VESLING, Johann De Plantis Aegyptiis observationes et notae ad Prosperum Alpinum, cum additamento aliarum eiusdem regionis. Padua, Paolo Frambotto, 1638
4to (260 x 186 mm), pp [viii] 80 [4], with 23 full-page woodcuts in text; small portion of upper outer corner of title repaired, a fine, large, crisp copy in eighteenth-century Italian vellum. £1250
First edition, large-paper copy of Vesling's commentaries on and additions to Alpini's De plantis Aegypti (1592), which Vesling edited and republished in 1640, accompanied by Alpini's De balsamo and his own commentary above. Alpini's book was the first treatment of the plants of Egypt. He accompanied the Venetian consul to Egypt as his personal physician, residing there from 1580 to 1583. He was the first European to mention the coffee plant and the first to record the sexual differences of the date-palm tree. Alpini was director of the Padua botanic gardens until his death in 1617. 'Vesling was German by birth. A physician and botanist [and a distinguished anatomist], he lived for a time in Egypt and Palestine before moving to Padua where he was professor of anatomy and surgery and director of the Padua Botanical Garden from 1638 to 1649' (Johnston).
Krivatsy notes 'includes the illustrations of Alpini's work, but from different woodcuts presumably based on Vesling's drawings. Cf. Haller's comparison of Alpini's and Vesling's illustrations in his Bibl. bot. v I p. 456'.
Hunt 231; Nissen BBI 2057
£1250
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