Giachini, Leonardo

Quaestionum naturalium libellus

      Lyons: Seb. Gryphius, 1540. First Edition. Small 4to. 39 pp.; printer's gryphon device on title-page and verso of last leaf. Modern parchment paper wrappers, splitting along upper joint. Slight browning of text, else a fine copy. Not in Adams, Wellcome; cf. Durling 2903 . The author Giachini (fl. 1527-1546) was a physician whose DE ACUTORUM MORBORUM CURATIONE DISPUTATIO appeared in the same year, also issued by Gryphius, and the copy examined by Durling contains the two bound together (along with two other works). Nevertheless, the LIBELLUS has a separate title-page and pagination, and there is no reason to suppose that it could not have been issued separately, however slight a work it may be. In fact it is a charming series of 86 questions on a variety of natural (particularly human) phenomena, including interesting speculations on sexual appetite, the smell of human excrement, differences between men, women, the old, the young, etc