PBA Galleries

[xxiv (of 28)], 33,35-60, 'c', 61-896, [4] pp. Full-page woodcut portrait of Fuchs on verso of title, portraits of the artists H. Fullmaurer, A. Meyer and V.R. Speckle on recto of penultimate leaf, 509 full-page woodcuts of plants, 3 smaller woodcuts in the text; printer's mark on verso of final leaf. An un-colored copy. (Folio) 38x24.5 cm (15x9¾") period blindstamped pigskin over wood boards, old vellum rebacking, brass clasps. First Edition.

First edition of "perhaps the most celebrated and most beautiful herbal ever published." (Printing and the Mind of Man). "Prior to the sixteenth century, very little had been done in the field of medical botany and, although numerous herbals in both manuscript and printed form had been produced, they were poor in text and illustration, primarily derived from classical sources. But in the sixteenth century the same spirit which inspired Vesalius and others in the field of anatomy served also as the inspiration for the study of flora from actual specimens, culminating in what is certainly the most celebrated and probably the most beautiful herbal ever published, that of Leonhart Fuchs. He described 400 German plants as well as 100 foreign ones." (Heirs of Hippocrates). Some 40 species are illustrated here for the first time, including several American plants, and in particular maize and the pumpkin. It is also likely that this is the first time that a book's illustrators are depicted as well as named. Hunt 48; PMM 69; Grolier 33b; Blunt 48-54-59; Nissen 658.; Heirs of Hippocrates 243.