Ulyssis Aldrovandi philosophi et medici bononiensis ornithologiae tomus alter ademinentissim principem Alexandrum Perettum S.R.E. Card. Montalu Vicecancell. Et Bononiæ legatum Cū indice copiosissimo variarum linguarum. Sumptibus M. Antonii Berniæ Bibliopol. Bonon
Bologna: Nicolas Tebald, 1637 [colophon 1640].
Folio in 6s (13 ½” x 9 ½”, 342mm x 241mm): §2 A–Bbbb6 Cccc6(–Cccc6) Dddd–Gggg6 Hhhh6(–Hhhh6) [$3 signed; O3 signed “O2”, Aa1 signed “A2”]. 474 leaves, pp. [4] (3pp. dedication, foreword) 1–862 [58] (56pp index, colophon, blank). With an engraved title page and numerous full-page and half-page woodblock prints integral to the text.
Bound in vellum.
Vellum cockled and soiled. Traces of manuscript lettering to the spine. Rr5 once excised and has since been reinserted (possibly a married leaf? Margins trimmed). Large tear extending from the binding edge to the top edge of Rr5, repaired at the extremities but unattended to in the middle so as not to obscure the print on the recto. Dampstaining to the fore-edge from §1–A2 and to the index from Ffff1–Hhhh1. Ink ownership inscription to the title page, [“Huth”?]. Two ink stamps to the verso of the title-page.
Ulisse Aldrovandi’s (Aldrovandus, 1522–1605) Ornithologiae epitomizes the pre-Linnean biological encyclopedia in its exhaustive, non-hierachical humanistic context. The first volume (extant copies are most often without their siblings and are thus treated as separate entities) appeared in 1599 under the title Ornithologiae hoc est De auibus historiae. The second installment (tomus alter) came only a year later, and the third (tomus tertius) was released in 1603. The present example is the mid XVIIc. reissue of the tomus alter, which describes partridges, peacocks, chickens, pigeons, and songbirds. Of course, Aldrovandi’s Ornithologiae is biologically thorough, but the staying power of the tomes can be dually attributed to the cultural histories, symbolism, utility, and myth that accopmanied each organism and would have factored heavily in the mind of the Early Modern scientist.
Heralded as the father of Natural History by Linnaeus and the comte de Buffon, Ulisse Aldrovandi had begun planning his multi-volume encyclopedia of the natural world in the 1570s. The first installation did not go to press until he was 77 years old, and only four volumes had reached the market by the time Aldrovandi died in 1605. Following his death, his widow, students, and assistants used his collections and notes to bring out nine more volumes of the magnum opus. They include extensive monographs of plants, insects, fish, quadrupeds, reptiles, and even a monstrorum for those creatures that could not fit neatly in the classification of the former. Editions, issues, re-issues, and piracies of the work create quite the mess for catalogers and bibliophiles. The present example — though a later edition — is favored for its city of origin, as tomes printed in Bologna maintained the standard of quality Aldrovandi insisted upon. Where Frankfurt reprints were formatted with smaller type and laid in two tight columns to accompany copper plates that the German printers had commissioned to combine several of the original illustrations onto one page, Bologna editions continued to use woodcut illustrations that could nest easily within the text, allowing for dialogue between word and image.
Though he came to authorship late in life, Aldrovandi’s name was known in the scientific community long before his first large-scale publication. He had attended both the University of Padua and the University of Bologna, obtaining degrees in medicine and philosophy. It was not until a stint of house arrest — Aldrovandi had been accused of anti-trinitarian beliefs — that he took to botany, zoology, and geology. When charges were eventually dropped, Alrovandi organized expeditions to every corner of the Italian peninsula in an effort to collect and catalog native plant species. In 1568, at his request and under his direction, a public botanic garden was created in Bologna. The Orto Botanico dell’Università di Bologna is one of the oldest botanical gardens in Europe and remains free and open to the public to the present-day.
The ownership inscription “Huth” is tantalizing given the prolific father-son collecting duo, Henry (1815–1878) and Alfred (1850–1910) Huth. Henry Huth made his fortune as a London banker and called upon booksellers near daily to amass his collection of manuscripts, incunabula, plate books, and autographs. That being said, no work of Aldrovandi’s appears in the catalog of the Huth’s library (Catalogue of the famous library of…Henry Huth and since maintained and augmented by his son Alfred H. Huth). An additional suspect might be Georg Leonhart Huth, the translator of Edwards's Natural History of Birds, who likely held a reference collection of his own. The upper ink stamp to the verso of the title page reads, "Библ. Импер. Акад. Наукъ. / Bibliot. Imper. Acad. Scien," indicating that the volume was held by Russian Imperial Science Library.
BHL 230271; BMSTC CNCB 60 (first edition); EDIT16 CNCE 893 (first edition) Nissen IVB 18/19; Not in Stafleu-Cowan.
Cataloged by G.R. Murdock
Item #GRM0094
Price: $9,500