Theophrasti Eresii. De Historia Plantarum liber decem, Graece & Latine. In quibus Textum Graecum variis Lectionibus, emendationibus, hiulcorum supplementis: Latinam Gazae versionem nova interpretatione ad margines: totum Opus absolutissimis cum Notis tum Commentariis: item rariorum Plantarum iconibus illustravit. by THEOPHRASTUS; THEODORUS GAZA - 1644

Amstelodami,: apud Henricum Laurentium, 1644., 1644. Folio in 6s. [20], 418, 417-[694], 495-529, 730-[994], 997-1187, [1], [88] pp. Numerous mispaginations noted. With the magnificent engraved title, and 600-700 decorative botanical woodcuts. Text in 2 columns, index not paginated, parallel texts in Greek and Latin. Bound recently in full antique-style speckled calf, richly gilt-tooled in a masterfully elegant binding; some neat paper mends to gutter (front & back leaves), some leaves variously stained at edges in the rear, pages 950-988 browned. New endleaves. The splendid Bodaeus van Stapel edition of Theophrastus' seminal work, Enquiry into Plants, beautifully illustrated with hundreds of fine woodcuts of all the known plants. This is the first edition by edited by Johannes Bodaeus van Stapel (1602-1636), who died prior to the book being issued. This edition of Bodaeus van Stapel is the most important and influential edition of Theophrastus. The book is the first comprehensive systematization all known plants, and as such important in the history of plant science. Plants of the new world, America, Asia and Africa, are included. / The editor, Bodaeus van Stapel, is known for this particular work, the Latin version of Theophrastus' Historia plantarum, the text completed before his death in 1636 and published posthumously in Amsterdam in 1644 by his father. / Thomas Frognall Dibdin wrote of this edition: "This edition displays great care and research; the notes are numerous and learned, and all botanical information to be gleaned from Aristotle, Pliny, Dioscorides, and other ancient writers, seems to be embodied in this work. The conjectures of Scaliger, Constantine, and Salmasius, and also incorporated; and although Haller has censured Bodaeus for occasionally wandering from his subject, and introducing a few errors, the present [this edition of 1644] is nevertheless an edition well deserving of the curious botanist's attention: for it has collected into one body the opinions of the old writers on the subject of plants. It contains some wood-cuts of the rarer species, which are much better uncoloured than coloured." - Thomas Frognall Dibdin, An Introduction to The Knowledge of Rare and Valuable Editions of the Greek and Latin Classics . . . London, 1808, vol. II, p. 285. / This edition of Theophrastis is "one of the best and most thoughtfully prepared of all the editions of Theophrastis" - Hunt. / "It is interesting not only because of the brilliance of the editing, but, curiously enough, to the American botanist as well, for involving in the discussion certain species from Virginia, other parts of the New World, and Asia. The illustrations of these plants have been largely overlooked in botanical history, because of their incidental presence in a work which might not be expected to contain anything of the sort. Some were merely borrowed from l'Ecluse or de Lobel, but others seem original in this work." - Harley Harris Bartlett, Fifty-five Rare Books for the botanical library of Mrs. Roy Arthur Hunt. Clements Library, 1949. / SEE: Theophrastus. Enquiry into Plants. With an English translation by Arthur Hort. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1916. / McDiarmid, J. B. 'Theophrastus.' In: Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie. New York, 1976. Vol XIII, pp. 328-334. / Morton, Alan G. History of Botanical Science. London and New York, 1981. / Negbi, Moshe. 'The scientific cradle of botany - Theophrastus and other pioneers.' In: Israel Journal of Plant Sciences vol 58, pp. 309-18. 2010. / Sharples, Robert W. Theophrastus of Eresus. Sources for this Life, Writings, Thought and Influence. Commentary Vol. 5. Sources on Botany. Leiden: Brill, 1995.