Rondelet, Guillaume

Libri de Piscibus Marinis, in quibus verae Piscium effigies expressae sunt. [Second title:] Universae aquatilium Historiae pars altera, cum veris ipsorum Imaginibus. Lyons: for Mathias Bonhomme, 1554 -1555



2 volumes bound in one, folio (13 x 8 1/4 in.; 330 x 210 mm). Woodcut printer's devices on titles, woodcut initials and two portraits of the author, numerous woodcut text illustrations, some contemporary marginalia in two hands; title spotted, wormed and soiled with outer and lower marginal mends, marginal tear mended in page 461 touching a letter, marginal dampstains and soiling, a few quires somewhat browned, marginal wormtrack affecting quires Ff-Nn, CC-FF and quire alpha in second part. Original vellum, ms. title on spine, red sprinkled edges; recased, endpapers renewed.

Adams R746 & R757; Nissen ZBI 3474; Norman 1848; Wood, p. 541

title spotted, wormed and soiled with outer and lower marginal mends, marginal tear mended in page 461 touching a letter, marginal dampstains and soiling, a few quires somewhat browned, marginal wormtrack affecting quires Ff - Nn, CC-FF and quire alpha in second part. Original vellum, ms. title on spine; recased, endpapers renewed.
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The most advanced ichthyological iconography of its time.

Rondelet (1507-1566) was appointed Royal Professor of Medicine at Montpellier, his hometown university. He devoted two years to the writing of the present work which, despite the title's reference, covered all aquatic animals, making no distinction between fish, marine mammals such as seals and whales, crustaceans and other invertebrates.

Like Aristotle, he focused on the functional aspects of a creature and examined how a particular feature or organ functioned. In the case of freshwater fish, for instance, he looked for and compared the swim bladders of freshwater and marine specimens. He dissected and illustrated numerous creatures; his anatomical drawing of a sea urchin is the earliest extant depiction of an invertebrate and he found important anatomical similarities between dolphins, pigs and humans. His book was used as a standard reference work for many years afterwards and was translated into French in 1558.