DALECHAMPS (Jacques). Lot n° 44

General history of plants... made French by Me Iean des Moulins... Lyon, at the heirs of G. Rouillé, 1615. Two volumes in-folio of (2) f., 960 pp., (18) ff.; (60) ff., 758 pp., (15) ff., contemporary binding in fawn calf, gilt filets framing the covers, spines decorated with gilt fl eurons. First edition of the French translation by Jean des Moulins of this vast botanical encyclopedia, the work of the Lyon physician and botanist Jacques Dalechamps (1513-1588). It was the same des Moulins, already a translator of Mattioli's famous commentary on the Five Books of Dioscorides, who, in 1586, based on the material gathered by Dalechamps, had edited and published the first Latin edition, which the old doctor from Lyon, busy with his medical work, had not been able to complete. The work is very richly illustrated with 2,752 woodcut representations of plants, 400 of which are repeated; if most of them are borrowed from other works, some were made especially for this one from plant specimens sent to the author by de Lobel, l'Escluse and others. This vast compilation of all the botanical knowledge of the period is of great interest, not only for the author's immense erudition, but also as one of the first attempts at plant classification. A pleasant example of the tawny calf of the time. Titles and preliminary leaves (Vol. II) a little frayed, some marginal wet spots at the beginning and at the end of the first volume; skilfully restored bindings, spine completely reassembled with parts redone at the base, endpapers renewed. Nissen, BBI, 447.