ALPINI, Prospero De Plantis Exoticis libri duo... Venice, Giovanni Guerigli, 1627
4to (197 x 136 mm), pp [xvi] 344, with engraved title and 145 engraved plates in text; tiny patch of marginal waterstain on a few leaves, small wormhole in inner blank margin of a few gatherings, a fine copy in contemporary limp vellum. £2500
First edition of Alpini's catalogue of exotic plants recently introduced into cultivation, one of the very first books to be devoted entirely to such exotics. 'These descriptions and illustrations of exotic plants were made by Prospero Alpini when he was Director of the Botanic Gardens at Padova (1603-1616), and published posthumously by his son. The plants described were grown from seeds sent to Alpini from many distant places' (Hunt). As Johnston notes, many of the plants were from Crete.
Provenance: Horticultural Society of New York, bequest of Kenneth K. Mackenzie October 1934 with bookplate; Robert de Belder
Hunt 211; Johnston 175; Krivatsy 240; Nissen BBI 21; Wellcome 236; NUC: NIC DFo MoSB MH-A
£2500
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