Theophrastus.

Theophrastus.

Botany.- Theophrastus. De Historia plantarum libri decem, first edition edited by Joannes Bodaeus à Stapel, double column, text in parallel Greek and Latin, fine engraved pictorial title, numerous woodcut botanical illustrations in text, woodcut decorative initials, small worm trace at foot of first few ff., diminishing in size as proceeds, last half or so with a couple of small wormholes to upper margins, turning into a trace to last few ff., 3H5 short tear within text with minor loss, 5N3 short tear to lower corner, just touching 1 letter, occasional spotting and light staining or water-staining, contemporary vellum, spine in compartments and with later gilt filets, small black floral motifs and a green morocco label, covers with blind-stamped arabesque centre-pieces, lacking ties, piece of vellum missing from spine, a few small nicks, little stained and marked, [Hunt 240], folio, Amsterdam, Hendrick Laurensz, 1644.

⁂ One of the best editions of Theophrastus.'It is interesting not only because of the brilliance of the editing, but, curiously enough, to the American botanist as well, for involving in the discussion certain species from Virginia, other parts of the New World, and Asia. The illustrations of these plants have been largely overlooked in botanical history, because of their incidental presence in a work which might not be expected to contain anything of the sort. Some were merely borrowed from l'Ecluse or de Lobel, but others seem original in this work.' (H.H. Bartlett in Fifty-five Rare Books, quoted by Hunt).