BESLER, M. R.

Gazophylacium Rerum Naturalium e regno Vegetabili, Animali et Minerali depromptarum, nunquam hactenus in lucem editarum, fidelis cum figuris aeneis ad vivum incisis repraesentatio...

      [Nuremberg], 1642. Folio (450 x 290mm). ff. 35, comprising engraved title and 34 engraved plates. Contemporary full tan calf. First edition. Basil Besler's Wunderkammer was inherited and added to by his nephew Michael Rupert, who here published a catalogue of his additions. This 'treasury of natural things from the vegetable, animal, and mineral kingdoms' exhibits such typical Wunderkammer contents as corals, a unicorn horn, a hyoidal bone of a swan, a beak of a hornbill, a bird of paradise, a carved nautilus shell, an 'Arcimboldo' grotesques of shells, pyritised ammonites, asbestos, 'ruin' marble, engraved gems and antique coins, along with such unica as Johann Zizka's sword. Many rare plants and birds are figured, along with ethnographic objects such as a Brazilian Indian girdle made from the nuts of the Brazilian tree Cerbera ahovai. The image of this plate was used for the border of Valentini's Museum museorum, Frankfurt 1714. The fine engraved title features a number of emblematic medallions, with a rhinocerus, a unicorn, an ostrich, an elephant, Flora holding a cornucopia, and flowers in a walled garden, and an alchemical emblem. Michael Rupert (1607-61), a physician and pharmacist in Nuremberg, was a virtuoso scholar-collector, and also assembled an important collection of art and antiquities. This work is exceptionally rare. Cobres p. 101 n. 8 ('Diese Auflage ist selten'); Hunt 238; Nissen ZBI 346 (not seen by him); Pritzel 747 (24 plates only); NUC: NNBG MiU (24 plates only).