PALLAS, PETER SIMON | Flora Rossica seu stirpium Imperii Rossici per Europam et Asiam indigenarum descriptiones et icones. St. Petersburg: J. J. Weitbrecht, 1784-1788

PALLAS, PETER SIMON

Flora Rossica seu stirpium Imperii Rossici per Europam et Asiam indigenarum descriptiones et icones. St. Petersburg: J. J. Weitbrecht, 1784-1788

2 parts in one volume, folio (18 1/2 x 11 1/2 in.). Letterpress titles to each part, text in Latin, captions in Russian and Latin, 101 hand-colored engraved plates by Karl Friedrich Knappe, numbered 1-100, plus 8 bis; lacking the hand-colored engraved title. Modern speckled half calf, with raised bands in six compartments, edges stained yellow; front endpaper creased. 

First edition of the first great illustrated Russian flora

Peter Simon Pallas was a German zoologist and botanist, who began studying natural history at an early age, eventually receiving his doctorate degree from the University of Leiden. He relocated and worked in Russia in 1767, when Catherine II invited him to become a professor at the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, becoming a "favorite" naturalist of hers. Throughout his time in Russia, he conducted multiple expeditions across the region and wrote prolifically on zoology, botany, and other natural history subjects.

For the present work, Pallas was provided with the specimens to create a complete catalogue of the native plant and animal life of Russia, funded by Catherine II. Although Pallas originally intended to include over 500 plates, an unforeseen change in governmental administration resulted in a lack of funds available to complete the project; the second volume never materialized, with only a few copies of its first part issued, and the present volume, as normal, contains parts I and II of the first volume. Though the work remained unfinished, it was an immense accomplishment in natural history as the first publication of its kind.

REFERENCE:

Dunthorne 221; Great Flower Books 124; Hunt 672; Nissen BBI 1482; Pritzel 6905; Stafleu & Cowan 7227

PROVENANCE:

Frederick du Cane Godman (bookplate)