TOURNEFORT, Joseph Pitton de (1656-1708)

Institutiones Rei Herbariae. Editio Altera, Gallica Longe Auctior. Quingentis circiter Tabulis aneis adornata.

Paris: Typographia Regia, 1700. 3 vols, 4to. (9 1/2 x 6 3/4 inches). Vol. 1- [18], 697, 54, [5] pp.; Vol. 2- 250 copper engraved plates; Vol. 3- 251-489 copper engraved plates. Two copper engraved titles, copper engraved title vignette, text vignette, historical initial, headpiece, tailpiece.

Contemporary French sprinkled calf gilt, spines in six compartments with raised bands and elaborate gilt tooling, red and brown morocco lettering-pieces gilt.

First edition of this important work here including the Corollarium Institutionum rei herbariæ.

Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1656-1708) was the first botanist to make a clear definition of the concept of genus for plants and the first to distinguish between genus and species; the fundamentals of these ideas remain valid to this day. Chief Botanist to Louis XIV, plant hunter and Professor of Botany, in charge of the Royal Garden, the Jardins des Plantes. He translated his researches here into Latin to engage and influence a wider European audience and invented the word "Herbarium." The illustrator Claude Aubriet, who accompanied Tournefort on his plant-hunting travels, later became the principal artist at the Jardin des Plantes. "Tournefort's significance lies in the fact of having classified all plants into genera. Hundreds of the generic names coined or accepted by him were later adopted by Linnaeus and are in use today ..." (Hunt)

Hunt 450; Nissen BBI, 1977; Stafleu & Cowan 14.783.

Item #40091

Price: $3,500.00