Reissue of the 1619 edition of Antoine Du Pinet's French translation of the chief work of the Italian phycisian and botanist Pietro Andrea Mattioli (1501-1577), "an excellent botanist and a renowned physician" (Hunt). The book, first published in Latin in 1554 and French in 1566, is presented as a commentary on Dioscorides's De materia medica, but the title doesn't do justice to the book, for the long commentaries contain an account of all the plants known to Mattioli. It includes a certain number of new plants he found himself, but most of the species that he described for the first time,were communicated to him by others. Besides medical plants the book also contains short zoological chapters and a chapter on distillation. The success of the work was phenomenal and it is said that 32,000 copies of the early editions were sold.
With the art nouveau bookplate of the Horticultural Society of New York on paste-down. With some faint marginal water stains, some leaves slightly creased, and a few small spots; a good copy. Krivatsy 7571; Nissen, BBI 1312; cf. Arber, pp. 92-97; French vernacular books 37144-37158; this edition not in Hunt; Wellcome.