{"product_id":"rondelet-libri-de-piscibus-marinis-1554","title":"Libri de piscibus marinis. (With:) Universae aquatilium Historiae pars altera","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn quibus verae Piscium effigies expressae sunt. (With:) Cum veris ipsorum Imaginibus.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e Books on Marine Fishes, illustrated with faithful representations of the species. (With:) The Second Part of the General History of Aquatic Animals, illustrated with faithful images of the animals described.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e1554-1555 First Edition\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePp. [1] f.e., [16], 583, [23]; [12], 242, [9]\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLyon (Lugduni) Apud Matthiam Bonhomme\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFull vellum binding, probably rebacked in the eighteenth century (watermark on the free endpapers: \"Pontechio\" and \"PDV\"); title gilt on a spine label; lightly spotted, but very solid. Edges blind-tooled with a decorative pattern. Endpapers renewed. Traces of glue at the inner margin of the title page. Wide margins throughout. Some marginalia and underlinings in an early hand. Light to moderate foxing, with occasional soiling and browning confined to a few leaves throughout the volume. Small dampstain at the upper outer margin of the first hundred leaves, limited and unobtrusive. Barely noticeable worming at the inner margin, appearing intermittently at either the upper or lower edge of a limited number of pages. A few pages misnumbered. Two early ink ownership inscriptions flank the printer's device on the title page, one deliberately obliterated by scoring, the other surviving but difficult to decipher. Decorated headpieces, woodcut initials, and text in Roman, italic, and Greek types. Text and hundreds of woodcuts clean and sharply impressed. Crisp paper throughout. Overall, an excellent copy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of one of the founding works of modern ichthyology, in which the study of aquatic life passed from the authority of ancient texts to the evidence of the dissected specimen. Guillaume Rondelet transformed the study of fishes into an observational science grounded in anatomy, comparison, and direct experience. His title itself announces the programme (\"verae Piscium effigies\", i.e. The true likenesses of fishes), making the illustration not an embellishment but a scientific witness. Published by Macé (or Matthieu) Bonhomme in Lyon, one of Europe's foremost centers of scientific printing, the work unites humanist philology, medicine, Aristotelian natural philosophy, and first-hand observation in a single systematic survey of aquatic life. Rather than compiling earlier authorities, Rondelet repeatedly tests them against nature, producing a work that described far more species than any predecessor and remained the standard reference on aquatic animals for more than a century. The present copy preserves both parts as originally issued, including the Pars Altera of 1555, a completeness frequently lacking. The two parts have dedicated title pages, each bearing Macé Bonhomme's Pegasus device with the Greek motto \"Ek ponou kleos\", meaning Glory out of Labour. Woodcut portrait of Rondelet at the end of the preliminaries of each part, designed by Pierre Vase. Illustrated throughout with 439 remarkable woodcuts, principally by Georges Reverdy, whose extraordinary fidelity to nature forms an essential part of the author's scientific method.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePart I opens with an impressive series of commendatory verses by the young Charles de l'Escluse (Clusius), Jacques Daléchamps, and other humanists, revealing the network of Renaissance naturalists that gathered around Rondelet's enterprise. The Praefatio ad Lectorem presents the study of nature as the highest intellectual pursuit after Scripture before establishing an Aristotelian framework based on habitat, anatomy, behaviour, and other distinguishing characteristics. Each species is treated through its Greek and Latin names, vernacular names from Marseille, Provence, Liguria, Rome, Venice, Bordeaux, Narbonne, and elsewhere, classical testimonies, anatomical observations, and medicinal and dietary properties, supported by abundant citations to Aristotle, Pliny, Galen, Dioscorides, Athenaeus, Oppian, Aelian, Columella, Martial, Horace, Ausonius, Plutarch, and other ancient writers. Particularly celebrated is the chapter De Vulva et Mammis, in which Rondelet argues from anatomical observation that whales and dolphins possess true mammary glands, one of the earliest printed recognitions that cetaceans belong with mammals rather than fishes. Part II extends the survey to shellfish, crustaceans, zoophytes, freshwater and marsh fishes, amphibians, reptiles, and aquatic mammals.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe illustrations themselves reveal the triumph (and occasional limits) of Rondelet's method: fishes examined from life are rendered with astonishing accuracy, while creatures known chiefly from report, such as the generalized beaver, betray the persistence of inherited tradition. Among the most memorable images are the shark, turtle, seal, whales, sea stars, together with far less realistic sea monsters, and the celebrated frog scene with reeds, aquatic plants, and tadpoles, which is the most elaborate landscape woodcuts in the volume. We have a soft spot for Renaissance woodcuts, especially when they stand with one foot in careful observation and the other in legend. Rondelet's fishes, sharks, turtles, and whales are marvels of early scientific precision, while his sea monsters and wonderfully improbable beaver remind us that even the greatest minds occasionally had to trust a good story. It's exactly the kind of book we love: where curiosity, craftsmanship, and the birth of modern science still leave room for a little wonder.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"La Fenice Antiquaria","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49048644190443,"sku":"175-1554-1555--7600-5488-2026","price":7600.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0766\/2000\/5611\/files\/00175_IMG_9719.jpg?v=1784007958","url":"https:\/\/fenicebooks.com\/products\/rondelet-libri-de-piscibus-marinis-1554","provider":"La Fenice Antiquaria","version":"1.0","type":"link"}