Histoire des plantes, nouuellement trouuées en l'Isle Virgine, & autres lieux, lesquelles ont esté prises & cultiuées au Iardin de Monsieur Robin Arboriste du Roy. Non encore veuës n'y Imprimées par cy deuant. Dedié à Monsieur Morand

Robin[, Jean]

Verlag: Chez Guilllaume [sic] Macé, Paris, 1620

Beschreibung

Sexagesimo (16mo; 4 5/16" x 2 15/16", 109mm x 75mm): 3 binder's blanks, ã8, 3 binder's blanks [$4 signed; -ã1]. 8 leaves, pp. 1-2 (title, to the reader) 3-16. The title-page within a woodcut border decorated with exotic plants, birds, fish and animals. With 14 woodcuts of flowering plants in the text. Later crushed red morocco, with a blind fillet border and the title gilt to the front board. On the spine, eight horizontal blind fillets. Faint rubbing to the extremities. Head-line to p. 5 shaved; else fine. Jean Robin (1550-1629), was arguably the most famous botanist of his time, and he established one of the most beautiful gardens in Paris between the Louvre and St. Germain l'Auxerrois. There he naturalized many plants, some of them raised from seeds gathered in Virginia which he received in 1601. It is believed that the oldest tree in Paris, a Robinia pseudoacacia (Black Locust), was planted by him shortly thereafter in the Square René Viviani-Montebello, where it still stands today. Building on the work of Mattioli, Antoine du Pinet or Geofroy Linocier -- with whose 1619 Histoire des plantes aromatique the work is often bound, perhaps, produced one of the earliest pocket herbals, and the first botanical book to include American plants. There are six: "Maracocq Indica sive flos passionis"(passion flower; the text notes that the plant also produces a fruit, i.e., the passionfruit), "Narcissus Virginianus flore albo Rubicante" (the white daffodil of Virginia), "Opuntia sine sicus Indiqua Minor" (the Opuntia ficus-indica cactus; the accompanying text notes that it is from Spanish America, and hosts the cochineal beetle), "Narcissus Indicus rubro flore" (possibly the Sprekelia or Jacobean lily, also known as the Aztec lily, native to Mexico), "Lilium Canadance flore luteo punctato" (possibly the Turk's cap lily, Lilium superbum), and "Canna Indica flore rubro" (canna lily). Besides the copies held by the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the British Library, only 12 other institutional copies can be identified. There are a great many opinions stated about authorship and edition (e.g., Oak Spring asserts that this is the second edition of the second part of a combined work published in 1584, but also attributes the work to Robin's son Vespasien, who was 5 at the time), but this appears to be the first edition of the work printed thus. John Carter Brown II, p.149; Pritzel 7672; Rosenwald Collection (Library of Congress) 1378; Sabin 72042 (correcting the entry for 32014; "of extreme rarity"). Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 6JLR0044

Bibliografische Details

Titel: Histoire des plantes, nouuellement trouuées ...

Verlag: Chez Guilllaume [sic] Macé, Paris

Erscheinungsdatum: 1620

Einband: Hardcover

Zustand: Near fine

Signiert: Signatur des Verfassers

Auflage: 1. Auflage