FUCHS, Leonhard

Very excellent commentaries on the history of plants. Compose first in Latin by Leonarth Fousch, very famous doctor Paris, Jacques Gazeau, 1549 THE FUCHS IN FRENCH : SUPERB COPY BOUND IN RED MOROCCO AROUND 1700 IN THE DECOR CALLED "AUX ANTIQUITÉS GAULOISES First edition of the French translation by Eloy de Maignan of the De historia stirpium by Leonhart Fuchs In-folio (315 x 195mm). Copy ruled in pink. Typographical mark of Gazeau on the title page. Numerous engraved initials. With a single * in the sixth line of the title COLLATION: π2 aa6 bb4 a-z6 A-Y6 Z8, bb4 and Z8 blank, complete ILLUSTRATION: nearly 512 woodcuts printed in the text ANNOTATIONS: by a hand contemporary with the edition and for medicinal purposes. These annotations have been slightly cut off during binding BINDING AROUND 1700. Red morocco, gilt decoration, framed in the Du Seuil style with large fleuron in the corners, back very richly decorated with the decoration of the bindings known as "AUX ANTIQUITÉS GAULOISES", paper tourniquet on the endpapers, blue, white and pink headband, gilt edges. Green morocco box PROVENANCE: Jehan Gourdault: This present book apertiente to Jehan Gourdault demourent in Melun. Qu'il le trouvera c'il luy rende et il luy paiera la pene (handwritten bookplate in brown ink, second half of the 16th century, on verso of last blank f. (manuscript bookplate in brown ink, second half of 16th century, on verso of last blank page in Z8v) -- owner not yet identified of the bindings known as "aux antiquités gauloises" -- François-Louis-Claude Marin (1721-1809; armorial bookplate), royal censor, director of the "Gazette de France" (1771-1774) and general secretary of the direction of the bookshop from 1763 to 1774 Last quire very slightly browned, some very modest stains on ff. g1.2 and on quire r, small marginal wetness in aa5. Corners slightly scuffed, hinges filled in a few places, the book was slightly trimmed when it was bound around 1700 The famous catalog of the Chantilly exhibition on the French 17th century bindings of the Musée Condé, published in 2002 by I. de Conihout and P. Ract-Madoux, gave a new look at the group of "curious" people who, at the end of the 17th century in Paris, profoundly changed the way books and art objects were collected. They were mostly interested in small books and very rarely in folios. This superb Fuchs in French shares much of the ornamental vocabulary of its spine with the three folio volumes of Sebastian Münster's Cosmographie universelle (Paris, 1575), which is listed at number 46 in the catalog. BIBLIOGRAPHY: USTC 24305 -- Adams F-1105 -- Nissen BBI No. 663 -- Pritzel 3139 -- Wellcome I 2445 -- I. de Conihout and P. Ract-Madoux, Reliures françaises du XVIIe siècle. Masterpieces of the Musée Condé, Paris, 2002, cf. n° 44-46, and more particularly n° 46