrentio, Johannes Faber, Fabio Colonna and Federico Cesi. Rome: V. Mascardi, 1651. 2 o (346 x 238 mm). Engraved title with small map of Mexico, approximately 800 woodcut illustrations in text, engraved music at p.717, and TWO UNRECORDED ENGRAVED PLATES. (Lacking the letterpress title as often, lacking a-b 2 at front and D 2 index and errata leaves, but with additional leaves as detailed below, some very intermittent pale spotting and light marginal spotting, marginal repaired tear crissing text on Qq2.) ORIGINAL ITALIAN LIMP-PAPER BOARDS, UNCUT (tear along spine). Provenance : sold Sotheby's, 24 November 1969, lot 23. FIRST EDITION, third issue. "All was ready for publication in 1628 when Prince Federico [Cesi, the author's nephew] himself died, leaving the project without funds, and it is thought that only a few copies of the 'edition' ever reached the world at large The only copy of the 1628 'edition' that we have been able to find in America is in the National Library of Medicine. Dr. Dorothy Schullian's description confirms our belief that the 1649 (1651) edition is made up of the earlier sheets, with only the addition of gathering + 4 which contains the new title page and other new material noted above in our collation. The 1649 title page is copied from that having the 1628 date" (Hunt). While often described as the first published edition, this is the first edition, bearing the third issue 1651 title-page and inserted gatherings. In the present copy, the dedication to Barberinus dated 1625 is cancelled and a preface addressed "Amice Lector" is substituted. It also contains Colonna's dedication to Barberinus, but not the cancel-dedication to F. Cesi. Stellutus's dedication appears in original as well as cancelled state, i.e. to Barberinus and Roderico de Mendoza respectively (both leaves signed Gggg2). The index by Stellutus that is part of the preliminaries is here bound at the end of the first part. Also present are two engraved plates, facing pages 213 and 301 in part I, which are clearly integral to the book and are apparently unrecorded. They are not included in the collations of the B.M. catalogue, Nissen, Pritzel, Hunt, John Carter Brown or Sabin. No copies containing these plates have been recorded at auction. BMC 17th-century Italian, p.433; Hunt 247; Nissen BBI 861 and ZBI 1908a; Palau 113538; Pritzel 4000; Sabin 31516. A VERY FINE COPY IN ORIGINAL BOARDS.

PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF ANITA PEEK GILGER, M.D.