Salviani, Ippolito.

Folio (423 x 287mm.), engraved title-page with a portrait of the author, 81 full-page engraved illustrations by Antoine Lafréry in the text, woodcut initials and printer's device at end, nineteenth-century half vellum, flat spine gilt, [Mortimer, Harvard Italian 454; Nissen SFB 112; Nissen ZBI 3555], slight foxing, lower left-hand corner of title-page repaired, author's name corrected in ink, P8 torn without loss, marginal repairs to 2C6 and 2E5, paper flaw in margin of last leaf, abrasions on covers

One of the great sixteenth-century ichthyologies, equal in stature to Belon or Rondelet, with fine engraving and typography. Salviani commissioned the images of Italian fish from Bernard Aretin, a young artist, who made the drawings from fresh specimens found in Roman fish markets. The author's late sponsor, Cardinal Marcello Cervini, had helped to source images of fish from Germany, England and Greece.