Description
SERPERNTUM, ET DRACONUM HISTORIAE LIBRI DUO
Bologna, C. Ferronio, 1640.
In-folio, 3 cc, 427 pp, 14 cc; with engraved title page, 61 (mostly full-page) woodcut illustrations and some woodcut initials. Bound in contemporary vellum with handwritten spine title.
Comments:
Second edition, printed in the same year as the first, but with different preface and without the date 1639 on the colophon. Important work on snakes and dragons, edited by Bartolomeo Ambrosini after the polymath author’s death. The Bolognese professor, philosopher, and naturalist set-up a large collection of naturalia and mirabilia meant to constitute not a Wunderkammer but rather a real microcosmos of the natural world. the collection was inherited by the Bologna University (and currently exhibited for Aldrovandi’s five hundredth birthday until the end of 2023). This visually fascinating work, combining basilisks and dragons with conventional fauna, is a transitional work between classical zoology (based on sources such as Pliny) and the new approach to natural history based on observation.
Bibliografy: Nissen 78 ; Vgl. STC 16; Libreria Vinciana 1693.
