Guillaume Rondelet | La première [-seconde] partie de l'histoire entière des Poissons, Lyon, 1558, 2 parts in 1

Guillaume Rondelet

La première [-seconde] partie de l'histoire entière des Poissons. Lyon: Mace Bonhome, 1558

FIRST EDITION IN FRENCH, 2 parts in one volume, folio (289 x 203mm.), woodcut portrait of Rondelet, numerous fine woodcut illustrations of fishes, shells, and other marine animals, contemporary vellum, some leaves dampstained at upper margin, a few index leaves with dampstain at margin (not affecting text), small marginal black spot on another leaf, spine bumped, frayed at foot of spine

A fine copy of the first French edition of the most important work on fishes published in the sixteenth-century. More comprehensive in its list of species than the works of Belon (1553) or Salviani (1554-1557), Rondelet's work remained the standard work on the subject for over a century. The original Latin edition, including the same woodcuts, was published by the same publisher in 1554-1555.

LITERATURE:

McGill/Wood, p. 541; Nissen ZBI 3475

PROVENANCE:

Eduard de Laplane, armorial bookplate