MATTHIOLE, Commentaires sur Dioscoride, 1655
MATTIOLI, Per André.
Les commentaires de M. P. André Matthiolus, médecin senois, sur les six livres de Pedacius Dioscoride Anazarbeen, de la matière médecinale.
Lyon, Claude Prost, 1655.
Folio (355x228 mm), (8)-lxxxxv-(14)-605-(32) pages. binding : Contemporary full calf, gilt spine in seven compartments. Headcap chipped. Numerous fine worm galleries, generally marginal, minimal damage to the text.
Latest revised and corrected edition, expanded.
Translation from Latin into French by Antoine du Pinet.
The work comments on the six books of Dioscorides on medicinal materials, with additions on simple remedies, oils, distillations and the treatment of various diseases. Our edition is illustrated with a full-page portrait of the author and numerous small woodcuts in the text representing a large number of carefully engraved plants, as well as some crustaceans, fish, shellfish, insects, animals, scenes of country life. In fine, Brief discourse on the distillation of water with figures showing distillation apparatus. Mattioli, in addition to his work to match ancient botanical descriptions with contemporary botany, describes more than 100 new plants and notably one of the first European varieties of tomato.
references: Heirs of Hippocrates [239.5 (ed.1642) : "A careful student of botany, he described 100 new plants and coordinated the medical botany of his time in his Discorsi ("Commentaries") on the Materia Medica of Dioscorides. In addition to identifying the plants originally described by Dioscorides, Mattioli added descriptions of some plants not in Dioscorides and not of any known medical use, thus marking a transition from the study of plants as a field of medicine to a study of interest in its own right. In addition, the woodcuts in Mattioli's work were of a high standard, allowing recognition of the plant even when the text was obscure. A noteworthy inclusion is an early variety of tomato, the first documented example of the vegetable being grown and eaten in Europe."].
provenance: Handwritten ex libris Francois Esnaut, mayenne 1698.
Price : 1200 €
