Lot 318: FUCHS, LEONHART

De historia stirpium commentarii insignes. Basel: Michael Isingrin, 1542

Folio (14 1/4 x 9 1/16 in.; 362 x 230 mm.). Woodcut device on title and at the end, woodcut portrait of the author on verso of title, portraits of the artists Heinrich Füllmaurer, Albrecht Meyer, and Veit Rudolph Speckle on recto of penultimate leaf, over 500 full-page woodcuts of plants in text; some pen-and-ink captions in a contemporary hand, occasional marginal soiling or light staining. 17th-century calf, spine gilt; rubbed, rebacked at an early date with original spine laid down, joints at top compartment tearing.

Adams F-1099; Horblit 33b; Hunt 48; Nissen BBI 658; PMM 69

R. C. Du Mortier (exlibris) ? John Charrington, The Grange, Shenley (bookplate)

First edition, of "perhaps the most celebrated and and most beautiful herbal ever published " (PMM).

Fuchs (1501-1566), together with Otto Brunfels and Heironymus Bock, was one of the three German fathers of modern botany. Although Fuchs's main objective was medicinal (he was professor of medicine at Tübingen), he also gives accurate botanical descriptions. The illustrations show over 400 German plants and 100 foreign plants, including the first description of several recently-discovered American plants, such as maize (mistakenly thought by Fuchs to originate in Turkey), pumpkin, chili pepper, and snap bean.

The illustrations were drawn from life by Albrecht Meyer, mainly using examples found in Fuchs's garden. Füllmaurer transferred the images to woodblock where they were cut by Speckle.