Fuchs Leonhard

De historia stirpium 1542

      Basle, Michael Isingrin, 1542 Folio (378 x 247 mm), pp [xxviii] 896 [4], with printer's device on title and last leaf, woodcut portrait of Fuchs on verso of title, woodcut portraits of the artists, and 509 full-page woodcuts in text; two stamps removed from blank portion of title, not noticeable, some very faint waterstaining to top margins of some gatherings, some faint spotting to margins, otherwise an exceptionally clean, crisp copy in contemporary German blindstamped pigskin, inscription on front free endleaf ' Ferd. Carl: Comes: Freger.' £75,000First edition, a fine, clean copy in a contemporary binding, of Fuchs' celebrated herbal. It effected a revolution in the natural sciences, comparable to that of Copernicus in astronomy and Vesalius in anatomy, both of which were published the following year, 1543. This work was part of the pioneering effort of Fuchs, Brunfels and Bock that earned them the title of the 'German fathers of botany'. All three partook of a reforming zeal, partially religious in origin, to correct botanical knowledge, which had mostly been in the hands of itinerant and illiterate herbalists. To effect this reform accurate illustration and identification was the first requirement and it was to this task that Fuchs addressed himself. Fuchs employed the best artists then available in Basle: Albrecht Meyer did the drawings, Heinrich Füllmaurer transferred them to the woodblocks, and they were cut by Veit Rudolph Speckle. All three are depicted in the book, the first time that book illustrators are themselves portrayed and named in a book. These illustrations set a new standard for botanical depiction and were some of the most influential in botanical history, being copied for innumerable works well into the eighteenth century. Some 40 species are illustrated for the first time, including several American plants, such as maize and the pumpkin.The herbals of Brunfels and Fuchs 'have rightly been ascribed importance in the history of botany, and for two reasons. In the first place they established the requisites of botanical illustration- verisimilitude in form and habit, and accuracy of significant detail... Secondly they provided a corpus of plant species which were identifiable with a considerable degree of certainty by any reasonably careful observer, no matter by what classical or vernacular names they were called' (Morton, History of botanical science).Adams F1099; Dibner 19; Horblit 33b; Hunt 48; Norman 846; Parkinson p 37; PMM 69; Stillwell 640