Ferrari Flora 1638 Rome, P.A. Facciotti, 1638
4to (253 x 187 mm), pp [xvi, including engraved title and frontispiece] 520 [28, including final blank], with engraved frontispiece, title, and 45 plates included in pagination; faint marginal waterstain on first two gatherings, light waterstain to blank corners of a few other leaves, a fine, large, uncut copy in its orginal carta rustica binding. £4450
The first Italian edition (first edition, Latin, 1633) of the first treatise on floriculture, and a masterpiece of Baroque chalcography. Ferrari's work documents the emergence of the flower garden per se as distinct from its precursor in the hortus medicus. Book one discusses the layout of the flower garden, giving as examples contemporary gardens such as that of Francesco Caetani. Book two is devoted to individual flowers and their cultivation, such as lilies, narcissi, hyacinths, peonies, carnations, and anemones, many newly introduced, and some described and illustrated here for the first time, including several South African species. Four Cape plants are illustrated, Amaryllis belladonna, Brunsvigia orientalis, Haemanthus coccineus, and Ferraria crispa, the latter named after Ferrari. The third book is on general horticulture, and the final book discusses the use (i.e. aesthetic and moral, but non-medical) and beauty of flowers.
20 plates depict individual flowers, 8 are of parterres, 5 of garden implements, and 6 of vases and bouquets; they mostly feature attractive scroll captions. These plates are by Anna Maria Vaiani, and were later used in expanded editions of De Bry's Florilegium. There are also 7 fine allegorical plates (including the frontispiece), engraved by J.F. Greuter and Claude Mellon after designs by Pietro da Cortona, Guido Reni, and Andrea Sacchi. They depict seven days in the life of Flora, and include a plate in which Flora is cursing her thieving gardeners; one has been turned into a slug, and the other is about to be transformed into a beetle.
There are in fact two Italian editions, hitherto unrecognised, both of 1638. They are from completely different type settings; one has errata on the last leaf, whereas the other, as the above copy, has the errata corrected in the text, with the terminal therefore blank. Also, there are two versions of the allegorical plate on p 99, depicting the banquet of the gods, one by Lanfranci, and one, present in the above copy, in a superior version of the same theme by Cortona. (See John Collins, Sotheby's Stiftung fur Botanik 1975, p 214, for details of a similar double edition of the 1633 Latin text).
Hunt 222; Johnston 194; Nissen BBI 620; Piantanida et al., Autori Italiani del '600 1799
£4450
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