NATURALIS HYSTORIAE LIBRI. XXXVII [...].
by PLINIUS SECUNDUS (PLINY THE YOUNGER)
Paris: Francois Regnault; 1514
Folio: 8 1/4 by 11 1/2"
[20]-CCLXII ff. (quires D and E inverted)
- Early Parisian edition, of the famous work of Plinius the Younger edited by Nicolas Maillard with the commentary of the Italian humanist Ermolao Barbaro (1410-1471).
Title within a wood-engraved ornamental frame with Regnault's device; crible' initials.
manuscript marginalia in Latin and Greek
- Ref. BP16 102600. - Moreau II:939. - Adams P-1553. - STC French p. 356. - Pettegree (FB) 83228.
- Provenance:
C. E. Schengk Javor Siles (?), Bratislava, 1751 (manuscript entry).
Original half blind-stamped pigskin over wooden boards, later mottled paper on boards, spine with raised bands (leather to upper part of the spine split, some paper parts are missing).
Text in Latin

The Natural History (Latin: Naturalis Historia) is a Latin work by Pliny the Elder.
The largest single work to have survived from the Roman Empire to the modern day, the Natural History compiles information gleaned from other ancient authors.
Despite the work's title, its subject area is not limited to what is today understood by natural history; Pliny himself defines his scope as "the natural world, or life". It is encyclopedic in scope, but its structure is not like that of a modern encyclopedia. It is the only work by Pliny to have survived, and the last that he published.
He published the first 10 books in AD 77, but had not made a final revision of the remainder at the time of his death during the AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius.
The rest was published posthumously by Pliny's nephew, Pliny the Younger.
The work is divided into 37 books, organised into 10 volumes. These cover topics including astronomy, mathematics, geography, ethnography, anthropology, human physiology, zoology, botany, agriculture, horticulture, pharmacology, mining, mineralogy, sculpture, art, and precious stones.
Pliny's Natural History became a model for later encyclopedias and scholarly works as a result of its breadth of subject matter, its referencing of original authors, and its index.

Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, born Gaius Caecilius or Gaius Caecilius Cilo (61 – c.?113), better known as Pliny the Younger was a lawyer, author, and magistrate of Ancient Rome. Pliny's uncle, Pliny the Elder, helped raise and educate him.
Pliny the Younger wrote hundreds of letters, of which 247 survive, and which are of great historical value. Some are addressed to reigning emperors or to notables such as the historian Tacitus.
Pliny served as an imperial magistrate under Trajan (reigned 98–117), and his letters to Trajan provide one of the few surviving records of the relationship between the imperial office and provincial governors.
Pliny rose through a series of civil and military offices, the cursus honorum.
He was a friend of the historian Tacitus and might have employed the biographer Suetonius on his staff.
Pliny also came into contact with other well-known men of the period, including the philosophers Artemidorus and Euphrates the Stoic, during his time in Syria.



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