De natura aquatilium carmen
First edition of Boussuet's History of Fishes illustrated with hundreds of wood engravings.
A very fine copy preserved in its contemporary vellum.
2 parts bound together in 1 quarto volume of (10) ff., 240 pp., 135 pp.
Flexible vellum with overlapping edges, calligraphic title on spine. Contemporary binding.
207 x 145 mm.
Boussuet, François. De natura aquatilium carmen.
Lyon, Matthieu Bonhomme, 1558.
First edition of this splendid history of fish by Boussuet, adorned with several hundred engravings.
Nissen, ZBI, 511; Baudrier, X, 257; Brun, 284; Adams, B2607; Brunet, I, 1184. Durling 660. Waller 11789. Wellcome I, 1018. Mortimer/Harvard French Sixteenth Century Books I, 118. Petit 253.
This beautiful first edition, illustrated with 484 woodcuts, was entrusted by the Burgundian naturalist François Boussuet (1520-1572) to Matthieu Bonhomme, the first publisher of Rondelet.
The illustrations include a portrait of Boussuet repeated at the head of each part, 263 fine figures in the first part (exclusively devoted to fish) and 220 figures in the second (shellfish, crustaceans, fish and other aquatic or amphibian animals).
One of the most extraordinary illustrations is of a monk sea monster, a drawing of which was supposedly given to Rondelet by Marguerite d'Angoulême, queen of Navarre.
Boussuet (1520-1572), a physician, wrote a synopsis of the medical profession in 12 books summarizing the knowledge of sixteenth-century medicine based on his own experience and the doctrine of the ancients. Indeed, the work is illustrated with all the excellent woodcuts from Rondelet's Libri de Piscibus Marinis. Reverdy illustrated Rondelet's work. Boussuet's book consists of a number of verses, which provide information on the habitat, behavior, reproduction and taste of fishes. Extensive attention is given to the culinary aspects.
A fine copy preserved in its original limp vellum binding with overlapping edges.
