Stirpium Historiae Pemptades sex Sive Libri XXX.
DODOENS, Rembert. Stirpium historiae pemptades sex sive Libri XXX. [xvi], 872, [66] pp. Illustrated with an engraved allegorical title (included in pagination), ca. 1330 botanical woodcuts after Pieter van der Borcht. Folio, 348 x 214 mm, bound in contemporary Dutch dark brown calf, sides paneled with double gilt fillet, spine compartments similarly paneled and with gilt lozenge ornament, author's name gilt-lettered in second compartment. Antwerp: Plantin-Moretus, 1616.
Definitive Edition of Dodoens' most important work, containing Dodoens' corrections and additions plus 32 van der Borcht woodcuts not in the first edition of 1583. Bringing together material from several of his earlier works, including the popular Cruydeboeck (1554), the present work was Dodoens' most comprehensive botanical treatise. Considered the first great Flemish botanist, Dodoens (1518-1585) modeled his work after Fuchs, but possessed a superior grasp of plant structure.
The woodcuts of this edition comprise the full suite of botanical illustrations commissioned by Christopher Plantin from the prolific and gifted Flemish artist Pieter van der Borcht (1545-1608) a pupil of Pieter Brueghel the Elder. Van der Borcht had fled his native Mecheln after its destruction by the troops of the Duke of Alba in 1572, taking refuge in Antwerp.
A series of albums containing van der Borcht's exceptionally-detailed watercolours survives in the Staatsbibliothek Berlin. Plantin issued the woodcuts in a somewhat simplified manner, focusing on the essential parts of the plant; they are nonetheless of very high quality; Nissen (p. 63) comments that while the scientific accuracy of the cuts is not surprising given the learned editors who supervised their production, the woodcuts, which exhibit some unmistakably Baroque stylistic elements, are also artistically excellent, and in certain aspects, superior to those of Fuchs.
The engraved title is a reworking of the plate used for the 1601 edition of Clusius' Rariorum plantarum historia; it shows the musing figures of Adam, Solomon, Theophrastus and Dioscorides resting on a flower-bedecked architectural structure. A few sheets slightly browned, but a fine, tall and wide-margined copy of this important botanical work, in its original Dutch binding.
Hunt 201. Nissen, BBI 517. Stafleu & Cowan 1489. Voet, The Plantin Press 1101.
Item nr. 119809
Price:
$7,000.00