DIOSCORIDES

De Medica Materia Libri V. De Letalibus Venenis, eorumque precautione & curatione. De Cane rabido: Deque notis quae morsus ictusve animalium venenum relinquentium sequuntur: Deque eorum curatione, Lib. Unus

      Interprete Marcello Vergilio...eiusdem...commentarii... Woodcut printer!s device on title. Much Greek printing. 14 p.l., 753, [1] pp., one blank leaf. Folio, slightly later cont. blind-stamped pigskin-backed wooden boards (light browning, minor marginal worming to last quarter of leaves), orig. clasps & catches (for more on the binding, see below). Cologne: J. Soter, 1529. [issued & bound with]:BARBARO, Ermolao. ...In Dioscoridem Corollariorum Libri Quinque. Adiectus est Index eorum quae hisce libris explicantur, quem post Dioscoridis indices consulto locavimus. Large woodcut printer!s device on title. 1 p.l., [1]-6, [1], 7-78 leaves (= 80 leaves). Folio (some worming in the outer margins of the book but I do not find it offensive). Cologne: J. Soter, 1530. A very handsome sammelband in a noteworthy Nuremberg binding (for the binding, see below). It is hard to imagine a most attractive copy of these two books. I. This is the first Greek-Latin parallel edition of Dioscorides, the most important botanical book from antiquity; the Greek text is based on the 1518 Aldine edition. The Latin translation and commentary was prepared by Marcellus Vergilius (1464-1521) and it is known for its excellence. Dioscorides (fl. A.D. 50-70), !wrote an encyclopaedia of materia medica in five books which embodied the results of Greek research in pharmacy and applied botany and was far better arranged and more complete than the earlier compilations. This work remained authoritative for more than fifteen centuries...Dioscorides!s work is of importance also for the history of ancient chemistry, as it describes simple chemical preparations..., mentions the earliest reaction of wet analysis...!!Sarton, I, pp. 258-59. More than 600 plants and plant ingredients, 90 minerals, and 35 animal products are described. !Dioscorides identified natural families of plants long before Linnaeus!s practical classification system of the eighteenth century; thus his work also has significance in the history of biology and taxonomy.!!Grolier Club, One Hundred Books Famous in Medicine (1995), 3!(earlier eds.). !It is no exaggeration to say that from its publication until well into the seventeenth century ! even after the appearance of the Pinax of Bauhinus in 1623 ! all botanical studies were based on this book, and the great part of any new botanical matter published during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was in the form of a commentary on Dioscorides.!!Printing & the Mind of Man 20!(1st ed. of 1478). Also included in this edition are the Poisons and Antidotes and Poisonous Animals and the Treatment of their Wounds. The De Materia Medica also has substantial sections on the virtues of wine (see Simon, Bibliotheca Bacchica, I, p. 207 for the 1499 Aldine ed.). II. Issued the following year is its companion piece, the noteworthy commentary Corollarium of Ermolao Barbaro (1454-95), humanist, diplomat, and editor. Barbaro!s text has been edited by Giovanni Battista Egnazio (ca. 1478-1553). BINDING & PROVENANCE: This is a fine Nuremberg binding of mid-16th century blindstamped pigskin-backed wooden boards with the original clasps and catches. On the upper cover is stamped in black the arms of the church councillor Hieronymus Paumgartner the Younger (1525-1602). It was the custom that bindings of the City Library of Nuremberg were stamped with the arms of church councillors and Paumgartner was particularly involved in the growth of the library. The blind stamping on the pigskin employs the roll !Salvator ! Johannes der Taufer ! Paulus ! David! which, according to Christine Sauer in her !Exlibris und Supralibros der Stadtbibliothek Nurnberg! in Einbandforschung, Heft 22 (2008), pp. 23-41 (especially pp. 28, 34, & 39), was especially favored by Paumgartner!s binder. The date !1564! has also been stamped in black on the upper cover of the pigskin. On the title of the first work, we also find the round printed book label of the church councillor Lukas Friedrich Behaim von Schwarzbach (1587-1648). Stamped in blind on the upper cover of the pigskin at top is !L K! and at bottom !B A.! Fine and large copies with many outer edges uncut. ❧ I. Pritzel 2294. II. Castiglioni, p. 373!Barbaro was !one of the leaders of Humanism.! Pritzel 407. Sandys, II, p. 83. .