The Library of Henry Rogers Broughton, 2nd Baron Fairhaven Part II

The Library of Henry Rogers Broughton, 2nd Baron Fairhaven Part II

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 422. Saverio Manetti | Storia naturale degli uccelli, Florence, 1767-1776, 5 vols, fine contemporary calf gilt.

Saverio Manetti | Storia naturale degli uccelli, Florence, 1767-1776, 5 vols, fine contemporary calf gilt

Auction Closed

November 29, 03:25 PM GMT

Estimate

60,000 - 80,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Saverio Manetti


Storia naturale degli uccelli. Florence: in aedibus Mouckianis, 1767-1776


5 volumes, folio (450 x 355mm.), all volumes: plain engraved additional titles, title-page vignettes, head- and tail-pieces; volume 1: engraved author portrait; volumes 4 and 5: engraved allegorical frontispieces; 600 hand-coloured engraved plates, fine contemporary calf gilt, spines with raised bands in eight compartments, morocco labels to second and third compartments, gilt edges, marbled endpapers, volume 3, plate 41 with repaired tear at verso, some dampstaining at margins, some worming to tails of spines


"Storia naturale degli uccelli... was one of the finest bird books issued to that date and one of the most sumptuous publications of the Eighteenth century in Italy" (Christine Jackson, Dictionary of Bird Artists of the World). "Impressive, too, was... Manetti's Ornithologia methodice digesta, the flamboyant forerunner of the splendid ornithological folios which were to appear in the nineteenth century. The production of its five massive folio volumes must have been one of the most remarkable publishing ventures ever undertaken in Florence. Begun in 1767 and completed ten years later, it was larger, better engraved and more vividly colored than any previous book on birds" (S. Peter Dance, The Art of Natural History, p. 70).


Saverio Manetti (1723-1785) was an Italian physician and botanist known for his ornithological drawings. From 1749 to 1782 he was the supervisor of the Orto Botanico di Firenze in Florence, and it was during his tenure there that the present monumental work was published. The book was commissioned by Maria Luisa, the Grand duchess of Tuscany. Carl Linnaeus named the plant genus Manettia after him.


LITERATURE:

Fine Bird Books, p. 10; McGill/Wood, p. 450; Nissen IVB 558


PROVENANCE:

Edward Davenport, armorial bookplates