[Rarebooks] F/S: Wunderkammern

[naturama at tin.it]

IMPERATO, Ferrante  Historia Naturale... nella quale ordinatamente si
tratta della diversa condition di Minere, Pietre pretiose, & altre curiosita.
  Con varie Historie di Piante, & Animali, sin' hora non date in luce.
Venetia, Combi and La Noù, 1672.
In Folio. pp. (viii), 696, (8), title in red and black with large 
engraved vignette, double-page engraved plate showing the interior of 
Imperato's museum, and 126 woodcuts in the text. Contemporaryhalf 
vellum. A copy of the second edition (first 1599) of this beautiful 
catalogue of the 'Museo' of the Neapolitan apothecary Ferrante 
Imperato (1550-1625) and his son Francesco. This edition was prepared 
by Giovanni Maria Ferro who added new material and also new 
illustrations to the final chapter. Imperato's collection of natural 
history specimens was one of the earliest of its kind in Italy and 
the catalogue was the first to contain both plants and animals.
Several pages are devoted to molluscs and some of the shells 
illustrated are easily indentifiable" (Dance pp. 15-16). Besides 
Ferro's added illustrations and text, the second edition differs in 
having an engraved view of the museum interior, whereas in the first 
edition the scene is represented in a much cruder woodcut.  Nissen 
BBI, 2111. euro 7.500,00

With regards

Riccardo Giannuzzi-Savelli