FUCHS, Leonhart (1501-1566). Histoire des Plantes de M. Leonhart Fuschsius, avec les noms Grecs, Latins & Fraçoys. Paris: Arnold Byrkman, 1549.

8vo (165 x 98 mm). 519 woodblock prints with early hand-coloring. (B2 printed in facsimile on laid paper, a few short tears or holes occasionally just touching letters, a few shoulder notes just shaved.) Later limp vellum (soiling). Provenance: Marginalia in an early hand; Maison de Poesis Fondation Belmont (small stamp on title and a few other leaves).

Presumed second edition in French. Nissen records two Paris editions of 1549: a folio edition published by Jacques Gazeau, and the present edition. Fuchs' work, "perhaps the most celebrated and most beautiful herbal ever published" (PMM), was first published in Latin as De Historia Stirpium Commentarii Insignes in Basel in 1542. The popularity of Fuchs' work in France is evidenced by the numerous editions which appeared in quick succession from 1549 through 1558.

RARE: According to online records, only one copy of this scarce reduced edition of Fuchs, published in Paris by Arnold Byrkman, has sold at auction in the last 50 years. OCLC locates only 5 copies of this edition worldwide. Nissen BBI 665; not in Brunet, Hunt, NLM/Durling, or Wellcome.

Selections from the Property of Dr. Eugene Vigil, Antiquariat Botanicum

FUCHS, Leonhart (1501-1566). Histoire des Plantes de M. Leonhart Fuschsius, avec les noms Grecs, Latins & Fraçoys. Paris: Arnold Byrkman, 1549.

FUCHS, Leonhart (1501-1566). Histoire des Plantes de M. Leonhart Fuschsius, avec les noms Grecs, Latins & Fraçoys. Paris: Arnold Byrkman, 1549.