Lot n° 79

GESNER (Conrad). Historia plantarum et vires ex Dioscoride, Paulo Aegineta, Theophrasto, Plinio, & recentioribus Graecis, iuxta elementorum ordinem. Bâle, Robert Wynter, 1541. In-8, vélin ivoire, traces de lacets, dos lisse de maroquin grenat...

Estimation : 2 500 - 3 000 €
Adjudication : 3 760 €
Description
orné d’un décor à la grotesque (Reliure de l’époque).


— Pritzel, n°3297.
— Edward Kee Greene, Landmarks of botanical history (Smithsonian Institute, 1909).
— Wellisch, Conrad Gesner, p. 34.

► TRÈS RARE ÉDITION ORIGINALE DU PREMIER TRAITÉ DE BOTANIQUE du grand scientifique suisse Conrad Gesner (1516-1565), écrit à l’âge de 25 ans.

Fascinated by botany as youth, Gesner continued his studies in that field at Lausanne and Montpellier [...].

Gesner was virtually the only botanist of his time to grasp the importance of floral structures as a mean of establishing a systematic key to the classification of vegetable life. He was also the first to stress the nature of seeds, which enabled him to establish the kinship of plants that seemed extremely dissimilar.
Later Linnaeus would frequently acknowledge his own debt to Gesner (DSB, t. V, 379).
Garrison & Morton ne citent que l’édition parisienne parue quelques mois plus tard (n°1807).

─ Ex-libris manuscrit ancien et cachet humide sur le titre.

Dos refait avec goût.
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