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Salviani (I.) Aquatilium animalium historiæ

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first edition, third issue with p.256 numbered and colophon dated January 1558, engraved title incorporating portrait of Salviani and Pope Marcellus II's coat-of-arms within architectural border with marine motifs, 81 excellent engraved full-page illustrations or plates, some with multiple studies, numerous xylographic initials, device on verso of colophon, title laid down on old paper with light mark to centre of portrait, skilfully repaired wormholes & wormtracks with occasional minor loss to characters, but overall in very good, clean condition, marbled endpapers, bookplate of Maximilian Krauss and further partly removed bookplate on front pastedown, handsomely bound in full seventeenth century oasis, spine gilt, gilt dentelles, a few minor scuffs, g.e., [Adams S190; Harvard, Italian Books, 454; Nissen ZBI 3555; Wood, p. 549 (wrongly calls for 83 plates)], folio, Rome, 1554 [colophon dated 1558].

***"The drawings by Salviani, not so numerous [as Pierre Belon du Mans'] but much finer, are copperplate engravings on a rather large scale... some have not been surpassed in more recent works. They number ninety-nine; almost all are of fishes of Italy with some from Illyria and the Archipelago, not counting a few mollusks." Georges Cuvier, Historical portrait of the progress of ichthyology, edited by Theodore Pietsch, 1995. It is generally believed that Nicolas Beatricetto designed the title and some of the illustrations, whilst the illustrations are by Antoine Lafrery. Ippolito Salviani (1514-1572) studied medicine in Rome, where he also developed an interest in natural history and in particular ichthyology. Under the patronage of Cardinal Cervini, later Pope Marcellus II, his studies were developed and financed, not only on the coast of Italy but also in other Mediterranean and Northern European regions. Cervini died before the work was printed however, and the work was dedicated instead to Pope Paul IV..

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